On April 6 and 7, while at the Pathways to Partnerships Conference at the Fern Resort in Orillia, I attended two keynote addresses given by Willard Daggett, president and co-founder of the International Centre for Leadership and Education. When I heard he was American, my instinctive anti-American flags went up. (It happens when you spend so much time studying Canadian history, law and politics...) The reason why I even write this is that I figured that I would have to contextualize what was being said along the way. Surprisingly, a lot of what he said made sense. For me, the most compelling part of the presentation came in the form of the Rigor and Relevance Model (above). What I love about this is that it is learning that is anchored in real-world situations. It's contextualized learning. For me, it works. This is how I've always taught. The challenge is getting "buy in" from those who aren't doing this. In order for this model to work, there needs to be a culture that supports change and Education as a profession doesn't quite make the grade where change is concerned. Change takes place in society 4 to 5 times faster than it does in Education. Generally speaking, change - from the time of pre-implementation to implementation - takes about 5-10 years, but in Education it's 35-50. Does this bother anyone else?
In the grand scheme of things, I was just relieved to know that the work being done to develop and craft the Literacy Prism was in line with a lot of mainstream thinking. Every so often, I wonder if this framework will be seen as something new, even though it's not. I wonder if teachers will be leary to accept it because it looks a little different, even though we have been promoting these beliefs for quite some time. The Prism promotes rigor and relevance across the curriculum. I hope it will be received this way...
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