The Learning Partnerships Specialist: Building the New and Needed Web of Learning Support

Technos: Quarterly for Education and Technology, Spring, 2000 by Dorothy Rich

WHAT WE'RE LEARNING ABOUT OUR LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS IS THAT OFTENTIMES KIDS NEED MORE HELP THAN THEIR TEACHERS ALONE CAN GIVE THEM. THIS LONGTIME EDUCATOR AND ADVOCATE FOR CHILDREN HAS A PROPOSAL TO HELP THAT SITUATION.

BEYOND ACADEMICS

The halls can be patrolled. The students can be searched. But the ultimate safety of our schools and the achievement of our students rest in the hearts and minds of those students, their families, and their community.

Educators can't do it all ... nor can metal detectors. We need what it takes to prepare students with the sound fundamentals of judgment, common sense, confidence, and motivation to know what is correct and to do what is correct. This is the integration of academic and character development that influences achievement.

Certainly, schools across the nation need high academic standards, and students need to become competent readers. Yet, the message from Littleton, Colorado, and beyond is also loud and clear: Students who can make bombs can read. What they lack are the attitudes and behaviors of mind and heart that will enable them to be productive and successful in school and beyond. These qualities, along with academic achievement, are what our students need.

THE EDUCATION `SAFETY NET'

Until fairly recently, schools were part of a set of intimately connected social and educational institutions: the family, the neighborhood, the church, community clubs and groups. A variety of players was involved in putting across the educational message.

Today this vital web of community, social, and educational institutions -- really the safety net for students -- is punctured with gaping holes. Our children feel multiple competing pressures, from inside the school and from outside.

We applaud the seemingly endless and daily multiplying resources for broader and better education. Yet, education will be better only when the many parts of this mosaic, the endless pieces, are brought together to make sense, as in a puzzle. It is people who bring the parts together. Without them, we encounter lots of noise, lots of spectacle ... signifying very little.

Lack of technology isn't the only thing that keeps those pieces from connecting. Too much undigested information can be a major problem for children, even for adults. The world outside is bigger than ever, filled with choice and hype. Too much is coming at us at once, and too much of a good thing can be more of a curse than a blessing.

The connections needed for education today are not just with information. They are with people who help us manage two major areas of concern: One we may have too much of-- information. One we probably have too little of- relationships that support children's learning. I call these "connection" people Learning Partnerships Specialists (LPSs).

This is not "old wine in new bottles." This is a new and necessary role in education for our changing times. The changed conditions are such that the schoolroom alone, no matter how effective, is insufficient. How can we expect so much from the school, when children are in school so little time and so much is happening outside? Information that comes at us 24 hours a day, seven days a week, does not match the school schedule. Students need to be able to connect and use information and transform it into knowledge. The Learning Partnerships Specialist will help students and their families build a strong base for emotional and academic knowledge.

Some precedents for this kind of collaboration have been set with Title I and related education programs. Yet, it takes specific and trained persons to build and sustain collaboration and extend it into the larger learning environment of the community.

FROM RHETORIC TO REALITY

The Learning Partnerships Specialist's role evolves from need and experience in translating research into practice. It is the logical next step in the evolution of the partnership of the MegaSkills[R] Method (see "We All Need MegaSkills[R]") with school reform models nationwide.

LPSs are not traditional teachers. They are persons whose primary tasks are to work with and maintain the once strong, now weaker connections among school, home, and community resources. These linkages include: school, home, library, police, recreation center, medical clinic, etc. A key job of the LPS is to build learning relationships.

We used to think that if we put a good teacher in a classroom with good materials, all would be well. Students would eagerly learn; teachers eagerly teach. We used to think there was a direct line between teaching and learning. It was taught; then it was learned. We used to think every student learned in the same way ... actually, we didn't think about it at all. We just taught everything in the same way! We did not know about the impact of the home and community on children's work in school. We knew so much less about the impact of poverty and abuse. We know more now; we know better now, and with this knowledge, the age of innocence in education is over.

Children won't learn unless they want to learn and have the will to learn. The key to building this motivation is to build relationships that support learning. It's these connections that have needed support as never before, and this is a major assignment for the Learning Partnerships Specialists.