This morning I watched CNN’s live broadcast of President Obama’s speech on education reform and his defense of “Race to the Top.”  I don’t have time right at the moment to explain all of the reasons that I was disappointed in the speech and this administration’s position on education reform, but I will say that it is extremely disturbing to know that RTT is basically NCLB in “new clothes.”

Here is the talk that CNN should have aired.  This is the speech that Obama should have given.  This is the talk that all education leaders should hear.

Chris Lehmann is the founding Principal of Science Leadership Academy and author of the Practical Theory blog.  He is also an incredibly impressive young education leader and someone that I am proud to call a colleague and a friend.  Oh how I wish that this talk had been the one we had all viewed this morning on CNN.

Did you listen to President Obama’s speech this morning?  What did you think?

On a recent trip back to my hometown with my kids to visit my parents, I drove past one of the local rural elementary schools and saw this posted on their sign:

Coincidentally, a few days before the trip I received an email from one of my aunts who is a special education teacher.  She had attended a recent 2010 Autism Conference and had emailed a copy of her notes from the conference to all of her family and friends who might be interested in reading the notes from the sessions she attended.  As I skimmed through her notes I read this quote:

“Remember, there are NO ‘typical’ kids, just kids without IEPs”
— Dr. Jed Baker

Within one week I encountered two different versions of this idea that there are no normal or typical kids — each child is unique and has his or her very own unique needs.

As I read both of this statements, my initial reaction to both was “absolutely!”  Without questioning either statement I immediately agreed with the concept.  I think if I tweeted either of those statements out on Twitter, both would be retweeted many times over with possibly only a few people stopping to question the idea behind them.

I took the photo of the sign because I thought it would make a great conversation piece in some future workshop or presentation that I might facilitate. However, as I drove home I continued to reflect on the statement and on the act of posting this statement outside of the local elementary school.  By posting the statement, I would assume the school is saying “this is what we believe and this is how we approach our educational program.”

That’s all good and well… except… this is a typical elementary school that exists as part of a larger school system that serves all kids in the area.  I know that there are many hardworking educators in this particular school system and I am sure there are many hardworking, dedicated, and caring teachers who work in this particular elementary school.  I am sure all of them assume they are teaching individual children who all have individual needs.  None of their students are normal or typical — each is very unique.

But — how many of those teachers are NOT doing one or more of the following:

• using a district-generated curriculum & pacing guide that dictates where all students at each grade level should be at any given point in the year
• providing whole class instruction most of the day and expecting most, if not all students, to stay on track with the group
• introducing new concepts based on the curriculum & pacing guide rather than on individual students’ interests
• preparing all of the students for annual standardized tests that assume all children within certain grade levels should have same level of knowledge and skill at the same time regardless of their unique needs and abilities
• teaching classes of students who are grouped by age rather than by ability or skill levels

My point is that while many educators may agree with the concept of there being no normal or typical children, we work in a system that assumes that most children are “normal” and that only students who have certain identified needs will benefit from individualized learning plans. We work in a system that cannot accomodate the development and implementation of IEPs for every student — despite what we may believe (or profess to believe) about individual uniqueness.

I am certainly not criticizing any of the educators at this elementary school.  As I stated earlier, I have every reason to believe they are very dedicated and caring teachers who work hard every day of the year to provide the best possible learning environment for the students in their care.

I think my concern is that if we are going to make statements about the uniqueness of each individual student — statements that suggest that all students need and deserve individualized learning plans/environments/programs — then we need to be prepared to roll up our sleeves and create learning environments that allow for that kind of individualization.

Among many other flawed components of our system, we need to be prepared to do away with the following:

• age-based grade levels
• age-based curriculum standards (standards are great — as long as they are not tied to a particular age or grade level)
• focusing on time as opposed to learning (let students learn at their own individual pace rather than by the calendar year)
• instruction methods that assume all students can learn at the same pace and in the same way

I really do have some conflicted thoughts on this.  While I think the statements make for great sound bites, I question our use of the statements if we are not really prepared to reinvent our education system so that educators can really apply the concept of individualized learning for all.

I could be completely wrong on all of this… I would love to know what you think.  Please comment…

Reflections

I don’t do all of these things (types of posts, best practices in layout and design, blogging schedule, etc.) as much as I should.

Seven days is not long enough to cover everything that I consider essential, but it is long enough to engage others and is just short enough that almost everyone can commit to completing the full seven day course.

Selecting the 7 most essential items of everything that I consider essential is really hard… and I’m still second-guessing myself on some of my choices for this curriculum.

I didn’t anticipate the participation of so many people who I consider to be experienced edubloggers — their participation definitely challenged me to rethink my lessons and tasks to ensure that I was addressing the needs of a broad audience of edubloggers and not just an audience of beginners.

This was fun.  This was a LOT of fun.  I really enjoyed developing the curriculum for this (as challenging as it was), and REALLY enjoyed reading the posts and comments of everyone who participated.

What I Learned

• How to set up threaded comments
• A broader understanding of the variety of ways to set up pages on blogs — there are so many possibilities for this!
• How to run a mini-course on a blog

What I will/won’t do next time

• Won’t schedule a mini-course during same week that I plan to visit mom with my kids (it was way too stressful and I ended up not being able to interact in the comments as much as I wanted)
• Will create a tag for the blog posts (big “ooops” on my part)
• Will promote far and wide — not everyone actively participated, but we still had several very active participants and that made this week very fun for me
• Will keep the mini-course short — no longer than 7 to 10 days — to keep it easy for busy educators to follow
• May split future mini-courses into a beginner’s strand and an experienced blogger’s strand

Next Steps

I will be working on the drawing for the door prize later today and will announce the winner here.  I will also email the winner to get info on where to send the book

I will compile the entire series of posts into a .pdf that will be free for you to download and share with your faculty/staff if you want to use the mini-course in any of your professional development efforts this year.

Finally, I want to give a very big THANK YOU to everyone who participated and everyone who tweeted/retweeted information about the mini-course before and during the 7 days.