Do they even know they're collaborating?

Children only like school for the socialization and friends they make. Companies and industries thrive off of collaboration, socialization and working with coworkers. It is in our human nature. Yet our school system is designed for single minded thinking, singular testing and such extreme individualism. Do students even know how to work with each other? Do we really set them up for the success of the future of our world? Do they have the skills to adapt for whatever comes their way? Can they evolve and grow our world for the better because of their education…or despite?

Which do we want our educational upbringing to be remembered by? All the ways it hurt us, or all the tools it gave us to thrive in our evolving world.

You'll see group work and pods in classrooms: which is a great start.

But we are not teaching our students how to

-Collaborate

-Thoughtful academic conversations

-Influence perspectives

-Kindly disagree or challenge thinking

Now, ELA teachers don't come after me. I know there are discussions and you are teaching them this within your classroom walls.

I want us to teach this across the schools. Even if it means slowing down the curriculum pace to do this.

I know that students are doing a lot of this without the self-awareness.

We need to bring self-awareness to the very front of our students minds so they can be fully engaged in what they are truly learning outside of the academic skill. And so they can articulate their growth beyond "I read a book" or "I learned how to square root a non perfect square".

If we can make our students more self aware, the collaboration, discussions, debate, influence will be in the forefront of their minds and they'll be better at using it outside of their ELA or History classroom.