be colored
I used to think about that as a child
because my dad was colorblind and so it
with great interest that I found out
that there are glasses that are now made
that can help colorblind and color
deficient people to see color for the
first time and so if you look on the
internet you can find those videos of
people who put on those glasses for the
first time and their friends and their
families are watching them and it takes
a little while they put the glasses on
it takes a few minutes for them to be
able to see the difference as they look
around at their surroundings right and
it’s really emotional to not only see
their reaction to see their friends and
family’s reaction as these people are
seeing things seeing the world in a
different way for the first time they
say things like oh my gosh that’s red
that’s what red looks like or oh my
goodness look look how blue that is Wow
whoever knew blue could be like that
right so it’s it’s very emotional and
it’s fun to watch the videos and I can
relate to that because in a lonely
because when I was a little kid I
couldn’t see very well I had just poor
vision right and my dad I’ve had this
idea that she should not put glasses on
a kid too soon because that might hurt
they’re hurt their eyes so I went
through many years of my elementary
school squinting and messing up my face
so that I could see the board and the
teachers would put me in the front row
so that I could see better and so when I
finally got glasses when I went to the
eye doctor and put on glasses for the
first time I was amazed that people saw
the world this way all the time right
and I remember standing in the doctor’s
office and looking across the street at
the trees on the other side of the
street and was truly blown away by the
fact that they weren’t lumps like if I
drew on my art my art projects but they
were actually you could actually see the
death
issue of the leaves and you can actually
see the colors better really so that’s
what I think is what’s wrong with
education or not what’s wrong with it
sorry that’s why I want you to
re-envision education with me I want you
to put on a new prescription and that
new prescription with that new
prescription you will see that we need
to extend student learning in any way
and every way we can
through community involvement we’ve been
looking at education the same way we
have for a hundred years when it comes
to the structure of it right why do we
have the school day in the school year
that we have now it’s because a hundred
years ago that worked for families they
put the crop into the bin and then their
kids went off to school knowing that the
kids would be would come back that the
school year would be over when they
needed them again
for planting and they did got up and
they did chores together in the morning
and then they and then the kids went off
to school knowing that those kids would
come back so they could get the chores
done before dark so we still have this
August to May 8 to 3 kind of schedule
and we’re pretending like that still
works for families I don’t know about
you but I don’t see a lot of families
that operate under that schedule anymore
the reality today is that 50 years ago
70% of our families had stay-at-home
moms right one income families today
it’s the exact opposite over 70% of our
families our two income families and
that means that 30 percent of our
children are home alone in the morning
getting themselves to school and 30
percent of our kids are coming home at
the end of the day to an empty home or
parents are shuffling their kids around
spending extra money finding babysitters
or maybe if they’re lucky grandparents
to come in and and fill in that gap
some things have changed in in the world
in the in the life of Education right
technology has changed a great deal
we’ve heard a little bit about that
today so the tools that we use to teach
have changed quite a bit we are less
reliant on paper and pen and we don’t
use chalkboards anymore so now it’s a
world of smart boards and iPads and
computers and visual reality and an
internet learning right so the
technology has changed a lot but we’re
still using the same system and
expecting that to work imagine if you
will that you’re a parent and you need
to get to work at 7:00 to 5:00 in the
morning and the school building doesn’t
open till 7:30 so what you have to do
you again have to find if to spend extra
money you have to find somebody willing
to to help your kids into the right
place you have to provide extra
transportation it doesn’t fit with the
family unit to find that extra help at
that time of the morning imagine instead
that you could take your you could all
get up together and go off to work and
to school and you could drop your your
pits off of the school knowing that
you’re first in your third grader we’re
going to be spending time with the
visiting nurses and learning about the
importance of dental hygiene and how to
floss their teeth and at the same time
your middle schooler would be at the
green house working with the local
gardening group who is who is who are
helping them plant tomatoes and at the
same time learning about plant science
and about genetics or maybe your that
set of parents who is there in the
morning but it’s at the end of the day
that’s the problem they don’t get home
till 6:00 or 7:00 at night and so again
there’s shuffling kids here and there
and finding
transportation but what is what if
instead they knew that there’s their
students were going to stay at school
and then the community people were to be
coming in perhaps it would be the local
librarian the local book club people
that would come in and discuss a
favorite novel with their with their son
or daughter or maybe it would be the
Sportsman’s Club that comes in and
teaches something it teaches it since
how to fish or let’s look at the other
way maybe in this community we’ve got a
lot of elderly people and and there’s
some elderly people that would come to
the school so that your middle schooler
could teach them how to set up their
Facebook page point is and we have a lot
of community people who have a lot to
share and are willing to do that are
willing to make a difference in the
child’s life or simply want to share
their expertise and we have a lot of
agencies that are already at work but
our work but are struggling to find
access and divide transportation that
they wouldn’t have to if they could if
we could keep kids at school and to
provide that mental health or that
social service or that big brothers big
sisters club or the 4-h club or whatever
it is if this community has to offer or
perhaps there’s a community college in
your community with students who are
studying to be nurses or teachers or
accountants who need to have some
experts some time to spend teaching that
and learning it better themselves every
community is unique and every community
has much to offer to give students that
opportunity to make that connection to
create that relationship and to extend
their learn we talk a lot about school
choice in this country we talk about
choosing this route or that school what
I’m talking about is school choice
within the school so that parents can
make better decisions for the families
so that students can make interesting
choices for their learning and so that
communities can
make good choices on what they want
their communities to to emphasize when
it comes to education if you squint a
little bit you can actually see that
we’re we’re trying to do this right so
if we screw in a little bit you can see
that we have what we call before school
and after school programs of course you
have to qualify to be in them all right
you gotta be low-income or at-risk or
qualify academically somehow what if
instead of calling them before and after
school programs we just called it school
right and we offered some choices as to
what could take place in that time
career
squint again and you’ll see that we
already do that when it comes to sports
nobody thinks twice about the gym being
open and the community being involved
early in the morning and late at night
then I’m late at night and with our
sports programs that doesn’t seem
strange to us at all that we have
volunteer coaches and that we have
people coming in to teach kids how to
pitch or to Tom supervised while they’re
doing weightlifting that doesn’t seem
strange to us at all but at the same
time our classrooms are dark when
there’s opportunities there to open them
up to extended learn and opportunities
for our communities to truly get
involved and what the future of our
community is going to do it’s looking at
something the same way we always have
kind of generational it reminds me of
that old story that I’m sure many of you
have heard well what’s the woman is
making the pot roast and she cuts off
the ends of the compost and her son’s
watching her do that and he says why do
you cut off the ends and she says well
oh that’s how you make a pot roast
that’s the way mom taught me so he he
doesn’t like that answer he’s not really
satisfied by it so the next time is at
Grandma’s house and he asks her grandma
why do you cut the ends of the pot roast
off before you put it in the pan
she says wrong oh no it’s how you make
pot roast that’s the way my mom told me
so the next time they make a visit to
the to the nursing home he has the
pleasure of talking to his
great-grandmother
and he asks her the same question why do
you cut the ends of the pot roast off
for me first and she says well I only
had one pan and I had to cut off the
ends in order for it to fit into the pan
we tend to take a look and do the same
thing because that’s only it’s always
moved in the pans and in the process
we’re cutting things short we’re cutting
our students short from the
opportunities and the relationships that
they could have we’re cutting our
families short from the opportunities if
they would have to truly spend more
quality time and less stressful time
with their children and we’re cutting
our communities short because of all the
ways that what they could get involved
and truly make their communities a
better place so I’m encouraging you now
to not wait any longer put on those
glasses look around and see how we can’t
make our communities and our education
system more colorful and brighter futures thank you