TL;DR:

• It’s time to reach the true purpose of education.
• There are many challenges our society is currently facing, and COVID is an added complication.
• The solution starts with kindness, empathy, and collaboration.
• Moving towards a more collaborative world can help us reach our highest achievement as humans.

Reaching the True Purpose of Education: The Problem

Let’s face it. The world is a mean place, becoming more and more disjointed everyday. Between polarizing political beliefs, the great abyss that COVID-19 has and is continuing to create, the onslaught of the continuous disparaging news reports, and the lack of real human interaction with the dawn of social media, people have lost their trust in others and their community around them. There is no real accountability for words or hurtful actions by others. It’s so easy to tear down people and ideas.

However, it takes real talent, intellect, courage, and compassion to create a vision and solutions to solve some of these major issues that humanity is facing in order to build supportive, trusting, collaborative networks wherein everyone looks out for one another. If you have the energy to tear down someone or their ideas, why don’t you use that energy to build bridges and solutions instead?

So what’s a teacher to do, especially when struggling to wear multiple hats and serving various levels of needs? How does one keep up with the best practices across the board? Click To Tweet

Reaching the True Purpose of Education: The Complication

This is seen especially so in the education field. I just returned from volunteering at my local pre-school. A pre-school where it is usually bustling with busy little hands and minds of 15- 20 budding little human beings. Now it is marked with very low attendance and staffing shortages. COVID-19 has left classrooms empty without any teachers available to teach. 

According to Mark Perna, in an article he recently wrote for Forbes magazine, he states:

“We are at a major tipping point in education. According to a recent survey, 48% of teachers admitted that they had considered quitting within the last 30 days. Of that number, 34% said they were thinking about leaving the profession entirely.”

Teachers and administrators are beyond overstressed and at the end of their ropes. They are also very hard to replace. Not everyone has the characteristics or temperament of being a teacher. This makes it very hard to build a talent pool to replace teachers leaving the field. They are giving everything they have—their time, money, talent, and emotions. Asking them to give more, in order to cover the gaps the pandemic is creating, is pushing many to their breaking points. This creates a vicious cycle where the lives of students are greatly affected and decreases the attractiveness of the profession as a whole.

Reaching the True Purpose of Education: The Solution

There is a solution and it starts with kindness, empathy, and collaboration. I recently read the book titled When you Wonder, You’re Learning by Gregg Behr and Ryan Rydzewski. In it the author states:

“The purpose of learning (and teaching) is far nobler than preparing future workers. It’s about kids discovering their potential and their purpose, becoming more fully themselves. It’s about raising creative, curious, caring neighbors and citizens—people who can build stronger, more inclusive communities, and a more just and loving world.”

When the true purpose of education is reached, so is the highest potential of the individual. With your education, you can either use it to destroy or to create. Right now, teachers need most what they are called to inspire within those who they are teaching—collaboration and creating positive solutions to real world problems in which they are facing.

So what’s a teacher to do, especially when struggling to wear multiple hats and serving various levels of needs? How does one keep up with the best practices across the board in establishing relationships, managing class behavior, teaching engaging, relevant lessons to match each standard, and incorporating issues of the day such as racism, sexism, and other marginalized ideologies? How does a teacher keep up with the abundance of resources necessary in our ever-changing world? 

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Enter Education Blueprint

In order to build equity in teacher capacity, the team of educational leaders at Education Blueprint have built an interactive Pre-K-12 website for educators to find, share, add, and rate resources that make for best learning experiences. There is no greater economy of scale than an interactive social media platform specifically for Pre-K-12 educators to share our collective knowledge of resources that are improving student learning in classrooms and building the pipeline of future teachers to come.

I’ve been told many times throughout my life that I am a “pie in the sky” type of person. My work with Education Blueprint has taught me differently. You can either dismiss me as non-relevant or you can see the brilliance in the truth and the light that building a brighter, more collaborative world is what we are all called to do in order to reach our highest achievement as humans.

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About Laura Lisien