One of my first assignments in higher education was putting in rank order 350 applications for 10 doctoral study research fellowships in the then top ranked college of education in the U.S. I sorted these applications while also completing my dissertation research about how people “really” earn their doctorates. These two activities left me with several lessons that continue to guide my thinking about education and schooling, Others use similar guidelines developed from different sources.
In that spirit, I search blogs almost daily trying to identify people who appear likely to rank high in such competition. As in such selections previously, “open competition” to enter top tier doctoral level research study in education exists in appearance more than in fact even today.
I look for people who give priority to learning and calculated risk-taking; a record of independent, open intellectual curiosity with a slight edge without political axes; previous recognition for accomplishing something extraordinary through discipline and talent; and a willingness to submit to learning from those who in fact know more as an aggregate than they do. These people know how to go their own way productively as did those who created the industrialized world from subsistence and agrarian settings.
I’ve met a few such classroom teachers on the Internet. People with teaching as second or third careers more likely fit these criteria as do program and product developers in high tech businesses.
Of the perhaps 1K faculty and students I’ve met in such colleges of education, less than a dozen have influenced the course of individual learning in remarkable ways. They added what they learned from others to their own insights in order to create protocols that increased learning rates for uncounted millions of learners.
I search, because I think another person exists in a classroom who can walk successfully through that door to the unusual benefit of more millions of learners.
The season has started for submitting applications to these few top tier research universities. If you know a teacher who appears to meet these personal and admission criteria, please encourage her or him to apply for entrance to start next fall. I plan to do so with a couple of people also.
I probably should have clarified that the dozen or so researchers contributed to protocols that directly increased measured learning rates, irrespective of surrounding policies, opinions, etc. At least one such person exists at an incomplete stage of development who will add to another such objective, empirically based learning protocol that promptly impacts millions of learning rates. To that addition, teachers, administrators and policy makers will likely have much to say, (I means this respectfully) but less impact on learning rates. Bob
I especially like how in your selection of candidates “risk taking” is involved. This is a general term and for many people it means many things; for some it may even have a negative connotation. However, for me, it is crucial to being a strong teacher. It is an odd thing when districts are calling for “changes” “improvements” “raising the bar” (Oh, and what was that from the back corner) “‘Individualized Education'”, but these same districts are not open to teachers who have truly education-changing ideas. In fact, many districts have rules that prohibit teachers from going outside the packaged-curriculum box. I wish education programs at the university level were encouraging more independent thought that furthered the learning of students. It would be equally great if districts could see risk taking as useful. Sadly, I feel the need to qualify “risk taking” so that others reading this do not see it as completely thoughtless action without concern to a greater cause. I mean “risk taking” to mean the will and determination of the teacher to do what he or she knows is best. Additionally, “risk taking” is the ability to come up with unique ways to further the learning of students even if it is not part of the curriculum. http://www.storiesfromschool.org/
Thanks, Travis, for your comments. The few people to whom I refer faced similar reticence and even more opposition. Somehow, each found a way around those objections, and turned some distractors into supporters, but seldom instantly. In their non-classroom life, these people were car and motorcycle racers, musicians, mechanics, entrepreneurs, carpenters, financial investors, etc. They did things they could show learners how to do in addition to daily lessons. Perhaps the term calculated risk taking would be more appropriate?
I am all about a calculated risk. Love them. Great delineation on with that term.