TL;DR:

• We have to use our brilliant brains and technology to be able to collaborate better.
• Educators need a free, collaborative, ongoing digital ecosystem. This will help them bring the best opportunities to students.

No Teacher Left Behind: Educator Collaboration

We write our ideas on blogs hoping they will make it—somewhere out there.

Somewhere over the rainbow.

Somewhere that lands on someone or something and shifts the universe to give you a lucky card to make your idea bigger and brighter.

A card that tips the scale so you can decide your idea is worth something that could disrupt a failing system.

An idea you feel that you have been charged with to bring into the world, because the future of the world depends on your work and making it happen.

And not just the future of the world…the hearts and minds of millions of adults and young kids working in our education system.

Have you ever truly looked at a child?

Do you remember how curious and interested in the world around them they are? Do you remember how they can look at a paper towel roll and make it a roller-coaster? A rocket ship? Or a Matchbox car tunnel…all within a few minutes? And do you remember how much they rely on us as adults to help them? To fix their boo-boos, to have all the answers, to tie their shoes, to play the fair mediator, to do right by them?

They do. They do until we don’t—don’t get it right that is.

Over time kids learn that we are flawed, and they learn—more importantly, they remember—how we failed them in our moments of fear, stress, tiredness, and weakness. Sometimes we are forgiven. And sometimes we have a constant pang of knowing that we could have done better for that child.

So what is it called when we all know better—how to help millions of adult educators and the children in their charge—and we don’t act?

We don’t use our brilliant brains and our technology to do what we know we can collaboratively do better.

It’s a systematic failure.

It’s teachers leaving in droves, billions of dollars wasted on ed tech, it’s apathy, it’s cries for better, and no real change. “Well, we’re flexible now, and we give teachers choice in their PD days” says one Superintendent. “We let teachers try new things and fail now,” says another. That’s not enough. That can’t be the answer. We teachers have known those options should have been on the table for awhile now. We need the support for a stronger system for our educators.

What we are doing at Education Blueprint is building a better education system for all.

We are creating the digital ecosystem house for educators to collectively aggregate, generate, and distribute resources that make for the best learning experiences for our students.

What curriculum has already been created? What content are teachers willing to share? (We’re all content creators now.) How does it tie to my state standards? I need to know so I stop recreating the wheel. How would other educators and researchers rate this curriculum? What’s the best lesson out there for this specific standard?

What apps, websites, books, podcasts, research, and professional organizations should we be using? How do we rate them? What security systems are out there to protect schools? What grants are available? Where do I find them? What emerging technologies can we implement as soon as possible? Are any private sector companies willing to share emerging technologies curriculum so my school isn’t 30 years behind the “real world”?

The categories go on and on. And they are each important to making our schools successful and to maintaining an ongoing capacity to manage and follow technological developments of all the tools and resources we need to keep up with as educators.

We love our students, and for years our focus has been on NCLB: No Child Left Behind.

But we can’t help children when we aren’t helping our educators at the systematic level. Our researchers and our practitioners.

It’s time for No Teacher Left Behind. We need the free, collaborative, ongoing digital ecosystem house of support built for our educators so they can bring the best opportunities to our students.

Maybe someone out there will agree—here or there—or over that rainbow that takes us to a smarter way of operating our education system.

About Kelly Pascarella