Last November, Superintendent Irene Cornish and three of Stratford’s Board of Education members, Susan Barksdale, Jean Collier, and David Kennedy, attended a statewide conference for superintendents and Board members entitled, “Public Education: The Cornerstone of Connecticut’s Future.” The keynote address was given by David Warlick, a former middle school teacher, who has become an internationally renowned speaker on the future of public education. Mr. Warlick stressed in his “Redefining Literacy for the 21st Century” address - filled with cutting edge technology utilization - that “A new vision for the classroom is changing our definitions of teaching, learning, and being educated in the 21st century.”

His opening slides of his power point presentation caught the audience off guard when he asked through those slides the question, “What do we know about the workplace of the future that we are preparing our children for? . . . Almost nothing.” And that theme was reiterated when he said, “For the first time in history, our job as educators is to prepare our students for a future that we cannot clearly describe.” That is such a change from when many of us were in school. But, just reflecting about the changes we as adults have seen in our own work places supports the notion that the work place of the future for our elementary school students today can hardly be imagined. But what is known is that it will be a “place that is governed by information. Accessing, processing, building with, and communicating that information is how (they) will all make their livings.”

And so, according to Warlick, what we have to teach our students today is “to be able to teach themselves” tomorrow. And that means teaching “reading, riting, and rithmetic” so that it can be used in the world in which our students will live and work all the way into the end of the 21st century. It means teaching our students to be a new kind of “literate.” His address included many examples of this subtle but significant shift. Let me highlight two. (For those who would like to see others or learn more about Warlick’s work and ideas, please visit www.davidwarlick.com or search engine, The Landmark Project.)

In an age when our students are constantly accessing information on the internet and Google and Yahoo are the new research tools, it is not only important to be able to read well and understand what is read but our students have to be able to evaluate whether the information they are reading is true or biased. For example, Warlick took the audience to a website that had the title: Martin Luther King, Jr. – A Historical Examination: the Death of the Dream. (http://www.martinlutherking.org/dream.html) It looked like a normal site that any student would come up with if he or she searched that theme. But then, through further search tools – he called it decoding the site - he showed that the site was one developed and maintained by a neo-Nazi organization and was filled with inaccuracies and biases! “Reading text isn’t enough. It must be decoded and evaluated,” says Warlick. “Reading text expands into exposing truth.”

How about “Riting?” Here, too, Warlick gave the audience a novel twist to consider: we write to convey ideas to others and we practice writing to continually do that better. And then he gave an example of an actual writing assignment given to a high school student to develop an essay about “sweatshops.” One student, who had struggled in her writing skills throughout school, decided that she was not going to be limited to just words. Instead, using music, film, video, and words, Consuelo Molina developed a 21st century essay, A Sacrifice for You, that Warlick played for the audience. (http://www.sfett.com/html_movie/Ican2/sweatshop.html) At the end, our eyes were moist and we understood why the “essay” that had made the rounds of the internet, had gotten at least one major American corporate retailer to change some of its policies. Words, music, pictures. All combined effortlessly and creatively by a high school student to convey an idea. For Warlick, literacy in the 21st century includes “writing expanding into expressing ideas compellingly.”

It is against this backdrop and with this vision that we as local Boards of Education can evaluate – in part - our districts’ curriculum. It is the lens for the emphases we encourage, the frame for the results we seek, and the “why” behind what educators are doing every day in our public schools.