Chapter 9 - Reflection

Chapter 9: New Schools was a difficult one for me! Not because it was hard to understand or read. It is just a scary thought for me! I am such a traditional & linear learner, that thinking of having so many options out there and so many ideas for what "school" could be makes my eyes shake! Even for this class, I had a hard time at the beginning with keeping focused on what I was doing and where I should be. I finally just printed out the list of the 23 Things and then printed out the detailed description of each of those 23 Things. I really needed that paper in my hand. I would have it up on my computer, read the paper, then click the link when I saw a BLUE word. My husband laughed, but that is my learning style. I also know that I cannot have too many choices, I will just go into overload as we saw on a few of the Thing options!

As we have seen in the past 10 years, our community is asking for some educational options. We have more and more alternative schools and programs out there for our children. Parents have so many choices for their child. The question is, are these new schools working? Language immersion, technology based, home school, ABC, optional...are the students getting EVERYTHING they need to succeed later? Of course, that leads us the definition of succeed. According to this book, succeed means to keep up with the rest of the world and remain a world power.

I am going to assume that the educational system of the future will be very good at assessing a students' learning style first and foremost. It will be interesting to see where it goes. I am excited to be here at the beginning of it all!