Changing Paradigms, Keeping the Faith

For those of you who have been in any of my workshops or spoken with me, you know what a huge fan I am of Ken Robinson.  I am such a fan of everything he says and jealous of how he delivers it!
This animation,  Ken Robinson - Animation - Changing Education Paradigms , addresses the origins of our educations system and challenges us to change how we are delivering education for our students! It is so compelling on so many levels.  I encourage everyone to view it and find their personal connection to the message!  After viewing this vignette,  comment on our HCS Blog about how you are changing, or are going to change, the education paradigms at your school in order to provide a higher quality education for our students in Hawaii Catholic Schools.  Let's begin 2013-14 with a dialogue that engages us and respects professional conversation as a collaborative tool!  I want to hear from parents, classroom teachers, administrators, pastors, even our students!  The work we are doing impacts all of us both directly and indirectly and for us to grow as a network of schools serving students in a Catholic education then we need to model the 21st Century skills we want our students to master!  We need to change our paradigm!

Speaking of 21st Century and paradigm shifts, last school year we published a flower looking diagram that had our HCS 21st Century skills (mahalo to Tony Wagner and the P21 organization for their contributions!) organized around a central theme of Catholic Identity!  In looking at this, some ideas and questions began to be raised about what is at the center and what might encapsulate our mission.  Through collaborative dialogue and constructive feedback, some education minds got together this summer (via the Internet) and came up with a newer model that we feel more clearly and accurately reflects our mission as Hawaii Catholic Schools.

We took the skills and wrapped them around a center of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment and encapsulated all of this in our Catholic Identity!  Please let us know what you think of this!  Feedback is a good thing!  I made it larger so that those of us with weak eyesight can read it easily!

Also, please sign up to be a follower of the HCS blog.  We want to get as many of our school personnel, parents, and even students to get involved in educational dialogue regarding current trends in education and in particular our Hawaii Catholic Schools.  Every two weeks there will be another opportunity to join in the conversation!