21st Century Priorities—What and How We Teach

Carole Hayward

Mike Schmoker caught many in the crowd assembled at the Closing General Session off guard with his presentation, "21st Century Education: What It Is, How to Ensure It." In a sharp contrast to Paige Johnson's Opening General Session and Heidi Hayes Jacobs's Curriculum 21 session, Schmoker stated right up front that the priorities ("Back to the Future: First Things FIRST for the 21st Century") should be what we teach and how we teach. "The simplicity of this approach could have a profound impact on providing a rich education, not for some, but for all students," he said.

Quoting Rotherham on 21st century education, Schmoker told the attendees that "history is not on the movement's side. … The tendency to run after every 'shiny new idea' often leads to faddishness. … American schools still are not delivering a content-rich curriculum for all students."

Success hinges on simplicity in priorities, Schmoker explained. And it doesn't even have to be done perfectly, just reasonably well. "Students need to be able to read something, talk to each other about it, and write about it," Schmoker stated. "This is mostly old stuff from the 19th and 20th centuries, not unique to the 21st century."

How can a high-quality education be achieved by all students? "Get rid of the silly stuff in pursuit of some new fad," Schmoker said. Instead, teach kids to read slowly, turn to one another to talk about it, and then write about it. Amazingly, Schmoker stated, only 25 percent of schools adhere to these seemingly mundane things.

Twitter Captures the Reactions

Schmoker's presentation generated a great deal of conversation on Twitter, giving an indication of how provocative the attendees found the presentation. Tweets included:

Schmoker: Favorite School activity, whole class discussion about something controversial hard to argue with that...

Schmoker: What we need is to teach kids to read "SLOWLY" and then turn to each other and talk about it, and then write about it.

Schmoker: I don't agree with all of what Schmoker says, but the focus on WHAT and HOW we teach is a great big-picture idea. AGREE

Schmoker Never ask a teacher who has not mastered Common/Coherant Curriculum to incorporate more technology

Schmoker: http://bit.ly/1rWRLM Rafe Esquith - There are no Shortcuts

Schmoker: Adlai Stevenson H.S. as an example of focusing on WHAT and HOW for five years in PLCs.

Schmoker: Clicker technology great way for formative assessment! Cites Ohio State/Harvard success AMEN!

Schmoker: Test every few weeks=WORST FORM OF FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT AMEN!

Schmoker: Cites K. Gallagher who claims K-12 schols promote "readicide", actually prevents kids from reading during the school day.

Schmoker: Wall Street Journal, other papers written on a level that elementary school students could read

Schmoker: 2/3 of K-3 reading classes time is spent on Cut, Paste, copy, color

Schmoker says "curricular chaos" is single largest factor that affects student learning." Shout out to Marzano for that term.

Schmoker: Close reading of a text (poem, editorial, or speech etc.) twice a week is essential. And we're falling down on that job.

Schmoker: We have best practices that are never implemented.

Schmoker: Educator responds to Schmoker's view about integrating tech: "I think @heidihayesjacob would say "How long would that take?"

Schmoker: quotes @arotherham about "delivering a content-rich curriculum for all students."

Schmoker: I believe that there are two things that matter most in education are reading and writing.

Schmoker - reading/writing the two most important skills of an educated person

Schmoker: the most important thing - a Coherent and Common Curriculum - not just on paper

Schmoker: Discussing a concern for 21st century teaching: Unintentional ignorance of curriculum and instructional priority.

Schmoker: 21st Century Ed. = WHAT we teach HOW we

Schomoker: Our success hinges on simplicity: what we teach and how we teach 

Schmoker: 21st Century a rich education for ALL

Did you miss any of the Tweets from the conference? Visit http://twitter.com/ASCD, and search for the #ascdfc hashtag for a complete account.