To grow, teachers must be able to critically reflect on their performance.
Education is “driven” by teachers.
It therefore makes sense that education should also be able to reflect critically on its own performance.
Currently, this is achieved through analytics and the comfortable precision of numbers. The language of mathematics, data, and statistics provides a universal language that (ideally) resists rhetoric and asserts facts. This also provides a natural anchoring point for research and the kinds of strategies we use to improve schools.
But overall, this critical reflection, this self-criticism, needs to be both qualitative and quantitative. That means we only have half the picture right now.
Self-aware education system
Although the word criticism sounds harsh, it is very similar to the word critique, and they are the same thing. Note that thinking critically brings about some kind of “criticism,” but criticism can also occur without thinking critically. This is where education itself seems to be in trouble.
Education needs more than reform
Self-awareness is a precursor to self-awareness. Self-awareness is a precursor to context. Context is a precursor to understanding.
Applying self-awareness to an entire education, a system, seems awkward. It is a uniquely human characteristic that depends in part on one’s ability to isolate one’s “self,” and it disappears when one becomes two.
To be self-aware, you need to be able to see your surroundings without missing anything. You can see every part from start to finish on a scale that doesn’t obscure its functionality. Otherwise, you are not self-aware, but fragmented. Partial recognition.
For school systems, overall awareness means all schools, cafeterias, classrooms, playgrounds, assessments, textbooks, IT policies, grading policies, bus routes, parent considerations, committees, federal guidelines, and budget items. means. Each course, course title, bell schedule, class change process, and school mascot.
And so do the students. their history, interests, reading levels, affections, curiosities, habits, self-efficacy, and their own patterns of life in Native communities. The books they loved and the books they hated, all the bad habits, the causes of academic apathy, the causes of intrinsic motivation and the sources of intrinsic motivation.
And the teachers. and higher education. and technology, and each of these can be distributed into 10,000 pieces by itself.
So many moving parts obscure the whole, and the whole obscures the parts. That is, self-awareness and self-criticism are still beyond our reach. The best we can muster is research.
It is clear that a self-aware educational system, as currently designed, is not possible. This means that a self-correcting education system, as currently designed, is also not possible.
sedimentation
Rather, the perception of education and educators in educational settings tends to be glimpsed or modified in a series of negative events. Broad visions that lead to continuity from day to day, semester to semester, year to year are replaced by artificial agitation, enthusiasm, and trends. A quick glance will not lead to the transformation that our collective capital, technology, expertise and passion could bring to fruition.
Scale will be a challenge in building a self-aware education system that can iterate and transform through built-in mechanisms that actually work.
Let’s build something huge that cherishes the intellectual and creative growth of millions of little humans. Then you will be surprised to find that the results are mediocre and the students are anonymous.
For education to be self-aware, it must look at itself and all its cogs. If we insist on a national system monitored at state and district levels, it will depend on the effectiveness and efficiency of the country, states and districts. Therefore, we have designed a system of teaching and learning aimed at human improvement, but that design cannot manage itself. Incredibly, the system itself wants to globalize.
Whether this is a matter of size, scale, hubris, or design, “total” self-criticism is impossible. As long as that’s true, both are incidental little germs of improvement.
For now, imagine what self-criticism and self-correction currently looks like in your classroom, school, and community. It’s likely a mix of data teams, lesson plan feedback, and other data.
What are you doing to get a full picture of who you are, how you’re doing, and what modifications are needed to your craft as an educator? Even if we don’t find a good answer, others can come along (intentionally vague) and do it for us, or we can stop believing in what we’re doing, or we can come up with a thought-provoking alternative. I wouldn’t be surprised if they designed and funded it. and their own design.
Teachers who perform poorly will eventually be replaced. Underperforming schools and districts, and most importantly, learning models, are permanently funded and untouched.
why?
