Integrated Studies: You Mean It's All One World?

I find many aspects of the Edutopia article "Schools That Work: Mixing Art + Politics - Integrated Studies in High School", to be breathtakingly simple but important in contemporary pedagogy.

First, I truly love to be reminded of the notion that subject areas are not separate in any way. I remember stumbling upon this thought as a high school student, and it making a world of difference in my studies. Seeing the real connections between French class, geography, and history made these topics suddenly come alive. Why then do we as high school teachers so often separate and divide our subject areas as if they did not influence and contribute to the same world?

I am inspired by the (sparring) use of technology to combine two seemingly dissimilar topics such as Government and Art. The collaboration between classes obviously took some time and effort by the teachers, but it obviously paid off. This sort of collaboration is often stressed by many as one of the most important skills of the future, and yet how often do we set the boundary of learning at our own subject or classroom?

While I often champion the subject I teach (English) to be beyond a hard and clear curriculum, I know that over the years, the focus of my class has often retreated into an insulated, safe-harbor of activity. Instead of blogging this afternoon, I think I’ll go try to convince a colleague in another subject area to collaborate next semester.

A Worthwhile Reminder: Practice Professionalism Always

I was recently reading an article in the "Globe and Mail" entitled "Ontario teachers told not to ‘friend’ or follow students on Twitter". Two things strike me immediately about this article and its message.

First, although this is only a single, short article regarding the use of Twitter in education I feel it is a significant reminder for all teachers. In the article professional educators are reminded that despite the genuine excitement concerning new learning opportunities via technologies such as Twitter and other social networking sites, teachers are always responsible for their conduct in all spheres of life. The "power" of such technologies are that they allow learning beyond the traditional means of a classroom, but with that expansion come the possible entrance into a teacher's private life. I appreciate that a number of my colleagues use tools such as Facebook to build understanding and community with their students, but with these types of media carry inherent risks that ought to be considered. Risks I do not wish to entertain.

The second thought that leaps to my mind in reading this article is, "What does MY union say about the matter?" With no specific update to our teacher's code of conduct regarding these media, I get the sense that we teachers are being left to make the judgment of risk for ourselves. Certainly teachers in my district are held to high standards of (traditional) professional conduct, but can teacher really be expected to simply make the best decision for themselves without guidance from our professional bodies? Given the large demographic of teachers on my staff that would classify as "digital immigrants" (Prensky), this seems like a bit of a risky assumption. For mine and everyone's sake at the conclusion of this post, I'll be emailing my union rep.

Type to you later.