What I Believe
Today’s students need to believe their job is to design the world of the future, not just to contribute to an established world they were born into. In order to accomplish this, teachers must build curriculum that allows students to find creative solutions to problems. As Nobel Prize-winning immunologist and writer Charles Nicolle stated, “The disclosure of a new fact, the leap forward, the conquest of yesterday’s ignorance, is an act not of reason, but of imagination.” Students must be encouraged to observe, imagine, abstract, analogize, model, and test, while synthesising concepts and ideas across the disciplines. It’s only when students see synthesize knowledge from all disciplines and make real life connections, that will they leave their K-12 education with the skills to be visionaries and innovators, creating a world we have yet to imagine.
Since knowledge is now more than ever an external entity, students must learn where to find the information they require. Students need build web research skills, ensuring they are critical of websites as they search for reliable information. In addition, a teacher’s goal now must be to help students focus and filter out the excess stimuli that can prevent their successful completion of a learning task. Web content is constantly fighting for our attention. Educators need to ask themselves: how can I teach my students to manage this avalanche of information and stimuli? Finally, we must consistently model appropriate web research, digital citizenship, and time management skills in this often chaotic digital world that is now here to stay.
Although I am passionate about facilitating the benefits of technology, I still believe teaching at its core is the teacher. What makes me a good teacher? Empathy. When the teacher begins to perceive students not as simply students, but humans who will one day design the world, as their equals, the greater the impact the teacher will have. Virginia Woolf often found herself sitting and looking, with her work in her hands, until she became the thing she looked at. My work is my students. I will work tirelessly until I can see life, as best as I can, through the eyes of every student I have the privilege to teach.