Calling for Innovation!!!

Sir Ken Robinson speaks about the disconnect between the education system in the United States and participants (meaning teachers and students), this disconnect leasds to a lack interest in school. He cites that 60% of young people in the United States drop out of highschool and the statistic growns to 80% when looking at just young people in Native American commnities. Robinson spoke to how "education" can be happening even though learning is not, however, in order for learning to happen the student needs to be open and engaged in the intruction and activities. He speaks to increased diagnosises under the umbrella of attention defficet disorder (he does highlight that it is a valid diagnosis) and how it is not targeting the real cause. He jokingly refered to the mondain tasks students are expected to completed repetetively, "don't be suprised if they start to fidget". Although I do believe that ADHD is valid and I have seen the benefit of a diagnosis repeatedly, I do agree that schools are not structured to support the young people around them, including engaging their entire being. Schools are places for conformatity and assimilation and not to foster the individual - as they should be. Robinson also refers to "No chcild left behind" when speaking to how school our government, and systems, enable the continuous othering of people of color. He stated "Kids prosper best with a broad curriculum that celebrate their various talents." , and I couldn't agree more. Adrienne Maree Brown wrote the book Emergent Strategies (I found the whole book??Win.)and one of the principles around academic spaces is to "be like water" which means to be flexible and allow room foryoung people to live in their full authentic selves. Education should be about building up the being instead of molding parts of them. This idea that Pensky brings up around young people being asked to "powering down" when entering the classroom or other academic spaces.Like we were talking abuot in class today are we using technology in engaging inovative ways knowing the kids in front of us are "Digital Natives? I am at the end of the Milenial generation and my experience with technology was intermidate and basic because of acess but also lack of innovation. I noticed this past year that I definitely had that lack of innovation in my own classroom assigning my young people the same "typing to publish" tasks on their chromebooks. This is what we had to work with

In reflecting with my young people, just my common practice, I came to the realization that their access to technology was just through their smart phones and sometimes a gaming system, and their comfortability with chromebooks was very low. On top of their cellphones being a major part of their life they also have been a major part of their education for the better part of the year, whether that was keeping in touch with their people or texting/communicating their teacher. I found myself relaxing on my " you better leave that phone in your bag" policies in favor for some agreed upon norms for our phones in the classroom. Boyd also suggests our mindset around technology and how we view young people around technology needs to shift. In chapter seven they talk about how the education system assumes young people will obtain the technology outside of the classroom. Boyd argues that youth need to understand how to engage with technology and the internet critically. He said when educators make these assumptions we absolve ourself of our responisibility.