'unfiltered'
Welcome to what others might call our 'blog'. We prefer to call it 'unfiltered'. We have written a series of essays on topics that relate to the work we are doing. We will feature a new piece every few weeks and you can read archived writings through their links. We hope you enjoy them or at the least they provoke you into thinking about new and different issues.
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Previous blogs include:
A New Game: 'Learner in the Middle'
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By Ellee Koss and Arati Mithal Nagaraj (and thank you to Mickey Smith for your contributions)
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Some call it agency. Others call it engagement. It is the air we breathe! It is the context within which we are creating offerings for learners and educators of all ages and backgrounds. What if we empower learners to drive their own success?
The origins of the word ‘educate’ come from ‘educare’ - to draw from within. And yet, our current paradigm for education and learning, for the most part, is grounded in ‘telling’ the learner what to do. Downloading ‘information’ onto the learner - just like we download an app. We currently call it teaching or training. We think we know what is best for the learner and what and how they should be learning.
In the last few years there has been more attention being paid to personalized learning - acknowledging different learning styles and personalities. And yet, it is still considered on the fringe. Part of the issue is the concern about how can one possibly manage so many different learning styles in a classroom? And so, we default to doing it the way the ‘teacher’ and the ‘system’ deem it appropriate. '...We want our youth, our learners, to fit in ‘the box’... '- even if it diminishes their enthusiasm for and limits their learning. In doing that, we also disempower our educators. What if we had faith in our educators’ abilities to read a room, adjust accordingly and know that whatever they came up with could be contextualized and grounded in the curricula?
We find this unwillingness to breakthrough the current paradigm fundamentally sad and unacceptable. What makes us human is our uniqueness - our gifts, our abilities, our DNA, our perspectives. What if we fully embrace this? What would have to change? What would have to change in you?
We will leave you to ponder a Haiku we wrote last year - be with it, meditate on it and see what happens.
What I want to learn
Let ME go figure it out
When I want to learn
When I want to learn
Let ME go figure it out
How I want to learn
How I want to learn
Let ME go figure it out
What I want to learn
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