Convocation Features Ray McNulty
By ELIZA WINSTON - Bulletin Staff Writer
To prepare students to be successful in a changing world, teachers must be ready to change, a speaker said Tuesday during the Henry County Schools' convocation.
Ray McNulty, president of the International Center for Leadership in Education, was the keynote speaker at the event. An educator since 1973, he has been a teacher, vice principal, principal and superintendent and was Vermont's education commissioner for two years.
"I've never been to a school opening with this much enthusiasm," McNulty told a crowd that came close to filling the Martinsville High School auditorium. The event was held there to accommodate the large group of county teachers, administrators and staff from the system's 14 schools.
McNulty urged teachers to consider transforming the education models and practices that are used today. The model of a teacher with a classroom of 25 students and books is outdated, he said.
He explained that during the agricultural age, students were educated at home or in one-room schoolhouses. Later, during the industrial age, the more familiar model of one teacher with many students in large schools was formed, he said.
That model was designed to educate a third of students well, a third of students adequately and to push the last third of students out into the labor force to work in factories, McNulty said. Although that model still is used often, it no longer works, he said.
"What got us to where we are in education won't get us to where we need to be," he said.
He told the audience that when he was a superintendent, one moment changed his opinion on education. His two sons were in school at the time, and one of their friends was a talented artist but not successful academically.
When that student graduated, he told McNulty that he felt he had "nothing to be proud of" because he was in the bottom 10 percent of his class, McNulty recalled. McNulty realized that while the school had praised students who were academically gifted, it had failed to help those who were talented in other ways realize their potential.
He said he discussed the problem with school officials and high school teachers and learned that in addition to staying in the gym after school, the two other places students stayed were the art room and computer lab. He and his faculty developed a curriculum that allowed students with strong art or computer interests to study core academic topics in ways that appealed to their talents.
"We as educators must be the agents of change," he said, adding that teachers "need to educate each and every one of them (students) to the best of their ability."
It is important for students to be educated so they can do well in school and outside of school, he said. School, unlike the real world, can be a highly predictable environment, he said.
"Learning is about meaning, not memorization," McNulty added.
He said that employers now want people who think for themselves and are self-starters and collaborators. It is not the strongest or the most intelligent people who survive in the business world but those who are most responsive to change, he said.
McNulty added that as more and more machines are used in businesses, workers who are creative and inventive will become the most valued employees because their talents cannot be automated. He added that professionals he has spoken with no longer want to hire problem-solvers, but those who can predict future problems by observing the current system.
The most important thing for teachers is to put an "emphasis on what students can do with knowledge rather than what they know," McNulty said. Instead of requiring, mandating and forcing students to do things, teachers should get them excited about the world and how they can use subjects such as math and science in their lives outside of school, he said.
