This past week I had the privilege of attending NJPSA conference in Long Branch, NJ. While I was able to learn and network with a lot with various administrators. The biggest takeaway I had came during Dr. Yong Zhao's keynote. During his speech, he talked about the famous song, "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer." He encouraged us all to think about how Rudolph was different, not like the other typical black nose reindeers. It was because of this he was teased, not treated the same....you know the rest.
What he then did was tied the whole Rudolph story into education. If this was a student in our schools, would he/she be classified, receive basic skills/RTI, be teased by other students, or possibly GT. This made the crowd as well as myself start to think/reflect on the current educational system. Are we allowing for our Rudolph's to show off their talents, their red noses, their passion, their skills, who knows what else? With today's demands, it might make this challenge of allowing each student to demonstrate their inner Rudolph even harder, but as educators, we have to. After all, we have all heard that saying, "This generation of students job market has yet to be created." Well, then it is up to us to all work collaboratively to allow for students to take that step towards finding their passion. When we look at the qualities of entrepreneurial's, it struck me that most of the time, these are the students who are the most creative, biggest risk-takers, have a certain uniqueness to them, show empathy, and are our outside the box thinkers.
One way I am starting to see this happen, schools are creating S.T.E.M. labs, maker spaces, different types of tech classes, and my new favorite, ED Camp style, created by Glenn Robins at Northfield Community Middle School. The best part about it is that it happens every day. YES, EVERYDAY!!! If you want to talk about bringing out each students Rudolph, take a look at this video below and see just how this style allows for all students to show off their passion. This is something that I look forward to not only going and seeing in the future but also incorporating into @rmbacon
In closing, I not only look forward to finding out how to target and allow students to show off their passion but also different ways to give them the platform to do so. What are some things that are going on in your school to engage students like this? Any thoughts??
