Twitter Reflection #2

For my week 2 Twitter reflection, I am choosing to comment on Melissa Sheninger’s July 4 Tweet: RT @ShellTerrell: “EduKare” – A New Paradigm for Struggling Schools http://bit.ly/kN6bQ0. This topic attracted my attention because I was curious to learn about “EduKare” and identify the parallels or differences between the EduKare approach and the AUSL approach to troubled schools.

Similar to the AUSL philosophy, EduKare focuses on developing student resiliency to the many negative factors that can detract from learning. Both programs also focus on students as individuals with unique stories and strengths, the importance of trust in the student/teacher relationship, and the need for authentic experiences to create lasting learning.

However, how the 2 programs propose to accomplish these similar goals differs greatly. While this might just be a product of being much closer to the program, I feel AUSL’s approach to be more realistic than the EduKare approach. Per the article, “each child is a gift that comes wrapped with individual strengths and unique possibilities; all we have to do [to make students successful] is make the effort to unwrap them”. This is to be accomplished by “redistributing our time to notice where our efforts are failing,” which “is a process that every teacher, administrator and paraprofessional in a school can initiate for free.” As a matter of fact, the article professes that “distributing collaborative and reflective efforts to re-tool our teaching and learning environments so they are oriented more toward individuals and their specific needs doesn’t require any seed money at all.”

Mind you, the author does not make mention that there are still only so many hours in a day and that to “redistribute” those hours to others will necessitate pulling them from the 65%s students “within the bell curve.” However the author cannot suggest accomplishing this more individualized approach via more teacher hours because that would cost money, which has already been addressed as unnecessary. Instead the proposed solution is a utopia of public services coexisting in the same building (as if they need similar facilities and security) likened to the one-room school house of old as a community cornerstone.

As might be obvious, I was very disappointed in this article. It didn’t suggest any technology solutions to the issue (which can be applied cost effectively and on an individual or group level). Nor did it supply any practical solutions. I agree that students are individuals, but believing that school reform can exist just by making happier, more loved students marginalizes the authenticity of the real world surrounding the students every day. Overall, the impact this article had on me is to remind me that there is a lot of crazy information available on the internet, and to remind me to tell the students in my classes to be wise critics and not to believe everything they read just because they read it on the Internet.