Hello All: I attended a CSOTTE (Consortium of State Organizations for Texas Teacher Education) Convention this week. Interesting presenter named Ian Jukes. His presentation was entitled Our Children Are Not the Students Our Schools Were Designed For: Understanding Digital Kids. You might find the website fun. http://www.committedsardine.com/commit_me.cfm

Ethically Speaking.

Teaching a child to think critically and deeply will assist with the implications of instantaneous communication and information. If we are teaching them to think critically, they will ask questions. Questions regarding who is disseminating the information, for what purpose, how will the promulgator of the information profit or benefit from the proliferation of what he or she is espousing? A case of interest would be the research done by the insurance companies to block healthcare reform. On its face, healthcare reform would serve as the antecedent to a hike in healthcare premiums. However, scrutiny revealed dubiousness in the way the study was disclosed. (NBC News with Brian Williams, 2009) They could further ask, how does this information affect me? Does it or can it enhance my well-being? I think that is one aspect of what Gardner speaks to when he broaches the ethical mind. The researcher was noted for excellence. Yet, when the information that they had supplied was displayed in a negative light, their ethics forced them to bring clarity to the findings.

Philosophically?

There are multiple philosophical slants related to education. We have the action or process of educating or of being educated. Then there is the stage of the process of educating. It can also be defined as the knowledge and development resulting from an educational process. Further, we have the field of study that deals mainly with methods of teaching and learning in schools. Those definitions are explanations are just according to Webster. Then we have categories of education. There is adult education, special education, bilingual education, compensatory education, continuing education, higher education and physical education o to name a few. Each category comes with a theoretical base, best practices and sometimes divergent and sometimes compatible ideologies.
TEA, THECB, TASA, and TASB are all entities in the state who represent education. Are there mission statements compatible or divergent? Do they tout variances of the same idea or are they diametrically opposed? Do they espouse the same language or are they more representative of the tower of Babel? Is it possible they could represent each of the minds Gardner speaks to in 5 Minds for the Future?
I had opportunity to ask some of my esteemed colleagues if you were aware of the Texas College and Career Readiness Standards. Many of you responded, no. Does that speak to a leadership issue in education or to the change process? Or perhaps it is indicative of both a lack of leadership and the appreciation of how implementing a strategy that according to Education Week, Texas is placing a high premium on the success or failure of this initiative.
I think that Gardner has a very valid point when he suggest that it is going to take a synthesis of the ethical, disciplined, respectful and creating minds to address the multifarious (ROZ – smile) challenges we are experiencing in our state. Check out this website if you have time. http://forum-network.org/lecture/howard-gardner-five-minds-future
I’ve got to go to worship – hopefully I get back and finish my thought. Be Blessed.

Focus Question Three

Is the diversity that we see throughout the world challenging assimilationist notions of citizenship and forcing global entities to construct new concepts of citizenship and citizenship education? Yes. Why? Strictly speaking, for myself, assimilation has always said to me, that I must become someone else if I am going to enjoy the benefits that “being an American” have to offer. Assimilation says that at the very least my heritage, ethnicity, and language must all be altered if I am going to fit in. Certainly, I do not mean to suggest that standards need to be nor should they be lowered or that a different measuring stick should judge minorities. However when you look at the word and it means to consume and incorporate, to transform, and/or to make similar, that concept cuts a little piece out of the fabric of ones self-esteem. I firmly believe that knowledge can be learned and applied within the context of ones heritage or ethnicity, which by all accounts, should create synergistic opportunities (Gardner)
If we are to compete globally or be global citizens, we must learn the way of others around the globe. I think we want to move just “tolerating and being tolerated” to that deeper place of seeking first to understand. In Gardner’s’ Five Future Minds, he speaks of the respectful mind. I think that mind applies to this question. When one tries to understand that which is different versus trying to make it take another shape, then one has demonstrated respect for that which is unfamiliar.