The Utopian School: If you build it, will they come?

Session 3

Scott S. Floyd — White Oak Independent School District

Room 1182

We decry the misrepresentation of our education system by the politicians every year. Our hard work is generally turned into a few failing statistics on the national stage with no opportunity to refute them with how we feel reform should really look. Instead, we keep our heads low and pray for the election to come and go so that much of the negative press passes us by and gives us a little breathing room to move on with the important work: educating students.

Let's pretend for a minute that government is going to keep its nose out of our school. What will we do then?

This session will offer attendees the opportunity to put all of their grandiose ideas for the learning system of their dreams into the middle of a much larger conversation. The discussion will center around a blank canvas creating the "utopian" school that participants long for.

Conversational Practice

Centered on a modified Best Ever Constructivist Protocol.

A Driving Question will be shared to generate the direction and categories for needed changes. These major categories will be decided by the group. Then, the larger group will be asked to break into smaller, more concentrated groups to build out the categories with details needed to create direction for that area. Participants select the area of their interest and strength. Each of the smaller groups will be asked to decide a Driving Question for its topic. They will spend their work time negotiating possible ways to answer that driving question while documenting their work in a wiki. Virtual participants will also be invited to collaborate.

While 90 minutes will not even come close to reforming the entire system, the hope is that it will create a starting point for discussions and a resource that educators everywhere can utilize in making decisions locally to improve their own education systems.

Groups will be creating within a blank wiki so that it is truly a unique and collaborative piece created by educators that can continue to be built upon and referred back to.