A Washington State's Dream Team Storytelling Visit

This morning I am thinking about yesterday's great experience, a visit to one of deputy public school superintendent Erin Jone's wonderful Dream Team meetings down in Tacoma, held in a room provided by community-committed Evergreen State College, under the great leadership of Dr. Artie Young...and it all felt just like one big global family... though some newer immigrant community stakeholders were still not a part of this...something they all needed to do further work on.  When I got there, all the folks in the room were already buzzing about their passion for making public schools better for all children, not just for some...and in their own special deeply personal, committed way.

The failure of public school systems to provide a quality education is a huge issue that's been festering for a long, long time, like a huge fire-breathing dragon now terrorizing urban, suburban, and rural countrysides and now more lethal than ever, fueled by the economic crisis and budgetary shortfalls. It feels like the government in its anxiety to cut cost... has all gone mad ...even to the point of stepping on the rights of voters to elect and trust in their own elected official Superintendent of Public Instruction  Randy Dorn. They are talking about putting public instruction under the governor up to cut costs and help shore up a huge budget deficit, which is their short-term fiscal objective. 

The longer term issue ...and objective.. however has to do with improving economic competitiveness, so that Washington State and the U.S. can compete more favorably in a now global marketplace and a now 21st century world.. Talking about this now has to be more than mere lip service. Think about it. e.g. if we can all make more money, then government can enjoy a bigger tax base, but this is not going to happen if fixing public education is not invested in NOW and our students can't compete for jobs that demand a college or technical school education. Education has gotten so bad in this state...and around the country... that even the Army won't take people who can't read and write and do basic math.

So that's at least the beginning of the story....but how will it all play out, and what can we do now in a 21st century world that could help us all slay the dragon? When I was there visiting, I suggested several things... one of which was to leverage the power of the new television for educational innovation so that we can get to the happy ending....and wow did folks in the room pick up on that idea.  There was also some excellent global communications that went on communicating with an online math tudoring services provider...with the presenter "virtually present"... all the way in India....bringing home the point I was trying to make earlier that morning about the value of "virtualizing" physical world meetings. (Step One.)

Now after experiencing the goodwill and brilliance of all these folks, my own feeling is that our own creativity, our own innovation, our own humanity and our own bravery are the only thing left that can  save us now...but after experiencing these folks doing their thing...its really the only thing we really need to drive more support for fresh new directions in education. We just need to get the word out about the fine work they are already doing..and what I do with affordable technology can help do that.

Re-thinking education... and using affordable television and web conferencing... is just part of my strategy for Walking Through The Virtual Door ...See my NWC Overview on YouTube for more details...about what "The Walk" entails...and let's connect if you have some of your own innovative ideas about how to slay the dragon. 425-780-6872.

Waiting for Superman: Thoughts, Feelings and Next to Dos

I am blogging this morning, full of thoughts, feelings and next dos,  after watching and experiencing the film Waiting for Superman last night...with thousands of other people across the U.S. and across the world. Retrospectively, the film is a powerful statement about across-the-board failure of the nation's public education system and how most schools and school systems, urban, and suburban doom the majority of their students to academic failure and lack of opportunity. I and the entire audience were brought to tears, especially, when we had to experience parents and their children's hopes and dreams crushed by school lottery systems with only a few "lucky" winners able to get into better educational programs.

Before that however, the film did a good job of providing an excellent overview and insight on the difference a good teacher versus a bad teacher can make.  The teacher unions "brand" also did not fare too well because the film showed how teacher's unions and tenure system policy and contracts have tended to guarantee job security and a paycheck, even though some teachers aren't even doing their job. Some amazing "undercover" footage is included in the film that I am sure makes teacher's union officials cringe. Charter schools  presented in such a glowing, contrasting way, by focusing on some of the nation's best, will get public school systems and teacher's unions thinking about how to re-position themselves policy-wise and contract-wise.

So after all is said and felt about the film, what is there to be done about the situation? What I am walking away with is how powerful and effective good media can be used to facilitate broad-based social change starting with what's going on...right here in our own communities and state....and we can produce some of this media ourselves. I do media.. so I intend to outreach to the organization who paid for the screening, Stand for Children about doing some post-viewing grassroots television for them that can facilitate even more positive social movement.

What made me really feel good, is that I had already been to a grassroots community meeting earlier this week where powerful regional leadership was already in place and where action agendas were already being laid out. One stakeholder even had handout sheets on what each stakeholder: parent, teacher, student, principal, superintendent, concerned citizen could do to fix education... after the film Waiting for Superman.. has come and gone.

Wow, how hopeful I am, even after being brought to tears by this excellent film that most likely will be too overwhelming for many. Others may only just get angry, just putting out more negative energy. The point, however, was that we all need to come together to fix education for all of us.

Call me and let's connect about facilitating positive educational change.. and not "waiting for superman" in order to have that happen. What's really new is that we can now create our own grassroots, community-based learning channel to further educate learning stakeholders and we don't need a huge film budget to do it... See my New World Television Channel page and What is GoogleTV? for more info.  425-780-6872