Meagan's Final Reflection

The Global Achievement Gap focused on the 7 survival skills and what schools aren't doing to prepare students for the global world. The author talks a lot about project based learning and student centered instruction. The book also emphasizes that our schools are teaching to the test and knowledge based information, rather than focusing on using information to solve problems and create possible solutions. He discusses several charter schools who focus on these things and how successful they have been. (I would love to teach at one of these!)

I personally appreciated the flame this book lit under me. However, I feel a little bit like I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. I would love to use project based, individualized learning with each of my 100 science students, but I also need my students to know the state standards so they can do well on the test. If they don't do well, society looks at me as a poor educator and at the students as incompetent.

In conclusion, change needs to happen at the top before I can really grab hold of the 7 survival skills. Right now, I am teaching the standards to my students, because this is what has been required of me. Hopefully, in the near future, we can change our standards to accommodate the global world we live in, and we can do what's best for our students. Until then, I'll incorporate the survival skills as much as I can into my teaching.