The Rebirth of Wonder

More education. Less schooliness.

“I am waiting / for a rebirth of wonder.” –Laurence Ferlinghetti

For any teacher with eyes that see, the wait is over.

It just hit me how amazing life is with these new tools. All the good people who put their energies into making them possible deserve our thanksgiving–in the full sense of the word.

Because of that tool called a wiki, everybody in my school’s grade 9 history classes is closer. We’re all working together, sharing, helping, giving feedback. We’re all applauding the successes when we read them–not just the teacher.

Space and time are no longer the separators they were in the classroom. A period in my room is reading and writing to A period in Spivey’s room. And both of those A period classes are reading and writing to students in C period and the next day’s E period.

Space and time–the classroom walls, the class rosters–no longer make me a solo teacher. Spivey and I are teaching team, walls be damned. (And thanks to Skype, we’re hanging out together separately at home to fine tune the French Revolution Ant Farm.) I love team-teaching, and have missed it. Thanks to developers of the read-write web, it’s possible and a reality now, despite the absence of the team-teaching model at my school.

Parents can read everything going on on the wiki. They don’t have to ask me how their child is doing; they can see for themselves. If they want to know how their child measures up against other students, they can see that too.

Teachers wanting professional development in 21st century teaching don’t have to go to an expert anymore. The edublogosphere is there for the learning. They can see real-world examples by exploring “School 2.0″ projects not just in my classroom–I’m just a beginner (we all are, really)–but in the entire world. They can go to A Difference. They can go to Remote Access. They can go to the Aristotle Experiment. (See blogroll sidebar for links.) They can learn from these teachers who are doing it–and even make relationships with them.

I could go on, and I’m sure I will as this journey continues. For now, I’ll just close by repeating: for a liberal arts teacher, nothing this fascinating has happened since Gutenberg 500 years ago.

End of Thanksgiving prayer.

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