21^st Century Learning

Answers by John Holland

What influenced you to become a teacher?

I grew up believing I was destined to be an artist. I believe art is vital to society but I could never justify my art making as actually contributing to people’s lives outside of my own. I was awakened from my daydreams of being an artist by my beautiful wife who said, “You can do anything you want as long as you pay your part of the rent.” I realized that if I was going to have to make a living, I wanted to contribute to society.

I never planned to be a teacher but I had several experiences and traits that made me well-suited to the profession. Growing up, I was a sensitive kid.  I loved learning, and I believed that people can make the world a better place. As a substitute teacher I trippingly stumbled down the path to being a teacher. When I spent three months in a Head Start classroom as a long-term substitute I knew it was what I was meant to do. I felt a calling to help kids and families and I knew that I could do that as a preschool teacher.

How does the way you are regarded by school administrators, students, and parents impact your work?

I have seen how different administrators that I have worked under have changed my perception of who I am, what I do, and why I teach. Under my current administrator I have finally felt that I am respected as a professional. I know that she believes that what I do is important. I also know that she understands why I teach--to help the disadvantaged children of our community.

My students are so young that it is hard to gauge their perceptions of me but I know that for many of them I am the first male role model they have ever had.  I work for Head Start because I want to help families. I connect with the mothers and fathers of my students through home visits. I get to teach many of my students for two years, until they enter kindergarten. Through building relationships with my students and their families over time, I have become a better teacher. I have been able to help parents earn their GED, find better housing, and learn to read. Although I am mostly responsible for my students’ academic achievement, my relationships with my students and their families help to remind me that I can have a profound impact on my students’ lives both inside and outside of the classroom.

What is your teaching philosophy?

I believe teachers are like skilled professional musicians. Some are classical composers that write beautiful music (lesson plans) and then play (teach) that music with the orchestra (their class). Others are like studio musicians - as long as they have the sheet music (lesson plan), they can play (teach) any music (content) with any orchestra (class.) I am a jazz musician. I take a theme (standard of learning) and play (teach) that theme differently with every orchestra (class) and each musician (student). I place a great deal of emphasis on each of my students’ individual talents, interests, and needs. Each year the lessons I teach are different but often based on activities that have proven effective.

Teaching is a supremely creative endeavor that calls for discipline, imagination, and patience. This philosophy has enabled me to see each year, class, and student as a creative challenge. It has helped me to develop an ever evolving perspective on the purposes of education for society and my students. I teach to empower my students to become their best self. In order to do this I believe I must help my students develop practical knowledge and problem-solving skills to help them be successful. I hope my students will take part in shaping their lives and the world. My philosophy enables me to be an artist in my classroom by responding to the lives and families that my work impacts.

How has that philosophy been shaped by your teaching experience?

My philosophy has been shaped by my experience of the aspects of teaching that embody the truth of the “unknowable”. By unknowable I mean the near impossibility of predicting the outcome of the intersection of the lives of 19 students and three adults in my classroom everyday. Much of the challenge of teaching is situational. By seeing myself as an innovator and improviser I have been able to act and react proactively to changing circumstances in my classroom while maintaining the constant knowledge of the weight of responsibility involved with caring for young children. I have always embraced the paradox of teaching that I must maintain discipline and predictability while remaining flexible and responsive in order for learning to take place. This philosophy also enables me to maintain a relentlessly positive attitude about teaching, learning, and education.

What does that term "21^st Century Learning" mean within the context of your work?

In the context of my work as a preschool teacher, 21^st century learning has a lot less to do with technology and a lot more to do with people and relationships. Exposure to the potential of the internet and technology are the foundation to preparing my students, many of whom do not have computers at home. In my classroom I use streaming video, digital music, digital recording, blogs and search engines to show kids how technology can help us access information outside of our immediate surroundings. When one of my students became homebound because of leukemia I used technology to build our classroom community.

As I was sitting with the child’s mother at her home discussing the family’s access to technology, her mother mentioned how her oldest daughter was upstairs using her laptop online, it came to me what I needed to do. Her daughter needed her own blog. I knew she would feel more connected to the life of our class if she could see and talk to us each day. Her mother is tech savvy enough to do the posts at home. She named the blog, “Missing School.” Each morning now we check to see what our friend has to say. We have posted video of our class singing our favorite songs, posted some wishes from the class, and she has told us what she is learning at home.

Preparing students for the future means developing the modes of thought that enable students to engage with their world proactively.

How have today's learning/teaching demands changed over the course of your career?

I think the standards-based vs. standards-referenced paradigm shift has transformed teaching and learning more than teachers really think. When you use standards as your framework, the way you teach the skills and knowledge for which you are responsible changes. For example, I received some very simple but very important advice a couple of years ago. A Teacher Leaders Network colleague at the high school level said that he decided whether to use constructivist or behavioral approaches to content based on the nature of the content and the abilities of his students.

At the preschool level this changed some of my core beliefs about how to teach reading. I realized that letter recognition and recognizing letter sounds is a behaviorally oriented activity. Not that some students don't need a more constructivist approach sometimes but the basic idea is: the more times I expose kids to letters and letter sounds the more likely they are to remember them. Period. The instant recall for letter sounds we use as adults in understanding new words is based on this simple recall of sounds and grammatical rules. This freed me up from having to do a hands-on activity for every letter to help kids "remember" the letter. All I had to do was submerge them in the alphabet for them to learn the letters. So, I changed how I taught.

Moving from standards-referenced to standards-based has meant that some of the "cute" activities that we did in the past don't get done. I do make time once or twice a week for those cute activities that teach kids how to cut and paste and as an artist I passionately encourage creativity in all its forms in my class. I haven't had any complaints from parents. They are happy their preschoolers are reading.

What skill sets are necessary for student success in the 21^st century?

Much of the political discourse surrounding education these days is based on the economic perspective of the business world that believes we need to prepare world class employees. Most of the jobs that I hope my students will pursue have not been created yet. I see the effects of technology and a “flatter” world as increasing the need for people skills that enable communication. I also see teaching students to be creative in their approach to their lives as not only an economic benefit to America but also as a benefit to humanity. Teaching with and to both sides of the brain, as described by Daniel Pink, (2006) in A Whole New Mind, are the keys to preparing kids for the future.

Left Brain	Right Brain
Function	Design
Argument	Story
Focus	Symphony
Logic	Empathy
Seriousness	Play
Accumulation	Meaning

Students who have explored and developed abilities using both sides of the brain will have the skills necessary to be successful in a future that is essentially unknown. In my classroom students design, tell stories, are empathetic, play and make meaning. They also problem solve, discuss, concentrate, use logic, and learn when to be serious. Creativity and collaboration are central to the skill sets students will need in the 21st century. I foster these in my classroom by developing activities that require collaboration and that have group products as outcomes.

What obligations do schools have to help children from high-poverty backgrounds gain the technological skills necessary for success in the 21st century?  Are those obligations being met? If so, how - if not, why?

Schools have an obligation to use the resources they have and to become early adopters of innovations that seem likely to increase student achievement. Schools have an obligation to make technology one of the standards they teach, not an occasional frill.

So far I do not believe these obligations are being met. The situation is better than it was ten years ago, when I first became involved with instructional technology, but there is still much progress to be made.

The way school systems and leadership could help prepare students for the 21st century is to hire teachers who are risk takers. I have seen how 30-year veteran risk takers keep up with current instructional technology and become powerful innovators while some young teachers, perhaps more comfortable with the technology basics, are afraid to integrate technology into the curriculum because a lesson may fail. It is this fundamental comfort with risk that enables teachers to try out new technologies and become more effective practitioners.

What advice do you have for teachers that want to improve their professional skills to provide students with a 21st century learning experience?

My single most important piece of advice for teachers who want to teach in the 21st century is to start living in it. I would advise a fellow teacher to start a blog to begin reflecting on his/her practice. Connect with other teachers through online communities to share your practice. Learn to take risks with technology. If possible create a classroom blog to post students work online, perhaps in a “gated” internet community like TappedIn. Try out some new media like streaming video in the classroom or recording students’ work using digital recorders. Connect with innovators in the field through online networks and social networking sites. I would also encourage teachers to incorporate collaborative projects in all content areas whenever feasible. The process of collaboration is a skill that can be learned early. I would also encourage the teachers to challenge students to solve real world problems. I recently found a video of some college students who attempted to solve the problem of transporting and purifying water in villages that are far from water sources in third world countries. Their solution is an example of how creativity, technology, and real world problem solving will enable students to create a better world for tomorrow:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U-mvfjyiao.

It is important to remember that technology is the means and not the end of learning any more than learning to read is the end of language. Competent use of technology is the new “literacy” that will be necessary for success in the future. But it is important to balance the high tech with the human. The most important families of applications today are tools for collaboration and community building. Students will need to be competent users of technology, not for the edge it gives them in the marketplace but for the ways that it enables them to connect with people around the world and in their community.

Finally, consider your classroom an ecological system win which the teacher and the students coexist to share information and learning. Often teachers shy from technology because it means that they have to give up their “expert” status in the classroom. In many high schools students understand technology and its uses better than the teacher. It is important to realize that in the 21st century it is not who brings about learning that is important, but that learning takes place.

About John Holland

John Holland has been a preschool teacher for the past 11 years. He is one of the only male National Board Certified Head Start teachers in the country and is a member of the Teacher Leaders Network. As a member of the Center for Teacher Leadership he has been the moderator for the Virginia Forum, an online community of accomplished teachers. John is pursuing his doctorate at Virginia Commonwealth University and serves as a National Board coach, mentor, workshop presenter, and university student teaching supervisor. He has been involved with technology integration since 1998 when he began teaching digital camera and video. His current passions include the ethics of teaching, teacher leadership, and public education policy. He is also a relentlessly positive professional artist and education writer.