Extraordinary Futures
To create extraordinary futures, a school district must provide tailored, individualized learning experiences for students in order to inspire them to achieve beyond their perceived potentials. The best way to accomplish this challenge is to hire and retain talented and motivated educators who can make personal connections with each student while simultaneously providing a world-class curriculum for students.
Additionally, the school district must strive to meet the demands of a 21st Century education which includes learning programs steeped in the following tenets:
Critical thinking and problem solving
Creativity and innovation
Communication and collaboration
Scientific and numerical literacy
Cross-disciplinary thinking
Information, media, and technology literacies
Global awareness
Financial, economic, business, and entrepreneurial literacies
Civic, health, and environmental literacies
The educational programs of the district should instill leadership and responsibility in our students. They should be provided with ample opportunities to leverage their social and cross-cultural skills to guide and lead others as well as to act responsibly with the interests of the larger community in mind. The program should teach students how to manage projects and produce results; how to work effectively in diverse teams and interact effectively with others; how to be self-directed learners who can work independently while managing goals and time; how to be flexible and adapt to change.
To provide such a program, the district should invest in sustained professional learning programs for their faculty. It should inculcate a culture of data-driven decision making. Finally, to create extraordinary futures for students, the district should embrace the effective and impactful use of technologies to provide students with ‘anytime, anywhere, any place’ learning experiences.
