Global Education Forum in Dubai, March 9-11
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Former ISTE president, Dr. Peggy Kelly
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Although I have been to the Middle East before as part of the NCATE development work with the United Arab Emirates University, I have never spent much more than a day at a time in Dubai. I expected the city to have changed due to on-going media on the rate of construction of skyscraper style buildings and the recent news stories about the impact of the economy on ex-patriots. What I didn't expect was breakneck speed with which the region has understood and made plans to implement technology in every aspect of government and education. Complete with simultaneous translation into Arabic, conference was the formal venue to update the education and business sector on progress and expectations for the near future.
I think I am a pretty savvy technology-conference go-er. Being a former president of ISTE and a former chair of NECC, I really thought I had seen most everything and had wrestled with the issues of staging a conference. But I never expected the conference opening session to have a laser light show that most of us would pay to see. Picture Star Wars meets your favorite laser battle scene complete with avatar-looking figures splitting laser beams onto the ceiling throughout the venue. Then punctuate each fierce encounter with burst of smoke to the beat of frenetic techno music. Wow! What a start!
With about 1000 participants in the audience, there were welcoming addresses leading to the opening keynotes by the Minister of Education. His message was clear and simple: The world is different, kids are different, and, therefore, teaching and learning must be different. Sound familiar? It was as if he had read the ISTE standards work from 1998 through the present. And his commitment to making it happen in the UAE was very clear. He committed to continuing to expand the infrastructure and supporting professional development. Along with the other speakers, the message was forceful—all students must be prepared for work in the 21st century.
Each of the keynote and the session speakers could have been presenters at NECC. There was an amazing amount of consistency between what educators are saying in middle eastern gulf states and educators in the US, Australia, Great Britain, and the Asian Pacific—Kids are different, expectations have changed, education must change. What is also similar is the concern about the existing education workforce. I fielded more questions about how to work with current teachers in the field than about how to have new educators, novice teachers, prepared to work with today's student and restructure the learning.
I spoke with educators from the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Oman—they are having the same conversations and questions. How do we do this? Creating a learner-centered environment means I lose control, right?!? How do I know kids have learned the basic skills? What is the definition of basic skills? How does our country deal with access issues? And my favorite—Do you really think all kids can learn like this?!?
What I found to be amazingly wonderful was the consistent commitment to making it all work. Countries in the Persian Gulf area all have a centralized curriculum. Education is a national priority. They see education as the way to rapidly bring their children into a competitive global marketplace where they must play a contributing role to be at the table with other nations that are considered to be developed. Ministries of Education take their role as leaders of change to be the key to success.
I structured my keynote to address an audience that I did not believe had much familiarity with the ISTE Standards. I was asked to do a keynote introducing the refreshed student standards with a workshop to follow going in-depth on the student standards. Because the success of the student standards is dependent on the corresponding work on the teacher and administrator standards, I showed how they support student success. I did not expect the rise from the audience when I said, "Without effective leadership from administrators,–principals to central office, to the ministry, expecting students to meet the standards with the support of teachers who are able to meet the teacher standards, is not possible to sustain over time." There was an audible response of agreement from the audience. Keep in mind, this is an audience that had been very quiet through every keynote I attended. I guess I struck a nerve. But this is the same nerve ISTE has been addressing since the first version of the administrators' standards were released. Somehow it is comforting to know that issues of change, just don't change!
So the "I" in ISTE continues to flourish!
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