Learning to Unlearn

"Teaching does not make learning occur. Learners create learning. Taking on a new role, taking a posture of learning, means recreating ourselves, and rethinking how we do our jobs." (Connected Educator pg 46)
 
This statement states clearly what we need to do as educators, we not only need to be learning as we grow older and more mature in our teaching ways, but we need to be learning with every experience that we have. Whether it is from taking a bad situation and turn
ing it into a learning experience of how to handle certain situations, an example would be cyber bullying. We could take this ever rising issue, that students are probably facing in our classrooms and teach them how to handle it. As teachers, not only are we responsible for meeting the standards in the classroom, we have to prepare our students for the world outside of the school. We can only do this as teachers by constantly learning ourselves.
 
We as teachers need to reproach teaching in a new way starting with ourselves. We have to become connected learners and be participating in connected learning even though it is hard because we have to unlearn what we know and then grieve what we have left behind. Unlearning is necessary though in the ever-changing world that we live in. With new technology coming out every day, we have to be prepared for the now and the future. The way we can do that is by participating in a construction of knowledge.
 
The construction of knowledge consist of three parts, knowledge for practice, knowledge in practice, and knowledge of practice. All three of these may sound the same but they differ greatly and each is important to be successful in the ever changing world we are in where we need to unlearn what we know. Knowledge for practice is the "sit and get" experience where you are participating in a training session, reading a book, or traditional professional development activities. While the participate gets the knowledge from the activity, it is often hard to transfer what they have learned to their classrooms. Which is why knowledge in practice is important, this is the "try it out and see if it works." This is where you take what you learned in the knowledge for practice and apply it to the classroom to see what works and doesn't. This is the step where it is valuable to tap into your PLN (professional learning network) and PLC (professional learning community) and asking what has worked in other classrooms and what doesn't so that you have a base to start within your classroom. The next step in the construction of learning is knowledge of practice, which is where we shift the focus of just learning to learn, to asking deeper questions and going into research on a topic we are interested in as well as doing reflecting on what we have learned and bringing new and deeper meaning to it.
 
Technology in the classroom allows for everyone in the classroom to not only learn on their own but it allows us to cut the time in half, because we can pull information from other learners. We also find out many opposing views and experiences that allow us to validate our opinions and why we have them. Technology n the classroom allows for us to help produce a world of children that is ready for the world and not one that is used to drill and kill techniques or waiting for someone to teach them how to do it. As learners we have to be able to take a question and research it on our own to find the answers and teach ourselves.
 
Learning to unlearn is important because we have to not only be preparing ourselves for the world that is coming, we have to be preparing our students for their future. Which is much different than ours. Teachers have to be able to adjust to the new world that is evolving because we can't stay stuck in the dark ages. We do need what we have in the world today and we have to teach students how to use if efficiently. The kids we teach need to take what we teach them and be able to apply it to the real world that they will live in. If to do this, we have to unlearn our own learning styles to be able to teach every kid in the classroom efficiently and well, then that is what needs to happen. Intelligence isn't enough, we need an education. And that is our goal as educators, to give the children we teach an education.
 
As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said, “We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character –that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate.”