A Personal Philosophy of Education

        The needs and abilities of students have changed radically in the last few decades. In our new service economy, and in many other professional settings, simple content knowledge must make room for knowledge facilitation as extremely important workplace skills. As educators, we have a responsibility to negotiate that shift for ourselves, and apply it to our instructional practice.
        Our students are living and negotiating these changes, and hence have experience and expertise in a wide range of communication capabilities that did not even exist fifteen years ago. They are often comfortable negotiating environments that their parents are struggling to learn. However, this is not to presume that, for students, these changes will happen without our participation as educators – for two very important reasons:

1. “Skillful” does not mean “effective” -- students are having difficulty seeing how the tools they’ve learned can be used productively, to further their own professional and personal goals, and the goals of the contexts in which they find themselves – family, school, workplace, community, and society.
2. These changes are not taking place uniformly across our society. The students who are easily making the transition to new tools have access to these tools as a natural part of the socio-economic advantage they enjoy. Many other students are at an extreme disadvantage, with no such access. At no time since the advent of universal education in this country has the responsibility of public schools been greater to bridge these gaps, to insure that all students have the access and training they need to succeed in society at large.

        My commitment as a public educator has always been to providing instruction that touches the broadest spectrum of students. In this regard, the technological delivery of information, instruction, and (most importantly) communication has an extremely important role to fulfill. It can serve to provide information, ways of connecting, and even whole course access to a broader range of students than can sometimes be served by most schools -- schools that have so many other pressures (staffing, budget, core content, assessment, etc.) to which they must attend. However, as is true of any shift in the delivery of services, to insure that all students can succeed, we must be sure that such a shift does not ignore the personal, motivational, and learning style needs of those students. After hours of taped and transcribed interviews of distance-learning students for a research project, I can speak directly to the pivotal nature of these issues. Our use of new technologies in student communication and instruction must reflect solid research that reflects not only the successes, but also the failures, of the new capabilities we use.
        We have entered a new millennium in our society, and that change must be reflected in our commitment and practice as educators. However, as a public educator, I believe in the importance of uniform delivery of access, and am committed to the success of all students, regardless of delivery medium.