This conference day in Dubai was one of the best. Mr. Andreas Schleicher spoke with us about how teachers are not treated equally among other professions. Teachers make less money that other professions and are not respected, but they are just as important as doctors. Imagine this, if teachers stopped teaching then the world would be plain dumb. The same goes for doctors; if they stop caring then people will start dying. Teachers around the world feel as though they are not important and do not make a difference. The truth is that teachers do matter, the reason we have so many great people in the world is because someone taught them to be like that.
Andreas Schleicher's Speech: State of Education in the World Today
[callout]I'm continuing to run reports from my students who attended the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai. #GESF is also where the global Teacher Prize was awarded. It was a fantastic event, and I hope you'll continue to encourage my students with your questions and comments as they share their perspectives on the conference and the state of education today. — Vicki Davis[/callout]
Interviewing Educators: If You Could Fix One Problem in Schools
I then went to talk with two exciting people Mrs. Julie Mercer and Ms. Jiaojiao Li. These are two amazing people in the field of education. Mrs. Julie Mercer is Deloitteโs Global Industry Lead for Education. She is passionate about her work and likes to help drive innovation in education. Ms. Jiaojiao Li is another prestigious woman. She leads the New Vision for the Education project at the World Economic Forum to shape the future curriculum for the greater good.
I asked both of these women one question.
If you could fix one problem in schools today what would it be?
Mrs. Mercer answered,
โI would wish for all schools to be local and efficientโ
Ms. Li answered,
โI cannot choose only one, because many problems need to be fixed as wellโ.
I understand both sides. Mrs. Mercer was thinking in terms of a temporary solution, and she let us ask the question and she answered, but Ms. Li was thinking deeply and asked questions back while answering. If asked this question, I would do the same exact thing Mrs. Mercer did. I can tend to be rash in my thinking; I do things on the spot. In my opinion, this is the type of learning we do not want to teach. We want to teach kids to ask questions and think deeply before they answer. In college, this is how most professors want us to act. Unless we get a boring teacher, and he or she lectures us the whole time which will teach us nothing.
Where is the Money? Financing Education
Then, I went to a panel, and Junior Plenary session called โWhere is the money? Financing educationโ. Two major highlights of this session are how to fill funding gaps and corruption. To fill a funding gap, you can either take the money from somewhere else in the budget or get money from someone else. Corruption was another major concept in the session. Corruption is human natural when people sin itโs never good. Corruption can be a major setback to education if it happens. At
Corruption was another major concept in the session. Corruption is human natural when people sin itโs never good. Corruption can be a major setback to education if it happens. At end the day, I went to the Global Teacher Prize Award Ceremony. This ceremony was a prestigious ceremony, because they named one teacher best in the world and gave her one million dollars. The ceremony was great and the winner, Nancie Atwell, deserved that award for her dedication and hard work as a teacher. This first day was truly a great learning experience.
[callout]For those of you who teach blogging, you can take a look at my book Reinventing Writing, but let me point out a couple of important things Jason has done in this post. The use of hyperlinks is important. Also, embedding video if it is available. Finally, using more paragraphs and having whitespace is something you have in blogs more than in papers.[/callout]
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2 comments
This article is pretty interesting. Their are a couple of things that I thought about when reading it. It says that teachers feel that they don’t make a difference. I feel that when you are teaching someone the right way, (e.i. to do the right thing) you are helping to change the world.
I congratulate the teacher that won the award. I kind of disagree with it. If their is a person that is the best teacher in the world, shouldn’t all students be taught by that teacher? Have all the teachers in the world been assessed? My thoughts may be too far fetched. I know that I’m not there yet, but these were some of the things I thought about when I read this article.
I think that it is a tough one. Can you have a best anything? It will always be subjective. However, the one thing this does is elevate the position of teachers in the world. Sadly, some people only listen to money. By elevating the status of teachers, we help more see the nobility of our profession. And it isn’t possible to have one teacher teach everyone – not really but we can be inspired by her. Those are my thoughts and thank you for sharing Antoinetta.