Will Richardson makes some interesting points in his book, “Why School?” comparing “Old School” and “New School” ideas.  He explains how, traditionally, school has been a place you go from September to June, to sit in a classroom with your peers and “learn” information (course content) from your teacher.  Then you memorized the information and are tested to see what you know.  He goes on to explain the up side and down side of this traditional schooling and introduces a “new school” approach, in order to evolve education to include the abundance of technology out there.

Some of the questions that arose for me while reading were: is education in our schools “evolving” fast enough?, going forward, do we not need to keep a mix of both old school and new school education? and finally, how do we address the lack of equity in our schools when it comes to technology?

Richardson points out that change in schools has been and continues to be very slow and gradual.  I feel that schools are not evolving fast enough to keep up with the rapid constant changes in technology.  As a result, for the time being, we need to continue to mix old school and new school techniques and ideas.  Especially since standardized testing still exists; which in turn, inhibits us as teachers, from completely changing our forms of assessment to fit what Richardson feels is the ideal way to assess 21st century learners.

He exclaims that “the world doesn’t care about what you know, the world cares about what you do with what you know.”  So, we need to get away from those “googleable” questions on tests and include more thought provoking, critical thinking, inquiry questions. In fact, my school starting to move toward these “new school” ideas by creating a grade 8 inquiry cohort for this September, where the social studies, english, science, and math teachers will work together to create inquiry projects that will incorporate all 4 subjects to get students working together to answer “real world” questions that relate to their everyday lives. I will also be involved as the TL who will make our library into more of a “learning commons” to facilitate inquiry. I have already begun to do this, by purchasing 10 new mini ipads for the library and by creating more information literacy activities, to make the students more technologically literate (this is one way I plan on increasing technological equity in my school).

This new cohort will address the idea of “the connected-self,” by forming more connections with teachers and students within the school, and also building connections in the local community as well as the global community.