Change and education in the 21st Century

Clearly the business of education is in transition.  Those of us who are engaged in supporting teachers  and students are constantly bombarded with the latest research about what works to engage students in effective learning situations.  Last Friday we looked to strengthen our collaborative bonds through a series of presentations by our own HCS teachers focused on 21st century practices taking place across our network of schools.  We are still gathering feedback from this event through Backchannel chat room dedicated to our event.  This is a means of instant feedback for presenters and organizers and meant to model a tool that teachers can use with students during instruction.  

Recently I read an excerpt from a book titled 21st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students Learn that was written by Howard Gardener.  In his piece, he talked about the kinds of "minds" that exist throughout the human species.  He has written extensively about the Disciplined, Synthesizing, and Creative minds and how educators, with an understanding of how our students process and organize  information, can structure instruction and maximize opportunities for deep learning with our students.    He has now identified two other minds that are more nebulous and less measurable from a quantitative standpoint: the Ethical mind and the Respectful mind.  Our world is growing more and more social and these two minds start to hit on parts of the human psyche that many in education have not been asked to address because we can't measure them on a multiple choice test.

What struck me is that the Ethical and Respectful minds are cornerstones of Catholic education.  We have instructed our students while always keeping our faith at the center of a well rounded academic program.  So as the education world continues to change and explore new tools to engage our students in effective instruction that engages these 5 minds that Gardener speaks to, Hawaii Catholic Schools already have a built in avenue for reaching our students on an ethical and respectful level.

The 21st Century brings more and more research and findings about the children we are teaching and how their brains are so much more capable than we ever realized.  Our challenge lies in the question of whether those of us who have been doing this for awhile can open up and actively embrace not only the changes that are taking place, but the rapidity with which things are changing.  I've mentioned this before in that it feels like we are changing the tires on the car while driving down the highway.   The interesting piece is that there really is no other option.  We must change on the fly, be willing to attempt new methodology and while we are working on improving our classroom pedagogy, make sure our students are developing and learning the skills necessary to succeed in this fast-paced, ever-evolving environment!  If we do not embrace this change in instructional delivery, we may not be in existence in the future.  that would be great shame!!