Category: Learning

Growing up in a family with several educators, I made some keen observations before starting my own journey within it. While I could spend endless time on its politics, and the societal issue with why we can never “fix” education itself, my focus remains solely on becoming a better educator.

Within every profession, there seems to be a plateau where people develop enough skills to become proficient, maybe even good for a brief period, but then stagnate in their growth. I figured out the response to this particular moment separates the disgruntled from the masters.

One of two things happen:

You recognize there’s still more to learn and when you hear praise being thrown towards others, you immediately find out what they’re doing and pick up their ideas.

Or you assume you have it figured out and when you hear praise being thrown towards others, get defensive about it.

I suppose option three is to just give up, but speaking from an education standpoint, it’s usually one of the two above.

The part I always find wild is that when you’re willing to put aside ego and pick up new ideas to implement, making mistakes and having missteps along the way, the defensiveness naturally subsides because you’re not even thinking about these ideas as a personal attack. It simply becomes part of the process to ask whether something works, if it can work for you and how.

And more often than not, the best ideas tend to be old ideas that are repackaged for a new audience. As a magician, this rings so accurately that you start to wonder whether there has been any progress in the magic world. That’s why Penn & Teller’s “Fool Us” is so popular among magicians–there’s a promise of something new… but not really. Just new takes on old ideas. Usually.

But all of this is how growth happens.

It’s how learning happens.

All you have to do is be open to it.

Keep up or get left behind.

This was the mantra of the tech industry in the 90s, specifically, before the dot com boom and bust. It was pushed so hard that even though I was studying computers at the edge of this movement, I felt like it was already too late for me.

But then I saw this message repeated over the years:

“Learn about this new networking tool or you’ll be left behind.”
“If you haven’t jumped on MySpace yet, you’re already too late.”
“Learn this new piece of software, this app, this social media platform, this investment opportunity, this training technique, be an early adopter…” and so forth.

And what happened?

Things came, things went. Some of it stuck around and new stuff emerged.

But go ahead, keep telling bestselling, award-winning authors who still write by hand that by not learning the shiny new tech toy, they’re being left behind.

Also tell the teachers that get their students excited about learning that they will be left behind if they don’t fully embrace the latest “ed-tech” nonsense (most of which has been an *abysmal* failure).

While you’re at it, let your plumber know they will be left behind because they didn’t prompt AI on how to fix a leaky pipe. Screw their experience with the matter.

We can all find a regret on not getting in early for a long-term investment, but for the rest of the hype? 

It’s time these people look up what being left behind in the world really means.

My initial foray into education had an idealistic streak to it in thinking that I could do something to change the monstrous machine that is the education system. While my focus was purely dedicated to teaching Religion, I spent quite a bit of time dipping my toes into various methods that have been beneficial across disciplines.

Even a slight nudge to a large ship can still change its course, right?

Unfortunately, this dedication to honing my craft and aspiring to be at the top of my game at all times led me to some sobering conclusions:

• education is a big machine that has existed long before I got there and will continue long after I’m gone
• it’s highly political
• nobody really cares what I’m doing
• I wasn’t a fraction as good as I thought I was

Now, those conclusions haven’t stopped me from doing my best and striving to push my craft as far as I can take it, but it’s also put a damper on my motivation for doing so. 

In my observations and careful studies of what ultimately works, well… we already know, but refuse to consider it in lieu of more flash in the pan ideas, progressive ideas for the sake of looking innovative, or downright stubbornness of not wanting to change. 

While there’s no one size fits all solution, there is a reason why the Michaela school in England (the “strictest school in the country”), which pulls from the poorest areas, has consistently outperformed every other school in the country for years. Or why Nancie Atwell’s school in the US has grade eights reading classic literature meant for seniors, while also writing at that level. Coincidentally, Atwell was the first teacher to win the Global Educator’s Prize, which is literally the award for best teacher in the world.

Or the reason direct instruction has consistently been the most effective method of teaching. 

In a microcosm of culture where academics are valued and students are nurtured to hold a high standard for themselves, while also taking responsibility for that standard, you see great success. Unfortunately, when you try to implement ideas that work in a larger culture that clashes with it, it often fails. 

My personal stance is we replaced values with tools, or methods, confusing the purpose of what those were meant to achieve. We don’t need another app to help students learn; we need to give them a reason to want to learn in the first place. Then it’s simply a matter of picking the best tool, or method, for the job.  

The values should lead the methods, not the other way around. 

Unfortunately, you can only push so far before you hit the boundary where you’re no longer supported. On top of which, culture is always changing and the narrative needs to change with it. Students today no longer buy the idea that studying hard and getting a great education will lead to a great job. While I share their frustration with that sentiment, I’d much rather have an educated population than an uneducated one because if we don’t teach them how to think, someone else will teach them what to think. 

I don’t think I need to explain the end result of a society that learns from social media and non-stop news cycles posing as reliable journalism. We’re living it. 

But to fight against that, I have to fight against a much larger culture that repeatedly hammers home the idea that education is a scam, alongside a system that constantly has to justify itself to that culture, and a world that is changing faster than we can have time to adjust to each iteration. 

So, how far can we really push education?

As far as we can in hopes it can impact culture enough to push it further.