Reply to comment

I enjoyed this post. Re: your comment that “It is hard enough to get people behind something new, but it is even harder when that something new threatens the established ways of doing things.”, this is such a huge problem in education (or as I like to call it the “education-industrial complex.”) It is one of my biggest frustrations every day. It’s hard to deny that K-12 education is at a point of crisis. Literacy rates are appallingly low. Critical thinking skills development is alarmingly absent. Drop out rates are deplorably high. Yet, because most of the proposed solutions “threaten the established ways of doing things,” they are discounted immediately. I had the pleasure of teaching for a few years in an environment that wasn’t concerned with the “established ways of doing things.” It was a school that centered itself on what was best for the kids. The core value was education. Not government regulations or testing or unions or textbook adoptions – just giving kids the best education possible. One of the reasons I was drawn to Open Ed is that I saw the potential of the movement to give educators the flexibility to improve the educational experience for their students without having to rely on the whims of legislators and administrators. It’s interesting that in U.S. schools, something that is new and threatening is difficult to “sell” even if it is free. In fact, I have heard more than one ed tech director make a speech advocating the position that anything free is inherently bad. (Their Microsoft sales reps are cheering in the background.) My fondest hope is that the kids embrace the benefits of Open Ed, mass collaboration, and new technologies even if it is despite the momentum of the educational system.