About Schools and Hospitals

During one of my readings I came across a metaphor between schools and hospitals, it said something like this:

" If someone would ask you to have surgery in a 19th century type of hospital you would start running, so why do we let our kids study in a 21st century type of school?"

I think we should start to run, run far away from this type of institutions. With this I am not saying that technology is the solution to all our problems, actually the way that is being used in some of the centers is invading teachers' comfort levels in ways that are affecting their efficacy delivering content. This is not good, not good.

So, how do we have 21st century schools, keep current teachers, and have our students happy and learning? Some of my own tips:

-Start slow with an adventurous group of teachers not afraid of new technologies, or new pedagogical approaches, or...

-Train, train, train. Knowing the tools that are supposed to be used increases teachers confidence enormously. Let them experiment in an empty classroom, let then try new approaches as a team. No-pressure environments work for teachers too!

- Look for advice, copy, adapt other school's ideas that are working, don´t be afraid of saying: We are doing this wrong, we are ready to explore and change.

Social and cultural capital

Have you ever thought about your social capital? It is something that I have been thinking about lately, and its definition could be something like:

           "Social resources based on social relationships that one can draw upon to facilitate action and to achieve goals" (Coleman, 1990 p.302)

Great idea! And someone was already thinking about it in 1990, quite a visionary I should say. Nowadays that everybody is connected to friends, coworkers and acquaintances through Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and even Bananity (check it out if you are not familiar! idea d'un català!) should´t we have a network of "significant ones" not in a relationship type of significancy but in a way that connects us with people that complement our knowledge in some sort of way?

Lets say that I have learned a lot from a coworker or a former employer in any special way, because of his/her management skills, sense of humor, resources, creativity etc., and lets say that because of this interaction I am a better person/professional that I was before, then I should highlight this special connection in my little and very personal web of knowledge don´t you think?

Therefore, this is a formal and very serious proposal to anyone out there up to the challenge of helping me to crate a meaningful social new web aimed to highlight our own personal Yodas, (I already have a few in mind!).