@ecram3 — It’s great to hear you talk openly about how SLA confronts it’s own mistakes. Working in this area in higher ed, a theme that we’ve tried to emphasize with faculty and students has increasingly been about making mistakes, openly. Modeling for students how you confront your own errors is a whole lot more important than showing them how you get things right all the time. “What are the worst consequences of our best ideas?” — what a great question to keep in front of you.

Your frustrations are universal – there’s certainly a huge opportunity for us as educators to inform our parents and wider community directly about changes to education and WHY we don’t want to be forever teaching and testing at the bottom level of Blooms Taxonomy – (maybe it needs to start at the grassroots level to reach politicians ?). Even the kids recognise what they need and I believe Student Voice is a powerful tool in the change process. We’ve made a few videos with students aged 5 -18 which I’ve used at the Kuala Lumpur Teacher’s conf. and our own national conferences. http://mindblown.edublogs.org/2009/07/07/partners-in-learning-yes-really/ (this one ends with a great haka inviting the community to join us etc) http://mindblown.edublogs.org/2008/06/09/weve-got-a-message/

The Educon Conference sounds simply inspiring. I believe the five guiding “axioms” from Educon must resonate strongly with most 21st Century educators and certainly align well with our NZ philosophies -and the professional development we’re striving to provide for teachers – it’s definately a global movement. This is great :

1) Our schools must be inquiry-driven, thoughtful and empowering for all members
2) Our schools must be about co-creating — together with our students — the 21st Century Citizen
3) Technology must serve pedagogy, not the other way around.
4) Technology must enable students to research, create, communicate and collaborate
5) Learning can — and must — be networked.

What we’re all interested in is the ‘HowtheheckdoweactuallyDOOOthis ?’. I’ll bet there was plenty of rich discussion at Educom – I’ll look forward to your next posts and any links!

I’m deeply troubled by the ways in which our most creative public school teachers are being hindered by the requirements imposed on them by ignorant politicians and bureaucrats, particularly as I plan to send my oldest off to Kindergarten next year. I think I’ve already decided that, as a parent, I’m going to do whatever I have to to minimize her exposure to such forces. I’ve even thought about keeping her home from school–for a day of museums or other educational field trips–on days when the activity seems to be centered on test preparation. After all, I don’t particularly care how she does on ridiculous standardized tests. I know that if everyone had this attitude it would, ultimately, affect the school’s standing/scores, but, frankly, my daughter’s education is way more important to me. I’m not sure if this a dumb idea, but it’s one I’ve been mulling over.

But, of course, the deeper, more insidious issue is that great teachers aren’t being empowered to teach in great ways. And that’s a crying shame.

@Susan — I’d love to continue the conversation, and it would be fantastic if we could get Chris in to talk to a group of people from FA and UMW. I really do believe that a more transparent K-20 conversation is critical to the future of all our schools, and Educon just solidified that for me.