What are we currently doing in our schools that will affect—negatively or positively—the future?
The ASCD Whole Child Symposium addressed what the "schools of the future" will look like and how the decisions we make today will shape what and how students learn tomorrow. Over the course of three events, we asked thought leaders, authors, practitioners, and students what they think currently works in education, what we need in the future to be successful, and how this can be accomplished.
CHOICE
Choice was central to the discussion at the Whole Child Symposium Town Hall and Live events. The town hall talked about ways to promote and advance student voice and choice and the live event discussion evolved to ask whether policy impedes or assures choice. No one was clearer on this point than University of Oregon professor and author of Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization Yong Zhao who believes that any choice weighed down by mandatory policy isn't true choice:
"By imposing upon our students, our parents, our school leaders, a different way of accountability, we are also confining our people's possibility to choose. So there's nothing for you to choose—basically this is like a Hobson's Choice, right: you can pick any horse as long as it's the one I give you."Choice Versus Policy? — Whole Child Education:
6-10-14 The Whole Child Blog — Planning Engaging Lessons Using Children's Literature — Whole Child Education
Planning Engaging Lessons Using Children's Literature — Whole Child Education: THE WHOLE CHILD BLOGPlanning Engaging Lessons Using Children’s LiteratureJune 10, 2014 by Tisha ShipleyIn a world of test-driven instruction, teachers are still expected to have effective teaching strategies and teach children to love reading. It is very important that we as professionals take a look at how we introduce