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| Moving Education Into The 21st Century |
Editor: Bailey, Angela
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Our guest speaker, Des Sjoquist, is the principal of Glenmore Elementary School and was a past principal at George Elliott. He has worked in Bahrain, in Mexico and other places. Des considers himself as a change agent. He wants to challenge teachers and yank their chains a bit and make them think outside the box. He ranks the Canadian education system among the best in the world but he still believes that our system can be improved.
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Des asked, "What are we teaching in school today that will be obsolete in 20 years?" He gave an example of how important, in 1972, the slide ruler was and what impact it made on many students. "Where is that slide ruler today? Who and how many actually uses one today?" The rate of how fast things are changing is frightening and the schools can't keep up with the pace of change.
We spend time reaching kids how to print but in today's world we mostly type and text. Our kids can thumb type faster than most of us can type. We get kids to print nice and color within the lines and this is important but how much time should be spent on this? We need to change or else the school system will become extinct.
Many school systems in the world focus on memorization and control. These skill sets don't teach kids how to treat others properly. The concepts of critical thinking, making kids become creators and collaborators will teach kids the concept of democracy and treating others with respect. This is what School District 23 is about. We have to teach kids critical thinking skills so that they can use tools, such as Google, etc. properly and ethically.
How do we engage our kids to want to be at school? We need to think about the physical design and the lesson design and other factors. We need to engage their senses. As an example, how does Disneyland, in the middle of a big city, get their customers to forget about the real world for a while and enjoy their experience. It is all about focusing on the senses of the individuals during their visits.
How much time do our kids waste at school - e.g. having to sit and wait for all the kids in the class to actually finish a test? How can we completely engage our students, like those, for example, who play WII - where people become completely engaged, don't know what is going on around them and will try over and over again to accomplish something? How often do we hear our kids say school is boring but when they go to summer Science Camp, they find this fun and engaging? Why can't this be true of everyday school?
Technology is a key to moving forward but it won't fix all the problems. There needs to be technology in the schools but it has to be used in a manner that allows the students to create knowledge and work on collaboration and critical thinking. Technology should only be the tools to get a project done. Kids today have to "unplug" to go to school and then "plug" back in after they leave school at the end of the day. The kids generally only get 45 minutes of computer lab time a week! Imagine if at work we only had access to our technology for 45 minutes a week. How can technology enhance learning? Des has a vision to have iPADs for every kid in the school with a computer lab at the back of the classroom. This will only work, however, if the teachers are also engaged and able to use the technology as well. Des concluded by stating that the Canadian school system is special and we need to protect it and continually improve it. |
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Rotary Club of Kelowna Ogopogo
