Futurists predict that our youth will be unprepared in science and math to compete successfully in the global economy by 2010 unless we make drastic changes to public education today. This is just one of the reasons why today's schools are implementing instructional coaches in the classroom, one of the fastest growing trends in education. The reason is because schools are faced with greater accountability than ever before and many school districts are seeking new methods of supporting professional development among teachers to strengthen teaching practice and improve student learning. Districts are using coaches to help implement reform and focusing on particular critical areas such as math, science and reading. These new methods are intended to support broad implementation of best practices in classrooms.
There are other trends in education that have started at grass roots level in communities such as Sunset Park, in Brooklyn, New York. In that community alone, more than 15,000 kids drop out of school every year. Joyce Mattera is the founder of one charity organization called Children of the City which she started in 1981 to reach out to help kids. She organized a small group of volunteers and began visiting children weekly to assess their needs and invite them to various community programs, helping them via academic support, life skills training, family counseling, and even holiday dinners.
Board members have helped the organization raise funds for this last year's Christmas gifts for more than 800 children. Children of the City's Create Success program, which is constantly being evaluated for needs and even better success, is fast becoming a model sought after by other agencies for their own after school program sites. High priority is placed on student's academic success with intense tutoring and daily personal homework help. They also provide students with counseling, and advocacy within the social systems such as courts, plus age-appropriate group and individual mentoring.
Trends will shape the future of educators and students globally. The future of America's education system, for example, according to futurist James Canton, is that "the quality of public education, in crisis today, will either propel or crash the future aspirations of the American workforce." It is also predicted that education is failing to prepare high-tech workers. There is also a rise in the hispanic population in this country. Many of the kids in Brooklyn, New York, for instance, come from hispanic families who cannot afford help when their kids are not doing well at school. Thanks to communications and the Internet there is hope for the future of our educaiton system.
The Internet should be available to all nations and people by the year 2040. By then futurists like Canton predict immediate, portable, transferable, in-demand knowledge sources on a scale equivalnet to the Library of Congress. It's eighth among the top ten trends of the new innovation economy.
Kristin Gabriel is an author and social media marketing professional with clients including Rocco Basile of the the Basile Builders Group based in New York. Basile is involved with several charities including Children of the City and the Joe DiMaggio Committee for Xaverian High School.
