Embracing the Reality of Change...

As I often do, I speak with my wife about issues and theories related to education. Though my wife is not a full time teacher, she does teach as an adjunct professor at a local community college and works for a school district. Thus, I feel she is knowledgeable and a worthy audience when discussing educationally related topics.

Our most recent discussion revolved around how education needs to be more effective and applicable to the ever changing needs of the student population. There are so many fantastic things going on in education, but we still have room for improvement when it comes educating students. Looking at education with a glass half full approach, we can be encouraged because there is always room to change and improve the way we conduct our business as educators.

One of the beauties of being in education is we have the right and obligation to be change agents. We go to work every day looking for new ways of improving education. That is our job...make education as relevant, applicable and as necessary as possible to prepare students to be successful in their future lives.

I prepared a presentation about change and how we can all be change agents. My wife had one question for me, "Don't you think you are asking too much of educators?" When I thought about how I would answer this question, I realized the answer was simple. "No," I am not asking too much of educators, because our duty and job as educators is to do what it takes to get the job done. Just as society and students have changed, we need to change and evolve to ensure we are positively affecting our students. We need to change the culture of education and make sure we are reaching all of our students preparing them to be lifelong learners and successful democratic citizens.