Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Modern Realities in Education and #LuthEd

I have written about the work of educational futurist Will Richardson before. There are times I believe him to accurately peg some of the issues in education. At other times he comes across to me as quite negative and almost grumpy.

A recent post of his entitled 16 Modern Realities Schools (and Parents) Need to Accept Now shares a broad perspective on the intersection between society, technology, and education today. For me, this article seems like it would be a good conversation starter within Lutheran education as to how we even better address modern realities but also main true to the core mission of sharing Jesus Christ every day and mentoring young disciples.

One of the provocative statements Richardson shares is this:

The middleman is vanishing as peer to peer interactions flourish. Teachers no longer stand between the content and the student. This will change the nature of the profession.

It would be great to have a number of Lutheran education thinkers break down statements like this. Do we agree or disagree with the statement? Why or why not? If the statement is true, how does this impact the classroom models used in Lutheran education? What does this mean for the teaching of the faith?

We could do this for each of his sixteen statements. What I appreciate is that Richardson has provided us a framework for these discussions based on his research and observations.

Would you, the readers of this blog, find value in digging down into some of these statements and building broader conversations around them? If so, let me know and share what you think might be the best way to accomplish this.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:55 PM

    I would love to be part of conversations like this, especially as they relate to Lutheran Education. I wonder if a start to something like this would be a local Lutheran Edcamp model. Not sure right off the top of my head the best way to make this a larger conversation, but maybe a start at the local or district level to get some of these conversations started. Those are just my quick thoughts. Will continue to follow this, and share any ideas that come up.
    Jason Koester - St. John's Denver, CO

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  2. I'm in, David, just as soon as I finish up this school year! (face to face, with my students!)

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