Building Understanding

Welcome.

I have been writing (on and off) online for just a couple years now at the site Thinking Allowed, but have finally made the leap into owning a domain and controlling my own stuff.  I feel like  a renter who’s bought his first home.  Exciting, but more pressure.

But it’s finally time.

I’ve changed the blog name as part of the move as a by-product of some thoughts I am sorting through myself.  In education, we are shifting our thinking to accomodate include learning in a globally connected and rapidly changing world.  But we know good learners do more than communicate, collaborate, and think.  We know learners need to understand.  They need to construct meaning and understand scientific principles, literature, art, etc.  But that’s not all.  They also need to Be Understanding.

At a conference I recently attended, Project Zero’s Ron Ritchhart asked this question:

What do we want the children we teach to be like when they are adults?

Overwhelmingly, responses to this speak to dispositions like ethics, independent learning, caring, creativity, and such.  Yet in schools we often focus on creating technical experts in history, math, science and more with little connection to how these students will live their lives.  Are we actively striving to produce these types of adults or does it happen by chance?

Do schools build learners we value by happenstance or intent?

Are we building understanding in our learners?  In our teachers?  It has become a focus for me to ensure that we are, both in their content learning and more altruistically in the way they interact with their community and their world.  Additionally, I still have so much to learn and come to understand as I try to improve school education for learners in a Flat World from my current role as a Technology and Learning Coordinator or in my future (hopefully) role as a school leader.

So “Building Understanding” it is.  For our students.  For teachers and administrators.  For content.  For the whole child.

I’m also building understanding for me.  So much to learn and so many people to learn from.  I hope you join me in this effort and the conversation to come.

images found searching Flickr Creative Commons:  Worn Old Welcome Mat by Jason-Morrison, I Understand Everything (mostly) by gak