Educators Rising - MNU Conference 2019
This past week our CAPS Teacher Ed students helped plan and run the yearly Educators Rising Northeast Kansas Conference at Mid-America Nazarene University (MNU).
We had A LOT of work we had to do ahead of time for the conference, but it made the actual day run a lot smoother and be less stressful.
Unfortunately, I did not get to stay the whole time at the conference because I was sick and had to leave early, but I did still get to experience some of the appeal during the opening ceremony and keynote.
The opening keynote was far more interesting than I anticipated! Our pristine and well-credited speakers not only gave us an overview of the conference, but also talked about some of the key issues facing education today, and what is currently being done about it.
They talked about the most desirable traits in leaders or teachers, which I found interesting because it wasn't always the traits we expected (and there were many!). Yet, what I found the most intriguing is that they then talked about how they polled a wide range of students on what competencies they needed the most help with (I've included a picture below...), and not one student said anything to do with subject content (like math, history, science, etc.) but talked about life skills and traits. Furthermore, they discussed how in schools out in western Kansas they are trying a new trial run of an education system that focuses more on placing importance on these soft skills over memorization of content students are likely to forget by the time they graduate anyway.
"Educators Rising ... is a professional organization that supports students who are interested in education-related careers".
We had A LOT of work we had to do ahead of time for the conference, but it made the actual day run a lot smoother and be less stressful.
Unfortunately, I did not get to stay the whole time at the conference because I was sick and had to leave early, but I did still get to experience some of the appeal during the opening ceremony and keynote.
The opening keynote was far more interesting than I anticipated! Our pristine and well-credited speakers not only gave us an overview of the conference, but also talked about some of the key issues facing education today, and what is currently being done about it.
They talked about the most desirable traits in leaders or teachers, which I found interesting because it wasn't always the traits we expected (and there were many!). Yet, what I found the most intriguing is that they then talked about how they polled a wide range of students on what competencies they needed the most help with (I've included a picture below...), and not one student said anything to do with subject content (like math, history, science, etc.) but talked about life skills and traits. Furthermore, they discussed how in schools out in western Kansas they are trying a new trial run of an education system that focuses more on placing importance on these soft skills over memorization of content students are likely to forget by the time they graduate anyway.
As a future educator, this data and these plans were very insightful to me, and it also got me very excited. I can now see that I am going into a field where people are learning and inciting change where change is desperately needed, and this gives me great hope for the future of education.
I am glad to see that Kansas is realizing the need to teach these soft skills to students before they graduate high school.
ReplyDeleteWestern Kansas educators surely deserve credit for their willingness to change, and to innovate.
ReplyDeleteSure, the soft skills are very important and certainly have their place in modern education. But too many school systems across the country seem to be empathizing this practice to the detriment of basic Language and Math skills. Many areas of our country are producing students with language, reading, and math proficiencies at a rate well under 60%, and the larger cities are performing even worse. Also, recent published reports show the USA falling further and further behind more countries in these basic subject areas. Yikes!
The argument goes: 'Well, teaching soft skills will better prepare students to absorb and retain the actual subject matter. It will also improve the efficiency of the classroom experience'. Well, yes, and yes, I can partially agree with this. BUT isn't there a real danger that some modern educators will over emphasize the soft skills to the detriment of hard subject matter. Caution!
Over 50% of the developed countries in our world out-perform the USA in language, science, and mathematics. Wouldn't it be prudent for us to take a good look at THEIR policies and processes? What are they doing that may be different from us? Is it cultural, soft skill based, process oriented, or something else? We should be able to learn some stuff that could benefit out children, right?
-P.