NBC recently announced that they are hosting a series called Education Nation taking place across all their networks the entire week of September 26. 

The project is a laudable goal, and one always holds out hope for a “real” conversation about these issues.  Yet when I looked through the speakers at the summit, I noticed to my surprise not one educator,  principal, teacher, or prominent education writer/blogger, or author was included in the summit. 

Yet you did include several reporters from your network, the CEO of Netflix, the CEO of Kellogg, the CEO of State Farm insurance, several  governors, among others–certainly not perhaps real experts on the changes that face education today on the ground level, but several of whom  are ”sponsors” for this programming.  And the only university representation out of the many fine and innovative institutions in our country is the President of the University of Phoenix (who is another sponsor.) 

  How can you hope to have this important “national conversation on education” if you are including only high profile business and political leaders and not those true change agents in education–those leading in the trenches?  

There are leaders in education who are working at the district and building level  providing national leadership, speaking at international conferences, writing books, blogging, and leading their profession in innovation and change.  Leaders like Chris Lehmann, principal of the Science Leadership Academy, teacher Marco Torres, who has done amazing work as an educator in Los Angeles’ schools,  Dan Meyer who turns math instruction on its ear in his presentation at TedxNYEd in New York, and bloggers Will Richardson and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach who have put their money where their mouths are by starting Powerful Learning Practices, a year long institute where teacher cohorts learn together to be collaborative teachers.

Teachers like Karl Fisch who helped classes at his school conduct online dialogues with renowned author Daniel Pink, or Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay mentioned in Thomas Friedman’s the World is Flat for their work on their global Flat Classroom Project, or librarians like Buffy Hamilton who is teaching her Media 21  students 21st century information skills, or one of a myriad of other teacher-leaders  are working every day in schools and telling their stories in quiet ways in schools like mine.   And that doesn’t begin to represent the thoughtful, practicing leaders in universities around the country, no matter whether their field is education or some other subject area.

It is so easy to make this story slickly-packaged and starring only business leaders and government officials and telling the same story we always hear.  But if we are ever going to get the “change we really need”, we have to start, as a nation, including and listening to our teachers.  Not in special forums scheduled on Sundays at noon(which is when you are including regular teachers in the summit), but in the actual summit itself.

I urge  NBC to add practicing teacher-leaders, administrators, and university professors to the summit’s list of leaders, so that this can be more than a group dictating to schools what school should look like, but a group of practicing educators sharing with you, with the nation and with business and government leaders their own work and hopes for our students.  

And if you were to be interested in more input on this issue, check out teacher Brian Crosby’s blog post or Tim Stahmer’s as well.

Brian Williams and NBC, show that you can do better.  This conversation is important.  Our students deserve better.

Carolyn Foote

photo credit: flickr  http://www.flickr.com/photos/76089221@N00/2171492103/

It’s been fascinating reading the excellent blog discussions that have ensued, and reading subsequent blog posts by Joyce, Buffy Hamilton and Doug Johnson, among others.

But still what resonates most with me is Doug Johnson’s question–”How can we give a voice to those who choose not to network?”   (I would perhaps take issue with the word “choose” because I do think it’s possible for someone to be somewhat unaware of all these online networks of librarians–remember that in our profession we encompass a variety of librarians–from those in tiny rural schools to those not certified and struggling to run a library program, etc.)

It’s not that I disagree that as librarians we need to be leaders, innovators, and models for our teachers–I believe we do.  Buffy makes an excellent case for that in her incredibly articulate blog post.    But like Beth, whose comment to Doug’s post led to some of this lively discussion, I wonder what we are doing to mentor other librarians, and like Beth, I worry that we are driving people out of the conversation–it is very easy to become insular, self-referential, and overly steeped in 2.0 language to the exclusion of those we would like to join us in conversation.

If you look at surveys of  internet use by Pew Internet and American Life Project and other work on internet use, early adopters total only 5-10% of the population.  Given this, clearly not all of us can be early adopters although we can be leaders.

So my question, following up on Doug’s and Beth’s is this:  What can each of us do individually to bring more librarians into these conversations who might not be there currently?

I would posit that we need to watch our language–in our enthusiasm, we can overwhelm others with all the bells and whistles and options.  And I question if that is not counterproductive to our aim.   Yes it is amazing to show what is possible, but if we don’t also show a step-by-step roadmap for getting there, then it is just so much ‘pie in the sky.’

I think a sign of leadership is also being able to break down the details in a way that they are accessible.  I liked Joyce’s attempt to do this in her article, How to Retool Yourself, (though I found a little too many options there for a beginner, to be honest)–but I really and truly applaud her leadership as always in realizing that this sort of specific post is what is needed.

I know we all do  things everyday to help our colleagues along and many of us have done that for a long time. But I think it’s important to renew our efforts to reach out to those who are interested but don’t know where to start, or who haven’t even broached the idea because they are too overwhelmed, or are not currently we think the conversations are happening.  But then again, maybe we aren’t where their conversations are happening either.

Rather than debate whether or not people “should” be somewhere, let’s help them get there by our individual and joint efforts.  That may mean we have to get out of our own sandboxes once in awhile but I think our profession will be all the better for it–we all have something to learn and we all have something to teach.   I thank Beth for her courage in raising these challenging issues.

So, my question is, what can we do?  How can we connect with humility, open arms, and understanding with our colleagues at all levels of  technology adoption?