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 Full-Day Seminar (9:00 A.M. - 4:00 P.M.) - Cost: $105.00
PC-B01 Overcoming the Fear of Change: Building a Sustainable Future
John Gould, Drexel University
Target Audience: All
Presentation Strands: Policy/Planning/Funding, Professional Development/Teacher Preparation, Standards/NCLB Technology and Ethics. Technology Directions/Trends: Issues, Innovations, and Research, Technology Leadership
Session Level: All
Allaying the fear of change is a critical leadership skill for your technology environs and
other reforms to become sustainable! The focus of this interactive workshop is to develop the skills necessary to understand how to overcome the fear to change, how to change perceptions of learning, envision new curricular models, and develop a shared commitment to creating sustainable learning environments for the 21st Century.
Background rationale for the workshop: Given the changes happening in technology, medicine, social interactions, the environment, and the international scene, what kind of world might our students face? You are a creative educator who has been able to use technology, district resources and other initiatives in imaginative ways to engage students and impact student achievement. But the fact is that, for most educators, truly infusing technology into daily instruction is still a difficult goal— even for motivated, talented teachers who really want to use technology to teach core subjects. So the central question we will explore ask: can our present model for schools create a sustainable future for our children in a time when innovation and creativity are essential for the twenty-first century. Educators and students are living in a transitional period. It may take another decade to
sort out these issues.
The essential question of this presentation: "What are educators to do in order to survive and thrive during this transitional period?
Overcoming the Fear:
What do you think about the following statements?
  • Children are deficient and schools fix them.
  • Learning takes place in the head, not in the body as a whole.
  • Everyone learns, or should learn, in the same way.
  • Learning takes place in the classroom, not in the world.
  • There are smart kids and dumb kids.
  • Strong economic growth and increased competitiveness in global markets depends upon a highly skilled workforce.
  • Higher test scores in school means better performance later in college or at the work place.
  • Specialists, who maintain control, run schools.
  • Knowledge is inherently fragmented.
  • Learning is individualistic and competition accelerates it.

These statements are some of the fundamental assumptions that underpin our schools today. They create a powerful cultural “mind-set” that repeats the structures and routines for schools as they prepare students to deal with global unpredictability and unprecedented change. They block meaning change to take place within out schools. They keep the discussions surrounding school reform and the integration of technology focused upon making the present system more “rigorous” in order to prepare our students for the future. This “mind-set” us keep reinforcing the old model by making the “new” fit the “old!” The outcome: our children are not prepared for their future. What principles would underlie schools that “shift” from the above assumptions that have underpinned the “industrial” model of schooling? Primarily, it would be situated in the ideas found in both systems thinking and living systems.
Getting your staff to explore all of these assumptions is the key to overcoming the fear of
change!