Teaching Social Responsibility... Sounds good to me!

I have been spending some time perusing the website for The Partnership for 21^st Century Skills. I really enjoy their mission and agree that it is so important for educators to help prepare students for their inevitable future by helping them to develop the skills that they will need to succeed. I think that it is really interesting to have schools collaborating with business, community and government leaders; giving students a chance to hear first hand from their potential employers and colleagues what skills they will need to have.

One thing that I found surprising on this site was that listed among the skills that they are trying to develop in students is social responsibility and civic literacy. Looking at the not-so-distant past, we see examples in business that ethics really do play a large part. It was a pleasant surprise to me that social responsibility was mentioned, as so many times we think of business and government to be cut-throat arenas where anything goes in order to “make a buck”. So, as the Partnership tries to bring these worlds together into the educational upbringing of our students, it is great to see that they are trying to change this stereotype by bringing up a new set of entrepreneurs and workers who are aware of and who work towards achieving social and civic responsibilities. Teaching this as if it were a skill as tangible as technological literacy will hopefully embed in our youth how important this really is.

I did not really see anything on this site that I disagreed with, on the contrary, I seem to really see the merit behind most of what I saw. Working with state standards and curriculum to integrate the skills that are needed for success in the 21^st century seems to be the best way to prepare our students at this point, while also integrating technology and the related skills into the classroom. Also, while I could maybe see some argument as to the Partnership’s want for educators to themes such as health and economic literacy into every subject, I think that this is an interesting idea and will help to make our student better citizens in our society and in the global community as a whole.

As an educator, this site gives me a place to go for resources on how I can integrate some of these skills into my own classroom. For my students, hopefully this means that they will be getting experience developing and using these different skills.

Blogging in my classroom...

I find that there a many different ways that I can make a blog useful in my classroom. I teach Spanish at a charter school in Buffalo, New York, and most of my students are in the 10th grade, with a few from 9th and 11th. I feel that before I jump into some of the more in depth things that I can accomplish with a blog, I might start with something somewhat simple, to familiarize students with the space. One idea might be to use the blog as a place where students can find links to websites to enhance the content that we are learning about in class, such as websites with different games and activities for review. I could also see posting links to different websites that discuss cultural issues from different Spanish-speaking countries. With a packed curriculum, it is sometimes difficult to set aside as much time as I would like to teach culture, so it might be beneficial to let students explore cultural issues on their own through my blog, and then post their thoughts and respond to one another. Exploring cultural websites and blogging about what they find is a very interesting idea, as students may stumble upon some really exciting traditions and stories that I might not have time to fill them in on.

Eventually, I could see using the blog as to showcase students' work as a part of their passage portfolios. At the end of the 10th grade, my student must display all of their work from a digital portfolio to a panel to prove that they are prepared to move on to the next step. I could use the blog to give students a comprehensive place to keep the work that have done in my class in one place and add to their digital portfolios. Students could store their cultural blogs, different writing assignments that they complete, and maybe even audio files that they record on Garage Band.

Finally, something that may be a bit ambitious but is hopefully within my reach, I would love to use my blog as a way for students to communicate with students in a Spanish speaking country who are learning English. This would be almost like a modern version of a pen-pal, but students will also be able to share with each other links to some of their favorite popular culture websites, thus making it more interesting as students are sharing things about themselves that they really care about, and the learning experience is quite enhanced. This final idea is really an ultimate goal that I have, and I would really be excited to see something like this take off as a result of my blog!