Change. What a scary word for most of us including and especially within the educational system. The educational system has fought change for a long time as they have been set in their ways. Todays youth is not the same as it was 30 years ago, yet there are still educators today who taught 30 years ago. When one has become comfortable with a certain way of teaching they find it hard to change and adapt. Combine this unwillingness to change with a different faster paced teenager that requires different modalities to learn the only result that can happen is POOR. Teachers become angry, students become frustrated, parents become accusatory, and test scores decline. For such a hated thing CHANGE has become the only thing that will save our children.
By providing an incentive for adaption such as a grant we are encouraging more thought-provoking ideas and activities in the classroom. We are encouraging teachers, administrators, districts, and even students to take a risk on learning. Understandably this risk could prove to be non-beneficial but you can’t make that decision if the risk is never taken. Districts are in such desperate need of financial help that even the smallest of grants could encourage a teacher, a classroom, or the entire district to try something new. The worst that could happen would be it didn’t work but the great thing ever could happen – a student could learn something fabulous!
Now, I understand as an educator that ultimately it is my job/duty to try innovative new things to help my students learn. Unfortunately, I am one of the rare few who believe this way. From an educational standpoint many colleges and universities are heading this forefront of change and teaching new educators the importance of doing different things within the classroom. We as educators however hit a wall when we encounter the select few administrators, districts, colleagues and even parents that have been set in their ways for so long that trying anything different would be a catastrophe. (Not all educators who have been doing this for a long time are this way.) It is these people who need that additional incentive to try something new.
Most people in general are reward based individuals. We teach our children at a young age that they are rewarded for good behavior and proper choices. We give our children candy when they learn to pee on the potty, we give them an additional snack when they clear all the green beans from their plate, we reward high school graduates for all their hard work with scholarships for higher education, etc. Maybe it’s time we reward our educators and provide that incentive for trying something new. The worst thing that could happen is we wouldn’t be successful, but we would try again.
