Engaged Learning

"Everything is fine"
"It is working well"
"There aren't any problems"

Too often these are masks for "No one is complaining." In fact, they are answers to the wrong question. The real question is not, "What's wrong," but instead, "What could be better?"

This could be a symptom of having too many things to do and not enough time to do them all. Many of us (emphasizing the ME in us) are guilty of this. But we can fall in the trap of judging urgent issues not upon actual current and future needs, but instead upon who is complaining and how loudly they can complain. The squeaky wheel.

So, when people say, "How can we improve education" the response might be judged off of our decibel level. I don't agree with this method, but it, to a large part, is a reality. There are much better ways to take care of things than from yelling.

Public educators may say, "We need smaller class sizes." Not necessarily. Smaller class sizes might help, but it won't solve the real problem. Why do they want smaller class sizes? So they can give more individual attention to the children. What if that can be done in a different way? Well, it would be easier to get smaller classes than overhaul the teaching methods. Neither of them are getting done, so which is more effective?

We know we need to engage and individualize more. Can we do that without without a ton of resistance? How loudly will people yell until we change? Do we have to hear yelling before we change? Can we just do it because it is better than the current model?