Technolandy

Day 10 (of SOL 2025) Summer of Learning… Dear Dr  @chrkennedy  

In his annual year end blog, Chris had some good questions… here is question 

10. Are we brave enough to stop doing things just because we have always done them?  Admittedly Many of us are, some better than others… but the system (and people who did well with the system) doesn’t always like this. But here are ten considerations for this 10th question:

1. Value individualization over standardization (question who are the people that came up with the ‘standardized’ stuff – the tests… reading levels… etc’) does the framework from this experiment of schooling that was once über valued, still have relevance and meaning, or should we focus more on the street data that lies in front of us?
2. Change dates of school – for example flex Easter Friday/good Monday to be ‘off’ on other religious/seasonal observances. Later start times too?
3. Get rid of summer break and spread it to a more realistic year round model
4. Schools open on weekends (and evenings) to better connect with families whose work schedules don’t link up with 9-3 Mon-Fri  – okay peek into my 365 day school concept: Teacher cohort 1: Sept Oct Nov; Jan, Feb, Mar; May, June, July.   Teacher cohort 2: Nov, Dec, Jan; March, April, May; July, August, September.   Teacher cohort 3: Saturday/Sunday.  (Cohort 4: evenings. 3-9pm)
5. Canadian food program for students (except for PEI, Canada remains the lone G7 nation without a food program for students – and while money is being directed this way, please be mindful that the vast majority of school buildings in BC are not built with a cafeteria as part of the building – so that’s a huge expense to consider)
6. No more bells (include later start times based on science exploring neurological processing) ooh – the Finnish 45:15 model!!
7. More co-creating learning journeys (let’s give more credits for life-learnings than from reading and responding to textbooks) 
8. Why are groups made up by birth year rather than readiness, interest or need (and no – this does not mean platoon math classes – heterogeneous ability grouping are vital when exploring subjects)
9. Change the mindset of homework – it reinforces inequity and burns out/stresses learners – make it so that kids “can” (get to) continue learning at home, but don’t have to (especially when work and family responsibilities take precedence)
10. Stop reducing libraries – we need more librarians (more on this later) Not sure if its a correlation or causation (or something else) but as I note people complaining about student reading scores – I also note the decrease in librarian time (and no, not for providing prep for classroom teachers); I propose that each school have a full time librarian and THEN another based on current union ratios to provide the prep/support that they currently do and a fixed amount ($100 per student per year) to buy books – comics first!!… I may have mis-spoke decades ago as a proponent of the Learning Commons concept – I always thought of it ‘as well as’ not ‘instead of’ traditional librarian work…but this is a bigger blog proposal for another month!

The answer? We must be. If we want to build an education system that truly reflects our values and our students’ futures, we need to stop clinging to outdated habits.

💡 What if instead…
We reimagined schools as welcoming, year-round learning hubs with flexible scheduling, rich learning journeys, full-time librarians, evening/weekend access, and a shift from compliance to curiosity?

🚀 Brave education isn’t just about doing more. It’s about stopping what no longer serves us.