Below is an excerpt I wrote for a college class. As a follow up, I need feedback from all of YOU to demonstrate the power of blogging! Please react to my post and comment on the purpose of education from your point of view. Martin Luther King (1947) once said that education has two functions: utility and culture. He goes on to say that “It is intelligence plus character” that is the true purpose of education. I believe that dual purpose is still relevant today. We live in an increasingly complex, global society. Education must prepare students with the skills to live, work and thrive in this environment. This includes subject matter knowledge, but equally important will be skills such as communication, problem-solving, collaboration, information literacy, and character. Education must prepare students to be life-long learners in the truest sense of the term. Fewer and fewer unskilled labor jobs will exist. The future will depend on the ability of all individuals...
The luau, once called the aha aina, was an event that was designed to unite the participants and foster good will, thanks and praise. The purpose of the luau could have been to celebrate accomplishments, honor heroes or gods, or commemorate important events. While some ancient foods represented strength or virility, other foods might symbolize virtues or goals the participants hoped to achieve (from To-Hawaii.com) A luau, in other words, is all about reflection. What is going well? What are the next steps? This is exactly what our school improvement teams did last week. They reflected on the level of implementation of their plan and the level of effectiveness. Participants spent the morning going through their plans goal by goal – looking back toward accomplishments and looking forward to next steps. We over-laid these discussions with information on managing and effectively facilitating change. We read Implications for School Leaders Facilitating Change , which is from H...
Back in the fall I posted, Who's On Your Network , which discussed Will Richardson's article in Education Leadership entitled, Footprints in the Digital Age . One of his recommendations was to join Facebook and to be perfectly honest... I didn't get it. What could I learn as an educator from Facebook? As luck would have it, my husband's family is very active with Facebook, with Will's urging and their availability I decided to take the plunge. I have to say I am impressed. I have reconnected with family members, friends from high school and college, and colleagues from previous positions. With Facebook the past and present intersect, letting me in seconds catch up with friends and family. As an educator, Facebook gives me insight into the why and how students use social networking tools. In fact, I can see why students crave these tools. When you consider that building positive relationships is the corner stone of school improvement, how can we not investig...
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