This blog has been written by Lisa Parisi.

I have high hopes for education in general and public education in particular. I truly believe that education is the answer to all our world problems. But I am feeling tired and defeated at this time. I seem, each year, to come to a moment where it seems as if we haven’t made much progress. And now is the time. So here I am, the year winding down, and I look back on where we were in September and where we are now. And I find we are still having the same conversations. And I am tired of the platitudes.

“We must make sure our students are prepared for this unknown future they will face.”

“We must allow them to use technology in all its forms to break down walls, open doors, expand their horizons.”

“We must show students how to think and innovate and create.”

And we all mean what we say and truly believe it. And, yet, we never talk about how to do it. Individuals are successful and, thankfully, I get to connect with many of them online. But as a whole, what have we done to meet these goals?

A week ago I had a unique situation to deal with. I have 24 students in my class. 4 of them were pulled out for the morning for an enrichment program and 7 of them were working with the physical education teacher, helping the children with austism. They had learned about autism through Temple Grandin at the Celebration for Teaching and Learning and were anxious to put their learning to use. That left me with 12 children.

Since I couldn’t begin anything new, I told the students to finish up their projects. I sat looking around the room and saw some students recording audio for their favorite teacher photostories. So throughout the morning you could hear students calling out, “Recording. Silence, please.” Three children went out of the room to record a podcast about how our classroom runs. When they came back in, they said to me, “We made a lot of mistakes. You will need to do lots of editing.” I responded, “No, you are going to edit.” So they sat down with audacity and edited the podcast, adding music at the front and back. I had two students who had recorded a science presentation and were sitting at the computer editing the movie. I had two students at the scanner, scanning pictures to import into a wiki. A few more were working on podcast scripts.

And as I looked around, I realized that the classroom seemed chaotic. But it was a controlled chaos. The children were learning, engaged and excited. I happened to have a sub in the room at the time, since my co-teacher, Christine Southard, was out. I am sure the sub thought this was the most unruly bunch of students she had ever encountered, because they were talking over each other and to each other and across the room to me. They were making decisions about who I should see first for assistance. They were running the classroom. So the sub probably did not appreciate the class. But I did. I was proud of them and excited by the learning and collaboration going on in the room.

This is also the time of year that we are assessing students in reading, writing, and math. Christine and I do this periodically throughout the year to be sure our students are keeping up. And what we are finding now is the learning has far surpassed our expectations. Reading levels are soaring, writing skills are being mastered, math concepts are understood and applied. And all of this with this very “unruly, chaotic class”.

So what does this mean for us all? I wonder, over and over again, why this classroom is not the norm. Why are teachers not able to let go and see what the children can do, when given the reigns? Why aren’t administrators encouraging this type of behavior? Why are we still working on a one lesson per class format? Let’s allow students to demonstrate their learning in different ways. What are we waiting for? Enough with the platitudes. Let’s stop taking baby steps. It is time for huge leaps. I’m ready. Are you?

Images:

Baby steps‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29868516@N00/3283470811

‘Team work means….‘
www.flickr.com/photos/81576641@N00/257649874

‘Chaos‘
www.flickr.com/photos/7762644@N04/2391631937