Google-ize your school?
Teachers.Net
entertaining articles in the latest issue of the *new* Teachers.Net
Gazette http://teachers.net/gazette/wordpress/october-2009/:
Google, Inc. as a model for schools?
Google Your School
By Rosemary Moore
http://teachers.net/gazette/wordpress/october-2009/
I never expected a visit to Google headquarters in California to make
me a better teacher, but it did. Google is the company known for its
exceedingly fast Internet search engine. You type in a few words and
in less than a second get 300,000 plus responses, many of which will
probably answer your question. How do they do that? And what does this
possibly have to do with education?
Google and other hi-tech corporations – Yahoo, YouTube and eBay – are
successful because they have learned how to unleash creativity. That
is what our schools should be doing, too. The time-honored method of
teaching – lecture – requires brain surgery: opening students’ skulls
and pouring information in (what psychologist and author, Carl Rogers,
called the “mug and jug” theory of education.) Students study and are
expected to recite what they have read, or what teachers have told
them. Lecture is an efficient way to deliver concise information.
However, the message is clear: “These 30 pages of text on the Civil
War are all you need to know about the subject.”
Rather than diluting, distilling and spoon-feeding information, our
job as educators should be to help students discover themselves, their
talents and the exciting questions that need to be answered. We must
encourage their creativity and their output. How can we do that?
I see a model for schools everywhere in what I observed at Google in
Mountain View, CA .
* Google workers are connected to the world through the Internet.
They have access to all the information currently available to answer
their questions.
* Google workers eat nutritious meals and snacks. You won’t find a
soda dispenser on their campus. You will be able to savor three, free,
healthy meals daily, as well as snacks.
* Google workers collaborate on their projects. They share ideas
and make discoveries. They spend their mealtimes eating outside on a
patio, playing with ideas and sparking one another’s imaginations.
* Google workers are free to stop “work” and play volleyball on a
sand court, play an etude on the grand piano, take a walk or a swim.
* Google workers have both individual offices and quiet open areas
where they can think and complete their projects.
And, my favorite:
* Google workers are expected to spend 20% of their time on the
job pursuing an idea that interests them, chasing a sunbeam that may
have no connection with their assigned work. At every turn they are
rewarded for taking initiative.
If that’s not enough to motivate, Google corporate will financially
support an innovator’s new ideas if he or she can convince two co-
workers that the idea has merit.
Sounds like a dream, and perhaps you doubt that high school students
are capable of learning in an environment like PhDs. But I believe
that students are capable of learning in a structured environment that
offers comparable benefits.
Schools can offer every one of the Google incentives: Internet
connections, brain food, time for play and collaboration, quiet space
and community space, and time for individual projects.
I am not advocating the Summerhill School of the 60s in which students
make all the decisions. I am advocating an environment in which
students are given responsibility for their own learning and
opportunities to explore their own interests – interests that will
lead to a productive career and an inspired life.
The mission of educators is to break down the walls in our schools and
provide opportunities for students to develop the inquisitiveness,
collaborative framework, research skills, and confidence they need to
meet the future.
One of Google’s mottos is: “Work should be challenging and the
challenge should be fun.” Education should also be challenging, and
the challenge should be fun. When we create an environment that
fosters initiative, creativity, collaboration, and responsibility, we
create life-long learners whose ideas may change the world.
________________________
Rosemary Moore is a fifth grade teacher and the founder of Oakbrook
Preparatory School in Spartanburg, SC. She is a co-producer of lesson
planning software and writes historical fiction for students. You can
reach her at rosema...@gmail.com.
http://teachers.net/gazette/wordpress/october-2009/