Points of Failure
Any network administrator worth his/her salt will constantly analyze his/her network for points of failure. These are areas that can cause the most damage or disruption if they break down.
The educational system also has points of failure.
I don’t know a single educational stakeholder who wants to be a part of a failed system, but when something breaks down, we tend to look for someone to blame.
Let’s take 10-steps-back and look at the big picture so we can start to empathize with every educational stakeholder.
Administrators – These people have dedicated their lives to improving the system they are passionate about. Many times they try to push personal visions and past success out to staff. Many of these district leaders spend their entire careers battling for change.
Teachers – These classroom leaders are put under more and more pressure to meet standards that didn’t exist 10 years ago. Many of these educators become so focused on test prep that the curriculum is absorbed by rote memorization and absolute focus on which circle to fill in on the bubble sheets. Quantitative results become the only measures of success.
Students – Most students don’t have very much fun in school. Creativity and imagination are constantly isolated to specific projects. Kids are forced to develop abilities that they simple aren’t blessed with while natural talents are left untapped because a test doesn’t measure those abilities. Many students are frustrated from trying to fit a model they aren’t made to be.
Parents – If a family falls in the minority, both parents are still together. They probably both have to work to make ends meet. There probably seems like there is never enough time or money. More than likely, the parent/ guardian falls into a drastically different model. Single parents deal with twice the problems with half the resources. Yes, you need to raise your kids, but realize it isn’t easy.
Business and Industry – With outsourcing and global competition, B&I must retool to survive. With the evolution of the Internet, creativity and imaginations are at a premium. Employees need to constantly learn and adjust to the changing landscape.
Let’s throw some other factors into the mix:
Health – There is a good chance that each of these stakeholders is or knows someone dealing with health issues. Whether they are fighting a terminal illness or they must care for an aging parent, health is always a point of failure.
Social Issues – In high school, popularity is so important to kids. This is true for adults as well. You need to have a sense of belonging to really be happy.
Stress – Whether your bills are due or your test scores are low, we all deal with stress.
Fear – This is a silent point of failure that we tend to ignore. If you are abused or neglected, you live in fear. This fear can be a major point of failure.
These are only a few points of failure…
Now what?
Communication is everything. We live in a time when FREE tools can allow us to easily connect, collaborate and share. Network administrators address points of failure by building redundancy, these are fail-safes that take over when the original system fails. We can create these redundancies in education by improving communication.
We need administrators, teachers, students, parents, B&I and other community members to share in local conversations, but we need to also extend those conversations nationally and internationally. We need Science teachers collaborating with Science teachers. We need English teachers to talk to B&I. We need students to open up dialog with administrators.
We keep trying to teach people how to drive, but we haven’t built very many roads. We need to remove cookie-cutter solutions for educational reform and instead create connections to as many people as we can. …and listen to what everyone says even if we don’t agree.
I heard that 64% of students from Philadelphia graduate high school. Why? I can’t answer that and neither can you. The 36% of students that dropped out can and probably a good portion of the remaining 64%. We need those kids to help us improve the system.
Build connections to a diverse group of stakeholders and you get a more complete picture of your community’s needs. If this community can become a family, you learn to tolerate differences, but respect each unique individual. If we build a global community/family, we can all work together to contribute to improving the system.
How to do this?
Wiki projects like Wikipedia, Wikispecies, Curriki, etc… give guidance to how large communities can work together to build resources. A global educational directory would also offer an easy way for people to connect to other individuals from around the world. Most important, clear expectations must be formed. We need to know what we are moving towards before we start moving. Expectations must be developed by the global community. ISTE’s NETS standards are a good start for technology integration, but educational reform needs to become a never ending conversation with pockets of experts from many different areas. PhDs and first year teachers need to converse with administrators, parents and B&I. English teachers need to share their experiences with other English teachers, but they also need to hear what B&I needs to survive.
What can we do?
Connect with diverse groups. Don’t limit the conversation to a meeting room within your building.
Don’t defend yourself all the time. You learn the most when you are proven wrong. Sometimes your perspective can be right, but if you empathize with someone else, you will understand in a brand new way.
Don’t make excuses. We all can learn from failure. Figure out what could be done differently and take another shot.
Build trust. Realize that you can’t do it all.
Tomorrow the world will change and the technology you know will be different. Realize how small you are and start contributing to a global learning network.
MB
