Bartmas Blurb #37

“Change”

People fear change, they avoid it; they even get rid of it when it is in their pocket or purse! There are different definitions of change, but the one that affects us most in education is the change of approaches towards education. Human beings love habit. People love comfort. We all tend toward the status quo. Change is inevitable, so why do we fear or resist it so much? Change is HARD!

I have a friend and a colleague that placed all of his change in the console in his car. He would keep it there until it was full, and then scoop it out and take it the bank to cash in. This would almost always equal ninety dollars! Change can pay off! If we all look back at when we grew the most, it was probably because a change forced us to. In education we see the same fear or resistance to change. As we are entering the digital transformation of education we are facing change.  Many educators, administrators and classroom teachers, fear the openness of the new frontier. The change we are part of is exciting to some…but fearsome to others. Our ability to now have information at our fingertips has changed the paradigm of learning. We are no longer the presenters of all knowledge that is important! Teachers and administrators must get comfortable being directors of digital learning, while incorporating other methods that will engage students while in the classrooms.

The transformation of how information is disseminated has changed where and how I get my information. I no longer trudge through professional journals or books. I scan my Twitter feed, and LinkedIn groups to see what others are finding, and writing. I then peruse the ones that garner attention, and pass information on to my colleagues. The teachers in our building are sometimes inundated with multiple articles a night! Technology is not the silver bullet to education! If there is a silver bullet in education, it would be adaption to change! We need to be eclectic in our approach, accept change at what it is; if it improves the student’s experience, use it. If it doesn’t, cast it aside and move on. Students today do not need us telling them in lectures how the colonies were started, the parts of a cell, how to write a narrative, or simple geometry. They can access that information with a few clicks. The more important aspect of education will be, how do they apply the information to make it transformational?

Don’t fear change; embrace it!