At yesterday’s faculty meeting, my principal posted a question to us.
“What should today’s 3rd graders look like in the year 2020?”
This would be the year of their high school graduation. Since I teach 3rd grade, this question really made me take notice. The students I’m teaching now will be 18 in the year 2020.
So, of course with me being the ‘Techie-Geek’ teacher in my school, I piped up with my stock answer. “I’d like my students to be able to use technology to create, collaborate and communicate.” This isn’t an original answer. My Twitter friend Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) I believe has blogged about this at his blog or perhaps I heard it in one of his podcasts, Moving at the Speed of Creativity
My stock answer even made it to the White House’s blog when they asked a similar question. They asked for tweets back in March of 2010 to answer the question, “What a 21st Century Education Means to You” Here is my answer on the White House blog/ I bet they received plenty of tweets, but I secretly believe they picked mine because my avatar is so cute!
Back to the original question, I also hope that my students will be confident in their faith with a love for Jesus. That they would be knowledgeable about the Catholic Church and practicing Catholics.
What would you like to see with the graduates of 2020?
Confidence in their faith is a great goal to top the list. Of course I like CCC shills too. I’d also add empathy skills. These were emphasized by Michael Wesch at BLC 2010:http://bobsprankle.com/bitbybit_wordpress/?p=2191
Wesley, thanks for the comment and the link to a talk on empathy. That makes me think of writing a blog post on how I teach empathy in my classroom!