Getting over the Wall

Is it just me or when you need that little extra push to
keep going you can find it in this community?

We are in the middle of creating architectural plans for the new elementary library that ground breaking is scheduled for this May and
completion next December. I have been on a task force looking at making this
building look towards the future and not towards the past. I have come out with
some far out there ideas that have, at times, not been liked by others on the task
force. I keep talking about an information center where technology and books
sit next to each other, where students have access to printed material and
digital material at the same time, an amazing open and seamless information
space. The problem is this is revolutionary change not incremental change. Just as I’m starting to get frustrated and second guessing myself, John posts the Big Frickin’ Wall again reminding me that it’s not easy bring about revolutionary change, that that wall has a way of stopping revolutionary change from happening.

We have to continue to think outside the box, to look at the skills, resources, and access our students will need in the future. With this we are forced to look at past teaching practices. We are no longer looking at instructional computer labs, where students come to the tech teacher to learn about stuff. We’re talking a new way of teaching technology, in the middle of a library with numerous resources, laptops on tables and iPods in hand. Maybe we need to rethink the noise level of a library. Maybe 21st century libraries are not suppose to be quiet, but instead alive with students interacting with information. We have to shed this old mindset and when building a new building we can not have incremental change because once the building is built, the furniture bought, cables laid, that’s it the change is done. We need to think revolutionary and we need to find a way to get over the frick’n wall because it has ran education for way to long.