Journey of an Educator

When you go on a journey, you know where you are leaving from and you like to know where you are going. You plan your trip according to the departure date and the return date. You might do a bit of a "Sunday Drive" from time to time but if you set off on a purposeful journey, you pretty much make a plan.
 An educator's journey is a bit different these days. You don't really know where you are going to end up. As an educator, I like to have my goals, and learning outcomes pretty much sorted. But this 21st century stuff is not as easy as you think. The goals are open ended. The outcome may be entirely different to what you thought it would be.
 We know where we have come from - a tried and true industrial method of drafting off the "academics" from the "labourers" with a few skilled trades people in between. The trouble is, we don't know where we are going these days. The world is unpredictable. Technology is advancing so quickly. We may not need to even learn how to drive, since Google and other companies are on the threshold of delivering that promise. We are preparing our students for the unknown.

 So we set out on our journey with a bag packed with a few odds and sods that we think might come in useful. Adaptability, protection, flexibility, a bit of experience, our personal learning network email or twitter addresses in case of emergency, a steady hand on the wheel and off we go.

 And as for our destination.....do you think we will know when we get there?
Images from Flickr and Wikimedia and Pixabay