I’m live blogging once again from a wonderful learning opportunity- the NH Summit on Redefining Education in the 21st Century. More details to come, but I wanted to share my big learning from tonight- Tom Carroll’s assertion that schools of education need to get out of the teacher preparation business. He point out just the same thing that Charlotte Danielson shared last week at the New Hampshire Staff Development Council conference: Teaching is too complex an activity for anyone to be fully prepared for- for anyone to get right all the time. Rather than doing Teacher Prep, with it’s associated finite skill set and pre-determined methodology and curriculum, we need to put our energy into building teachers who are competent and comfortable with learning alongside their students.
What a fabulous idea.
We’ve been pushing the whole idea of powerful learning communities a la Critical Skills and Critical Friends for 25 years now. What we’ve observed over and over is that schools filled with people who are excited about learning- no matter the age of the learner or the content of the learning- are healthier, more effective places. It’s not rocket science- Margaret Wheately said it ages ago- “Within a community, anything is possible. Without one, nothing is.”
I’m heartened to be sitting in a room filled with the seeds of change in New Hampshire. I’ll keep you posted on what happens next!
The Critical Skills Classroom 