District Wide Learning Commons – Why ?
“Canada’s institutions are rooted in values of equity, fairness and accessibility. Whether we’re talking health care, education, or political participation, we pride ourselves on the vision that all Canadians have a right to receive the full benefits of citizenship, regardless of class, creed, or cultural background.
It seems both reasonable and important, therefore, that any honest discussion about Canada’s schools needs to begin with that vision of equity and how close we are to making it a reality:”
Do all Canadian students have equitable access to quality education?”1
We all know the answer is no. There are many factors that influence equity, fairness and accessibility. Geography, where we live is a huge factor for Canadians. Access to facilities, resources, technology, professional development, all play a role in how viable teaching institutions are. I believe that by centralising our learning commons we are embracing the best of what we have, the question is how do we begin? From this question arises another do we begin with ourselves and move together or beginning together and move outwards. I am not sure but I am beginning to believe that it happens at the same time. In my next blog how?, I will explore that concepts of collective learning In Michael Fullan’s book “Stratosphere Integrating Technology, Pedagogy, and Change Knowledge” which is excellent and Canadian!
I was reading this book on the bus home yesterday and a man stopped and said to me, “ How do you like the book? I answered “It’s really interesting and enlightening.” He responded I know Michael Fullan, he is an amazing writer and teacher”. I would have liked to continue the dialogue, but he hopped off the bus. Today as I was researching, I was lead to a website CEA (Canadian Educators Association ) and began reading very currant blogs about change in Canadian Schools and sure enough Michael Fullan’s work was brought to attention immediately. More to come!:)
1 Hurley,Stephen,Equity in Our Schools; Transforming Education; CEA;< http://www.cea-ace.ca/blog/shurley/2010/09/3/equity-our-schools>
I’m not sure if this is your summative post from last week or new thoughts to start the third week’s work. Fullan is a very interesting author and has written extensively on educational change as a systemic process of change. He has also co-authored with Andy Hargreaves. Fullan wrote 20 years ago why teachers must become change agents:
Fullan, M. G. (1993). Why teachers must become change agents. Educational leadership, 50, 12-12.
How cool is it that you were reading a book on the bus and the book became a point of structural coupling with a passer-by? The Canadian Educators Association has some great research projects underway. One of them, “What did you do in school today?” has pertinent information and data to support the kinds of changes we are talking about in this course.