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Unprepared for What We Learned: Six Action Research Exercises that Challenge the Ends We Imagine for Education explores how twentieth century models of education are not delivering on their promises, or helping to deliver the promise of the next generation. We hear that our students are not prepared, and that our teachers must not be prepared to teach those students. Managing preparation has become an obsession for policy-makers who claim that national competitiveness is at stake. After more than one hundred years everything is well managed, yet no one is prepared.
This preparatory mindset presumes that learners must be prepared before they can participate in society, and that this preparation must be managed intentionally using models, an implementation plan, and a system for assessing and evaluating the impact of those models. It's biggest failing is that those with the greatest stake, our young and adult learners, no longer recognize it as an effective model. Empowered by digital technologies, learners today are no longer willing to wait to be prepared. We seek experiences for which we are unprepared for what we'll learn.
Unprepared for What We Learned: Six Action Research Exercises that Challenge the Ends We Imagine for Education shares six exercises drawn from students, teachers, and school communities wrestling with problems of practice for which they were unprepared. Readers will question standards, outcomes, and global competencies; negotiate personalized learning; and ultimately co-create innovative school communities that disrupt the preparatory mindset. Together, these young and adult learners participating in the authentic work of their school communities will challenge the ends we imagine for education.
List of contents
Preface - Introduction: Are We Prepared? - Begin Where You Are! - The Problems with a Preparatory Mindset - Questioning Standards, Outcomes, and Competencies - Exercise 1: Learner Questions - Exercise 2: Community Questions - Negotiating Personal(-ized) Learning - Exercise 3: Personal Negotiations Toward Better Outcomes - Exercise 4: Pedagogical Negotiations - Co-Creating School Communities - Exercise 5: Co-Creating Standards for a School Community - Exercise 6: Challenging Identities - Reflection: Is Your School Community Open for Negotiation?.
About the author
Dr. Tim Kubik graduated Yale University and taught in Liberia before earning Joint Ph.D. in History & Theory from The Johns Hopkins University. He has designed and taught courses from elementary to post-graduate levels as a teacher and as a consultant for the AS/ISSN, BIE, WLS, and Project ARC across 19 states and six countries.
Summary
Unprepared for What We Learned: Six Action Research Exercises that Challenge the Ends We Imagine for Education explores how twentieth century models of education are not delivering on their promises, or helping to deliver the promise of the next generation.
Report
"Educators rarely realize that the answers to their challenges are often inside their own building. Rarely do we give ourselves the permission to do so. The richest, most sustainable solutions I have experienced in schools have come from the experts inside them. This book provides the opportunity to look inside for answers."-Tori Stephens-Shauger, Executive Director and Principal, ACE Leadership High School
