KES Happenings

“In education, as elsewhere, we need new kind of organizations and new models of leadership. These are symbiotic: one without the other cannot thrive. The work of new leaders is precisely to help create such new organizational models through new models of leadership.

Currently, there are as many definitions of leadership as there are variations of leadership itself. But what constitutes leadership in education? We could argue that to study education is to study leadership. The word education comes from the Latin word educare, meaning “to lead out of”. Thus, educators should be leaders by definition.

Such is, indeed, the theory but has not been the practice. In reality, teacher leadership in America’s schools has not been an accepted norm. Instead, most teachers felt excluded from leadership roles. “It’s someone else’s job” has been the message from the system: “teachers teach and administrators lead”. To change that and to change the learned helplessness, it will take a change in the very culture of schools….”

By Adam Urbanski and Mary Beth Nickolaou – Adam Urbanski is president of the Rochester Teachers Association and a vice-president of the American Federation of Teachers. Mary Beth Nickolaou is a teacher of students at-risk at Harding Elementary School in Hammond, IN. She is also a coordinator at the Hammond Leadership Academy.

READ ESSAY

What essential knowledge do students need to know/learn to be successful in the 21st century?

The enGauge 21st Century Skills (READ MORE) states that the following is what is needed by students, citizens, and workers in the Digital Age:

• Digital-Age Literacy
• Inventive Thinking
• Effective Communication
• High Productivity

Do we, as educators, agree that the above mentioned are the most important skills to impart to our students?

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This mana‘o, shared by Anna Sumida, took part during an online discussion regarding skills that we need to teach our students in being successful in the 21st century. Please take the time to read her commentary and then, more importantly, share your mana‘o by leaving a comment and/or responding to other participants‘ responses.

In November, I’ll attend the National Council of Teacher’s of English (NCTE) Annual Convention and its theme is focused on 21st century multiliteracies. At the heart of the conference are two essential questions: (1) What does it mean to be a literate person in the 21st century and (2) What does it mean to be a teacher of literacy in the 21st century? Therefore, this is a timely topic and one in which I have a keen passion about—particularly in the area of media and visual literacy.

I’ll now enter the conversation through a Hawaiian lens and what it means to me as a teacher at Kamehameha so bear with me…

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“One often hears from younger writers that they can’t imagine how anyone managed to compose an article, much less an entire book, with a typewriter. Kerouac banging away at his Underwood portable? Hemingway perched over his Remington? They might as well be monastic scribes or cave painters. But if the modern word processor has become a near-universal tool for today’s writers, its impact has been less revolutionary than you might think….We use the computer to process words, but the ideas that animate those words originate somewhere else, away from the screen. The word processor has changed the way we write, but it hasn’t yet changed the way we think.”

- Steven Johnson; writer for The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Discover magazine and Wired.com.

READ ESSAY

The Whole Child

Children are the living message we send to a time we will never see.
John W. Whitehead

The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) calls on parents, educators, policymakers, and communities to join forces to ensure our children become productive, engaged citizens. “Our children deserve an education that emphasizes academic rigor as well as the essential 21st century skills of critical thinking and creativity.”

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