I’ve always felt my role in education at the institutions I’ve worked for required me to be a thought leader. As a “tech guy” in the rapidly changing tech world, if your thoughts aren’t leading, you can quickly find yourself behind the times. Over the last few years, I’ve also realized much of my thought leadership is and has been countercultural as well. An example is my position on the dreaded topic of screentime, something I’ve written and presented about for years, as evidenced by a tweet from @mckct following a talk I did for a group of educators in the summer of 2013. My highly countercultural thought was/is, “Not all screentime is created equal.” Which means, you can’t place a limit on screentime solely based upon a number of hours a day because two hours of cat videos on YouTube is hardly as productive as two hours learning complex math topics on Kahn Academy. Some kids may need those cat videos as a brain break from two hours with Sal Kahn. Sure, it seems obvious from where we sit today. But in 2013, that was countercultural. I dare say it is still countercultural to many today, but that’s another blog post for another day.
But honestly, rarely did any of this thinking come easy. Being a thought leader in your chosen profession or area of work is hard. Having a counter cultural approach to your thought leadership is next level hard. It can sometimes feel like you are somewhere around mile 45 in a 100 mile bike ride in the Texas summer heat, that place where you find yourself questioning every decision you made that got you to that point, a point others might label as insanity.
And yet you sloth on.
Sure you could have taken that right turn at mile 12 that would have you crossing the start/finish in only 13 more miles rather than 88. Or you could have gone straight at mile 38 rather than turn right to shave off almost 40 miles. But you don't take either alternative path because you understand the goal and you know that, as we established, countercultural thought leadership is hard and the truly transformational activities associated with it are rarely ever easy either.
In fact I’d say true transformation is by definition counter cultural at its very core. Just look at the work Sir Ken Robinson was proposing. He was essentially saying, “There is very little here in education worth salvaging so we need to pretty much start from scratch and do something completely different.” Why then should we follow in Sir Ken’s footsteps, continuing his countercultural thought leadership and pursue transformational change in education? Because so much of the current educational culture revolves around un-transformational and dated, ritualistic thinking. Thinking like:
…good education involves the imparting of knowledge by an adult standing in front of a classroom of kids
… learning occurs best in siloed 50 minute blocks of time
…it’s the 2nd Tuesday in November and our 6th grade math class should be on chapter 7 of the textbook
…every 13 year old child is the same mentally, emotionally and are equally mature so they should be in the same classroom
…students learn best when they work quietly and independently at their desk
…little Johnny would have been my line leader but he’s out of uniform because he doesn’t have a belt on/his shirt is untucked/he’s wearing the wrong color pants
I believe students today are becoming painfully aware of the fact that traditional school is almost completely disconnected from the real world around them. The culture of school for students today seems to center around checking a box. Their day includes:
Did I wake up this morning? ☑
Did I go to school? ☑
Very little real world learning occurs in schools. I mean, how can it when so many schools are banning the very device every adult relies on to navigate the real world in their own lives? If we want to make school relevant, we must adopt a countercultural stance. We must recognize:
…knowledge is no longer synonymous with power, the Internet has seen to that
…essential skills such as Curiosity, Creativity, Communication, Collaboration and Critical Thinking are key to equipping and activating students today for their future
…technology and digital devices like cell phones are not inherently evil and we must teach students how to use them, lest the students be used by them
…learning is lifelong. The emphasis is no longer just K to 12, it’s K to gray.
… the purpose of school is to teach kids how to express themselves using the tools that currently shape their world - Dr. Jordan Shapiro
Let me ask the educational leaders in the crowd:
…Are we here to check a box or are we here to make a difference?
…Are we here to do the same thing we’ve always done or should we be questioning the validity of every status quo moment we encounter on a daily basis?
If we’re here to check a box then, back to our 100 mile biking analogy, take that right turn at mile 12, you’ll cross the same start/finish line with significantly less effort. “If we always do what we’ve always done, we’ll always get what we’ve always got.” - Edufuturist Ben Whitaker on a recent podcast, If we’re here to embrace the status quo then we must be good living by this mantra. But then I think you have to ask yourself, “why is this acceptable in education when it’s counter to every successful endeavor in the world around us?” The easy answer is it’s acceptable because it’s easy.
If, on the other hand, you are here to make a difference, ditch the textbook, toss out the fill-in-the-blank worksheets and empower your faculty to embrace modern, relevant learning environments on behalf of their students’ futures. Adopt theories and practices that gets students invested in their own learning. If you are tempted to respond to any faculty member or even a student with the phrase, “We’ve always done it that way”, stop dead in your tracks and question everything around you and you will see there is no future in that direction, only the past.
Look, I understand that there are no hard right turns when driving the culture of your educational institution. But there is also no change to that culture if you don’t begin to make some intentional decisions to steer toward a better outcome, toward the understanding that the world is a very different place today than it was when our core educational system was created centuries ago. Change, transformational and counter cultural change, is necessary to prepare your students for the realities of and success in the modern world.
Incidentally, The American Association of Pediatrics, an organization who for years led the “no-more-than-two-hours-of-screentime-a-day-PERIOD” ethos, has officially changed their position. And that new position sounds a lot like, “Not all screentime is created equal.” I’m not suggesting they listened to me. I’m not even suggesting they’ve ever even heard of me. But I am saying it’s kinda nice to have your countercultural thought leadership validated by the very organization so many parents have used against you in the past.
Be different. Be modern.
Darryl Loy
The Modern Learning Collaborative
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