The purpose of school is to prepare students for their eventual roles in the adult world, ensuring that all we do prepares them to be successful and productive adults. Everything in education should revolve around this idea, professional development, curriculum, class size, graduation requirements and so many other pieces of daily school life. Having all staff, especially administrators on board with this concept will help this entire process to be smooth for students and teachers. Preparing students for the adult world is more than just reading, writing and arithmetic, teaching them how to socialize, how to participate in government, and even vocations if that is what the student wants to know. Students should participate in a variety of courses and if possible connections between those courses should be made. For example, the auto shop teacher and the math teach might teach a lesson in conjunction to help students understand how they will one day use math in real life.
I have spent the last several years focusing my work on online education as I feel this is a way to increase opportunities to a variety of courses for students and diverse professional development for teachers. I find online learning is the next step in moving our education system to the next level giving students individualized education but still providing effective technology integration, core content.
