Focus on TUSD - Summer 2008

Superintendent's Column
The changing educational landscape
I have had an outstanding transition into our district. Each day, I have found more potential in the Tucson Unified School District, and it is exciting. There is no question we have a lot of work to do, but, honestly, every district has a lot of work to do if they want to bring their districts into the next century.

In just a short time, I have come to believe this school community does not just want to bring Tucson Unified into the next century. Rather, I believe this community and this District have both the desire and the capacity to make this a model school district for the next century - a first choice district full of different first choice schools that meet the needs of digital native students and attract, teach, and retain the highest quality staff available.

This might sound like a vision, but it is not intended to be - it just begins to represent my core beliefs about the future of successful education. Consider it a bit of foreshadowing.

Shared Vision
I have been told many times lately that people want to hear my vision for the District. Each time, I have said that a shared vision for this District should not come from one person. I know that it would be much easier that way, but it will never work. It is certainly my responsibility to facilitate the development of a progressive, 21st century shared vision for Tucson Unified, but it cannot be my work alone.

So, I think a good place for us to begin is for me to set the stage for our future work together by introducing the new educational landscape. It is important that we consider why education needs to look and feel differently than it has for the past 100 years.

New Ends for a New Century
Many people, when talking about shared vision or core values, would leave out the qualifier "21st century." I, however, believe this is an important designation because I am not talking about the core values of the past that molded the educational experience most of us had in school. A 21st century approach will not support the assembly line model of the past 100 years that valued compliance.

I am talking about the core values that should shape the future of education. Saying "21st century" means we are committed to a new context. This context includes:

• digital native students,
• a global economy and flat world,
• a premium on creativity/innovation, and
• other items discussed in Gary Marx's 16 Trends, Their Profound Impact on Our Future and other recent publications.

Using the term "21st century" education reminds us that we are not trying to tweak an old model designed for different outcomes. Instead, we are defining new ends for a new century based on the best information we have about a world we can barely predict. More specifically, we are transforming an educational system from a time when schools had a monopoly on information to a time when any fact can be Googled in seconds and technical information is predicted to double every 72 hours in the next two years. The ends for the next century must be different.

Digital Natives
A 21st century education system is built for students who are digital natives, those who are socially, emotionally and physiologically different from most of us who are digital immigrants. I'm sure your children or the children you see in our community are more at home with computers and other technological gadgets than they are with the traditional books we used for school. Most students don't even remember a time when they had no computers. Technology has become such an important part of their lives.

I am probably a member of the group that links or bridges digital natives and digital immigrants. I am more in sync with digital natives in many ways, such as having an affinity for electronic communication, but I am fairly sure I do not have the full brain toggling capabilities of the true digital native.

Brain toggling, according to Bill Daggett and Marc Prensky, is the reason many digital natives can listen to their iPod, do their homework, instant message six friends, and surf the Internet all at the same time. Sound familiar? It is also the reason that most digital immigrants could never beat a digital native at a videogame and why digital natives make great jet pilots. 

Prensky said digital natives have to "power down" when they go to school. So our school's curriculum and teaching strategies for the next century must consider not only new ends, but also a new customer. 

If you are interested in learning more about digital natives and digital immigrants I encourage you to read this article posted on Prensky's Web site www.marcprensky.com under the link "writing" titled, "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants" (in Adobe PDF).

Finally, the educational landscape is changing.  A flat world and a global economy that puts a premium on creativity and innovation, along with digital native students, require us to consider new ends or outcomes, a progressive curriculum, and 21st century teaching strategies to produce those ends if we are to be a District of first choice.  After only a few weeks of officially being on the job, I am convinced that together we can design and transform the District into a model for 21st century education.

--Elizabeth Celania-Fagen, Ed.D.
Superintendent

Photos in the summer issue by Jes Ruvalcaba of Communications & Media Relations, unless otherwise noted.

The deadline to submit material for the September Focus is Friday, August 15. The Focus will be published Monday, August 25. Email submissions to Chyrl Hill Lander or Sharon Dunham in the Communications & Media Relations Department or use the online Tip Sheet.