Warning: if you have to function in a traditional, industrial age school setting after reading this book, you will become very "itchy"!We are morally compelled to make things better for learners, for teachers, and for the system. And yet, there is no profession or industry that has pulled off over 100 years of changeless longevity, other than our school systems! Why do some parents, teachers, and community members think this is just fine and that schooling is supposed to look the same as when the Committee of Ten standardized American High Schools is 1892?
So what is our vision for a learning system that will allow each learner to be met at his/her personal learning level each day? We need to be learner centered and future focused in how we think, make decisions, and act. Everything we do for our learners must have a purpose and relate directly to the future of each individual learner. Mass customized learning is intentional about creating self-directed, life-long learners.
Your organization is perfectly designed to get the results you are getting. When will we STOP doing assembly lined learning? Form still follows function...only after we have determined what we want our graduates to demonstrate can we determine the organizational structure that best makes that happen. The structure of learning systems has to be designed with the learner as the first focus.
Are the decisions we make about control or about learning? We all know the answer to this.
Be courageous, be strong, and focus on your moral obligation to provide learner-focused schools for each and every learner!
To start, I vote for decreasing class sizes per teacher so that attention can be given to each learner in the room. Only then we can really focus on instructional practice, rather than all the administrative tasks teachers have piled on their plates that comes with massive class sizes.
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