Vision for Schools: Interesting, Relevant, Real-world,Thought-provoking, Connected! #SAVMP

What is school for?  Why should students go to school? What is the purpose of education?

It is an interesting question that every educator should ask themselves.

The role of school has changed throughout time.  George Couros (#SAVMP) asked us to take a look at the following Tedx Talk video from Seth Godin.  It definitely is worth the watch.

We have gone from an Industrial model in schools to ___________?

It really seems that many classrooms still look and feel like factories.


We need school to be interesting, relevant, real-world, thought-provoking, connected!

We need school to be less lectures, less worksheets, less packets, less memorizing, less boring!

It was also interesting for me to watch this TedxTalk video: Why Kids Hate School? by Nikhil Goyal.  

How do we shift our thinking?  How do we change?

I am still looking for those answers...

Here are my thoughts so far...

The school environment should enable students to seek out facts and construct answers to questions in their curious minds. Learning is a lifelong process and students should be taught and encouraged to learn not only from their teacher, but also from their peers, their parents, their community, and from the world around them. The educational process works best when learning is connected through the roles of the student, the teacher, the parents, the school, and the community. 


Teachers and leaders should provide a safe, caring, and motivating environment to help students grow and learn both intellectually, emotionally, and collectively. Educators guide students to construct knowledge through discovery, hands-on tasks, and real-world authentic experiences. The teacher needs to provide appropriate resources, tools, time, and strategies for this discovery to be meaningful. Learning needs to have a correlation with the community and world in order for students to see the purpose and to keep hold of the new information learned. 

Teachers and leaders should be motivated to learn more, try new ideas, encourage and collaborate, and inspire students to achieve to the best of their abilities. 

I believe the role of the parent is to participate and be informed about the education of their child. This responsibility is as important as the roles of the student, teacher, and leaders. In defining participation I mean, encouraging their child to do his or her best, staying informed of events and projects that are occurring in the classroom, communicating with the teacher about their child’s progress, modeling good character in the home, showing eagerness to be a lifelong learner, and volunteering and helping out whenever possible at school and in the classroom. Without the support from home, a link in the educational process is broken. Parents need to be a part of the education of their child.

Many of you have most likely already seen this video.  I enjoy going back to it from time to time.  It makes me think some more about our current system.
There are many out there trying to help make a change for our students.  I really want to be one of them!  

We need school to be interesting, relevant, real-world, thought-provoking, connected!

We need school to be less lectures, less worksheets, less packets, less memorizing, less boring!