Food For Thought: Deconstruction of our jobs!

Dear all,

This week we had Ralph Kugler the Chairperson of Cognita and Brian Rogrove the CEO of Cognita South East Asia visiting us and both were really impressed by what they observed taking place in our classrooms when they took a walk around school. Their comments about the amount of visible learning being displayed and the engagement of our students with their work were extremely positive and complimentary. When we add these comments to all the others we have received from guests this year I believe that we should be very confident about our school and the type of learning experience that we are giving our students. As we enter the admissions season it is very important the everyone of us ensures that we are representing ourselves and our work positively in the community. With all the hard work I have observed being put into curriculum, pedagogy and transformational classroom technology, it hurts every time I hear about an ISHCMC student who are leaving and joining BIS or SSIS. It is time that we turned this around, and one of our key tools is word of mouth. I know many of you are modest and aren't always comfortable singing your own praises but by blowing our own trumpets a bit more in our local community and with our own parents I believe that we can encourage students to stay and others to join us. You know the fantastic things that are happening in classrooms from attending our Celebrations of Pedagogy and PD day workshops, so there is no reason why each and everyone one of us shouldn't be acting as positive ambassadors for our school in our dealing with our community and others in HCMC.

This weeks Food for Thought is an interesting article about our role as teachers as the internet, modern technology, professional networks and resource sharing challenge the role of a teacher. the article asks the question that: When kids can get their lessons from the Internet, what's left for classroom instructors to do?

Lets Go Out Bournemouth and Poole via Compfight cc

"Whenever a college student asks me, a veteran high-school English educator, about the prospects of becoming a public-school teacher, I never think it’s enough to say that the role is shifting from "content expert" to "curriculum facilitator." Instead, I describe what I think the public-school classroom will look like in 20 years, with a large, fantastic computer screen at the front, streaming one of the nation’s most engaging, informative lessons available on a particular topic. The "virtual class" will be introduced, guided, and curated by one of the country’s best teachers (a.k.a. a "super-teacher"), and it will include professionally produced footage of current events, relevant excerpts from powerful TedTalks, interactive games students can play against other students nationwide, and a formal assessment that the computer will immediately score and record.

I tell this college student that in each classroom, there will be a local teacher-facilitator (called a "tech") to make sure that the equipment works and the students behave. Since the "tech" won’t require the extensive education and training of today’s teachers, the teacher’s union will fall apart, and that "tech" will earn about $15 an hour to facilitate a class of what could include over 50 students. This new progressive system will be justified and supported by the American public for several reasons: Each lesson will be among the most interesting and efficient lessons in the world; millions of dollars will be saved in reduced teacher salaries; the "techs" can specialize in classroom management; performance data will be standardized and immediately produced (and therefore "individualized"); and the country will finally achieve equity in its public school system."

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/03/the-deconstruction-of-the-k-12-teacher/388631/