Viewpoint

The Key To Success In The Knowledge Economy

2009-08-08T09:34:00.001-04:00

A new teaching approach that is gaining traction across the U.S. is that of infusing teaching with 21st Century Skills learning. The idea behind this approach according to The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (PCS) is, "there is a profound gap between the knowledge and skills most students learn in school and the knowledge and skills they need in typical 21st century communities and workplaces."

For a student, knowing how one learns is critical. Peter Drucker addresses this in a must read article that appeared in the Harvard Business Review, Managing Oneself.

As noted in the article, "schools everywhere are organized on the assumption that there is only one right way to learn and that it is the same way for everybody. But to be forced to learn the way a school teaches is sheer hell for students who learn differently. Indeed, there are probably half a dozen different ways to learn." Some people learn by reading and others by listening. Some even learn by writing.

What is different about today's workplace versus those in the 20th century? As Drucker notes:

"Companies today aren't managing their knowledge workers' careers. Rather, we must each be our own chief executive officer.

Simply put, it's up to you to carve out your place in the work world and know when to change course. And it's up to you to keep yourself engaged and productive during a work life that may span some 50 years.

To do all these things well, you'll need to cultivate a deep understanding of yourself. What are your most valuable strengths and most dangerous weaknesses? Equally important, how do you learn and work with others? What are your most deeply held values? And in what type of work environment can you make the greatest contribution?

The implication is clear: Only when you operate from a combination of your strengths and self-knowledge can you achieve true - and lasting - excellence."

One important element in teaching under this new 21st Century approach is not forgetting that students still need to grasp the foundational skills of subjects.

According to PCS, "to successfully face rigorous higher education coursework, career challenges and a globally competitive workforce, U.S. schools must align classroom environments with real world environments by infusing 21st century skills."

The PCS skills set includes:

Information and communication skills (information and media literacy skills; communication skills)
Thinking and problem-solving (critical thinking and systems thinking; problem identification, formulation and solution; creativity and intellectual curiosity)
Interpersonal and self-direction skills (interpersonal and collaborative skills; self-direction; accountability and adaptability; social responsibility)
Global awareness
Financial, economic and business literacy, and developing entrepreneurial skills to enhance workplace productivity and career options
Civic literacy

Beyond 21st Century skills though, students must be able to learn in a way that is effective for them. This is a challenge for schools as they must teach to the masses. Equally important as focusing on 21st Century Skills is providing an environment where students learn how to manage themselves.

As the Drucker article concludes:

"...the shift from manual workers who do as they are told to knowledge workers who have to manage themselves profoundly challenges social structure. Every existing society, even the most individualistic one, takes two things for granted, if only subconsciously: that organizations outlive workers, and that most people stay put.

But today the opposite is true. Knowledge workers outlive organizations, and they are mobile. The need to manage oneself is therefore creating a revolution in human affairs."

Source:

Managing Oneself (PDF)
Harvard Business Review
By: Peter F. Drucker
January 2005
http://academy.clevelandclinic.org/Portals/40/managingoneself.pdf

Math Magic

2009-06-30T07:08:00.004-04:00

In the below video, Arthur Benjamin demonstrates his skill in mental math calculations. The key is learning algorithms that can be applied to certain types of math problems. The ability to do these calculations mentally can be time saving for students taking SAT and/or ACT exams. For K-12 students, knowing the basic math algorithms is still a must though.

In another video by Benjamin he briefly explains why statistics is the most important math class for individuals and not calculus.

Lastly, if one is interested in learning how to use some of these calculation tricks, Benjamin has written a book, Secrets of Mental Math, that may be of interest.

H/T: Simoleon Sense

A Reason To Stay In School

2009-02-07T13:09:00.001-05:00

Fortunately, economic recessions do not occur on a frequent basis. However, when the economy does hit a recessionary patch, unemployment is sure to rise and this recession is no different. As the below chart details, those hit the hardest by unemployment are individuals who do not have a college degree (bachelor's degree or higher). It pays to stay in school.

(click to enlarge)

Source: EconompicData

Parents Can Do Their Part To Fix Education

2008-09-07T14:53:00.002-04:00

Across the country, our public school systems face many challenges. A recent Wall Street Journal article titled, Raising the Bar: How Parents Can Fix Education, summed up the view many have on our school systems in this way:

"Indifferent bureaucracy, change-averse unions, faddish curricula, soaring school taxes matched with mediocre student performance -- the list is long and seemingly unchanging."

Fortunately, in Madeira, we tend to turn out well educated students that are prepared to face the challenges of college and/or enter the workforce. This is not to say we, as parents, can't do more to improve the educational opportunities for our kids. The article cites recent research that indicates a parent's expectation of their children in regards to their learning is a predictor of the success those particular individuals have in school. Michigan's Department of Education notes,

"Parents of high-achieving students set higher standards for their children's educational activities."

So what is it parents can do?

"All you have to do is to start insisting that your children fully apply themselves to their studies -- and commit yourself to doing your part. That means making sure they do all the work expected of them as well as their abilities allow. It also means making sure everything at home stands behind these principles and supports the idea of learning.

These will sound like obvious ideas. In fact, given all the distractions of modern life, it is a radical departure from the normal order of things. Let's face it: More than budgets or bureaucrats, more than textbooks or teachers, parents are the reason that kids perform as they do in school."

Reader comments to the article were printed in the Journal's Saturday edition under the title, Don't Just Blame Teachers; Parents Are Educators Too, and they are worth reading as well.

Source:

Raising The Bar: How Parents Can Fix Education
The Wall Street Journal
By: Daniel Akst
August 29, 2008
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121996426389881371.html

Don't Just Blame Teachers; Parents Are Educators Too
The Wall Street Journal
September 6, 2008
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122066167629205911.html

The Governor's Conversation On Education

2008-08-02T20:05:00.004-04:00

Governor Strickland is visiting 12-cities across the State of Ohio in order to outline his thoughts on reforming Ohio's education system. The 12-city Conversation on Education forum was held in Cincinnati on July 28th. He is using these "conversations" to solicit input from the public and local educators.

A replay of the Cincinnati forum can be seen at the following video link.

The website video link is located at the Conversation on Education website.

The six principles he outlined at the beginning of the forum are:

Strengthen our commitment to public education.
World-class schools that produce a talented, competitive workforce.
Building on the strengths of our current education system.
Recruiting and retaining skilled teachers.
Develop a personalized education for each student.
Using testing and assessment to guide an individualized education and understand student's capabilities.

A second round of education forums will be held later in the fall of 2008 that will focus on how to properly finance a truly reformed system of education. The governor plans to introduce his education reform proposal in 2009.

I believe there are some good aspects to the above six principles as he calls them. The key will be the finer details that are included under each of the principles.

All Day Kindergarten Funding Update

2008-01-27T13:50:00.000-05:00

On November 14, 2007, the governor for the state of Ohio signed House Bill (HB ) 190. A part of the bill allows school districts in Ohio that are not eligible for poverty-based assistance funding for all day kindergarten to charge tuition for these all day kindergarten programs on a sliding scale basis. The sliding scale is to be based on ones family income level. The bill requires the Ohio Department of Education to issue an annual tuition report detailing the tuition charged by districts for all day kindergarten.

Source:
Legislative Lowdown
The Ohio School Board Association
http://www.osba-ohio.org/htmlemail/LVS_LL_010408.htm

Madeira Athletics: Fall Sports Highlights

2007-11-04T10:06:00.000-05:00

Madeira's strong academic results have spilled over into the athletic program during this fall season. It seems to me there is a direct correlation between an individual's or team's desire to excel in the classroom as well as on the athletic field.

On October 12th & 13th, Brooke Van Skaik carded a two day total 166 in the girl's state golf championship. This was good enough to place Brooke tied for 27th overall.

On October 27th, the Boy's Varsity soccer team won the District title by beating Sidney Lehman Catholic 4-3 in the first overtime period. The soccer team went on to play Springfield Catholic in the Regional Semifinals on October 30th. The team's tournament run, however, ended on this night with SCC coming out on top in a 5 -0 match.

Junior Lauren Dehan finished 35th in the girl's state cross country championship on November 3rd. Lauren finished with a time of 19:43.19.

The Girls Varsity soccer team beat Indian Hill in the Region Finals 1-0. Leslie Shaw lobbed a shot over Indian Hill's goalie with less than 10 minutes remaining in the second period of the match to secure the win.

Madeira School District Takes Proactive Steps On MRSA

2007-10-25T09:58:00.000-04:00

Throughout the country and Ohio, MRSA (Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus), a form of staph infection, has been on the rise. Madeira schools have not reported any MSRA cases, but the school is being proactive in dealing with this situation. The school is sending information to parents of students that outlines steps that are being taken within the schools to prevent an outbreak of MRSA.

Families can help prevent the spread of MRSA by following good hygiene practices:

Wash hands thoroughly with soap and water or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
Keep cuts and scrapes clean and covered with a bandage until healed.
Avoid contact with other people’s wounds and bandages.
Avoid sharing personal items such as towels and razors.
Disinfect surfaces of exercise equipment before and after use.

The symptoms of MRSA depend on where the infection occurs. Common signs of a skin infection include redness, warmth, swelling and tenderness. Often a MRSA infection will look like a spider bite, boil, abscess or pimple. If left untreated, it could progress into a more serious illness. If one suspects they have a staph type infection, they should seek medical treatment as soon as possible.

In outbreak situations, the environment has not played a significant role in the transmission of MRSA. Studies in health care and community settings show skin-to-skin contact, direct contact with the infected wound drainage or contact with contaminated surfaces or things such as sports equipment as the likely source of transmission. MRSA skin infections are not spread through the air.

Additional information on MRSA can be found at the Ohio Department of Heath's website.

Funding Of All Day Kindergarten Up In The Air

2007-10-05T17:38:00.000-04:00

Last month Ohio Attorney General, Marc Dan, said public school districts can't require parents of kindergarteners to pay for all-day schooling. If this decision were upheld by an Ohio court, it could have a deep impact on budgets for school systems around the state.

Currently at issue is the state requires schools to offer only a half day of kindergarten. It is this half day the state considers when basing funding decisions for school districts. As a result many of the school districts around the state charge parents of full time kindergarten students for the other half day. The state does providing all day kindergarten funding for the 122 low wealth districts that qualify for this type of funding assistance.

In the state, 448 out of 613 districts offer some sort of an all day kindergarten program.

Additional costs are incurred by districts offering an all day kindergarten program one of which is paying the salary and benefits for the additional teacher(s). Based on the facts I know today, if state funding is not provided for all day kindergarten, a district should be able to charge an additional fee to cover the expenses incurred in this additional enrichment.

One district in the state does not offer a half day option per se, but an all day program every other day. This reduces the expense incurred by busing children home in the middle of the day. Certainly, other options may need to be explored, such as basing the fee on a sliding income basis.

Ohio Department of Education officials have met with state Sen. Steve Stivers (R., Columbus) regarding a bill that would allow districts that don't receive federal poverty-based funding for all-day kindergarten programs to charge tuition on a sliding scale basis. Districts will have to see how quickly the legislature responds to this issue.

This seems like another chink in the school funding armor.

Source:
Districts On Edge Over Kindergarten Ruling
The Blade
By: Ignazio Messina
September 30, 2007
http://www.redorbit.com/news/education/1084099/
districts_on_edge_over_kindergarten_ruling/index.html

Quality Schools Attract Quality Educators

2007-09-19T11:37:00.000-04:00

I had the opportunity to attend the Ohio School Boards Association (OSBA) new candidate workshop Monday evening. The OSBA is a not for profit organization that represents the state’s school board members. The focus of the workshop was to provide school board candidates with information surrounding ones role as a candidate and a potential school board member. A number of topics were covered centering on ethics, the sunshine law and information on running an election campaign. The workshop is a worthwhile one for potential school board members.

During the meeting I had the opportunity to talk with individuals running for school board positions in other districts. In the meeting I sat next to an individual from a school district that lost one of their personnel to our school district. One of the first comments from this individual was “you got a good one” in hiring this specific person.

I believe a large part of our district’s ability to attract individuals like the one noted above is due to the high quality educational reputation the Madeira schools are known for. The high quality reputation of our schools has been developed over many years and it is important we maintain it into the future.

Online Community Offering Free and Open Collaboration For Teachers

2007-09-16T16:45:00.000-04:00

Over time I will provide information on educational resources (mostly free) that are available on line. One I ran across recently is known as Curriki. According to eSchool News online, the site is the Wikipedi of curriculum. eSchool News notes Curriki is:

A new online community...that promises to give educators around the world an opportunity to collaborate and share curricula in hopes of expanding the educational options available to schools. Called Curriki, the resource pairs the benefits of social networking with the freedom of open technologies to create an organic, constantly evolving online repository of free resources for teachers and students.

My View On The Ohio Education Funding Amendment

2007-09-10T23:08:00.000-04:00

This year an effort was made to place an amendment to Ohio's Constitution on the November 6, 2007 ballot. Proponents of the Ohio Education Funding Amendment indicate the amendment would have been a step towards resolving Ohio's school funding issues. In the end, sufficient signatures were not obtained on petitions; therefore, the amendment will not be on the ballot this year.

I agree a solution needs to be developed that addresses school funding in Ohio. I believe amending the Ohio Constitution is not one of the paths to pursue though. School funding is an issue best addressed by our state legislature. If voters are not satisfied with our elected representatives handling of this issue, voters have the opportunity to vote their representatives out of office at the next election. If school funding is addressed via a change in the Constitution, as outlined in the current amendment, we restrict our ability to change the amendment in the future.

Secondly, the amendment does not address from where the state will raise the necessary dollars to pay for the cost to fund the spending detailed in the amendment. The state will have two choices:

they can cut other state services, or
they can raise state taxes.

My guess is the state would choose to raise state taxes. According to the non-partisan tax foundation, Ohio already has the second worse climate in the country vis-à-vis business taxes and in a report released earlier this year, Ohio now has the 5th highest state and local tax bite in the country, up from 7th a year ago and 10th in 2005.

Lastly, the allocation of funds, as proposed in the amendment, is turned over to the state board of education. While I dislike the levy process, it does offer local taxpayers a measure of accountability and control. Every few years, we must justify our expenditures to the local community.

A solution needs to be crafted to resolve school funding issues in Ohio. The possibility exists that the Ohio Education Funding Amendment, or some similar form, could appear on the ballot in an election in 2008. In my view, the type of amendment that has been proposed is not a good solution for taxpayers or our school district.

Communication

2007-09-09T21:12:00.000-04:00

The purpose of this blog is to expand on the form of communication to parents, educators and the Madeira community. In the technological world we live in today, the way we get our information has expanded beyond simply reading the newspaper. Baby boomers get a great deal of their information by surfing the internet. A main form of communication for baby boomers is email versus writing letters.

For the school age generation, the main form of communication is instant messaging, cell phone text messaging, myspace and facebook. Surprisingly, the school aged population does not view email as their first line of communication. If I send an email to one of my kids, they warn me that I must tell them to check their email because they do not check email on a regular basis. Email is not the "in" form of communication for them.

In the end, my goal is to use this site as a way of communicating about issues that might be of interest to parents, educators and the Madeira community at large. This is an open forum so do not hesitate to contact me if there are specific topics you want me to address.