To ponder...

I started to try and think about what I wanted to write about, and I immediately became overwhelmed by the number of topics I am interested in exploring more in writing. So I'm taking the easy way out. I'm going to make a list right now and then come back and start working from the list.

Current educational obsessions:

1) Connections to the world- why are we so navel-gazing in the US? What stops us from looking at what other countries do/have done with their educational systems?

2) How do we go about shifting the deficit-model thinking that is so ingrained in our educational system?

3) How do we build in the importance of personal growth and changing our own perceptions to the educational system, so that teachers, principals, and anyone working with children are also on their own path of personal growth and improvement. If I'm going to tell a 15 year old to improve his/her attitude, what is there that encourages me to improve my own?

4) When we look at our requirements for teachers, very little focuses on one's relationships with students. True, there is a California Standards for the Teaching Profession on "Classroom Environment," but there is nothing that ensures that teachers know how to build caring relationships with students in their classrooms.

5) Along that same line, nothing in our teacher preparation programs asks teachers to deeply question their own beliefs about who their students are, and the way they see their students. How do we build programs for teachers STARTING from a deep examination of how one views other human beings, particularly poor students of color. The longer I am in education, the more I see how the frame we bring to our interactions with others impacts the situation.

6) Why do we insist on continuing practices in our education system that aren't working? If statistics on drop out rates show that school is clearly not working for a large percentage of Latino and African-American youth, why are we not responding to this by attempting to change the school system rather than hoping these students will somehow "be different?"

7) Where's the joy? Nel Nodding's book, "Happiness and Education" explores this question. I think about many classrooms I have sat in, both as a student and observing others, and I'm unclear on why a group of people coming together (because really, at the heart of it, school is a group of people in a room together) needs to be a painful experience for anyone.

Ok. There are some starting questions. Expect more on these topics as time goes on....