Day 2
Today I went back to work! Man, was I exhausted. I need to get back into my routine of waking up at 5am! On my 45 minute drive to work I listened to a few great podcast episodes. Actually, I wanted to listen to the episodes a second time. I highly recommend that every educator, parent, and anyone interested on the topic of public education listen to the 3 episodes. I will provide the links below. So how did I manifest my 2019 word of the year (RADICAL) today? I strongly feel that we need radical changes in our educational system. Of course, with time it is slowly getting better, but I would like to see the change happening a bit more rapidly. I agree with Uriah Young, a 6th grade language arts teacher, when she stated "complacency is a teacher’s worst enemy; it is a silent, gradual infection causing careers and students to suffer." I would love to see more teachers speak up about what is wrong in education today. I suppose many teachers feel they need to keep hush-hush because they do not want to get in trouble. We need to stop mainly "collecting dots" as stated by Seth Godin. "More facts, more tests, more need for data, even when we have no clue (and no practice) in doing anything with it." What we need to focus on as parents and educators is on the ability to "connect the dots...solving the problem that hasn't been solved before, seeing the pattern before it is made obvious." If you would like more information about collecting the dots vs. connecting the dots, make sure to listen to the first 2 podcast episodes I mentioned above. So to help make other people aware of the serious problem, I decided to send individual text message to 30 educators in my school district. I sent them the link to hear the episode "Stop Stealing Dreams." I want to begin a conversation by answering this essential question: What is school for? I agree with Seth that we can only begin to address the problems in education after we answer this question. Hopefully many of my teacher friends will listen to the podcast episode and begin this important discussion. I will definitely keep you updated on our conversations. In the meantime, what do you think is the purpose of school? Let me know in the comments section below.
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AuthorHi there! My name is Alicia Vilas, and I’m the NJ Hudson County Teacher of the Year 2020-21. My mission is to cultivate young changemakers and innovators. I love to connect on Instagram (@alicia.vilas) and twitter (@alicia_vilas). Archives
December 2020
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