Educators’ Manifesto
What is the Educators Manifesto?
The Educators' Manifesto is a brief document built on 4 values public education. The Educators' Manifesto was published in 2017 and is the work of concerned teachers, administrators, and parents who recognized the increasing need for an alternative to conventional public education systems .
What is the History of the Educators' Manifesto?
In 2017 educators gathered at for a series of weekly brainstorming sessions. They met to rethink schools, to lament, pontificate, and solve problems.
Despite having widely varying opinions on the right way to reform education, the group agreed on at least one thing: the status quo was not working. The public education system was building more and more alternative schools to deal with growing numbers of disengaged students. The message to parents and students was "regular school doesn't work for you so here's someplace else until you can learn to fit in". The message to teachers was "keep teaching as you always have and the system will take the trouble students away until they can tolerate regular school."
It’s important to note that people have been advocating for widespread change to the public school system for generations. Educators have long been applying various progressive values and principles piecemeal. The Educators' Manifesto seeks to make concrete the ideas that have been permeating public education for decades.
What are the 4 Educator Values?
Educator Values refers to the set of 4 values. Creating the conditions for student learning requires a balance of both supports and controls. While both are important, the Educators' Manifesto seeks pedagogies, systems, and environments where students are more supported than controlled.
As Educator's we have 4 values ....
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Creativity over compliance
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Fairness over efficiency
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Collaboration over competition
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LEARINING over teaching
As Educator's we believe in learning that ...
Promotes curiosity, questioning and creativity over memorization and rote learning
Fosters engagement and autonomy over compliance and reliance.
Provides adaptive flexible classroom experiences over fixed assignments and tasks
Emphasizes collaboration over solitary learning experiences
Embraces inclusion over organization for efficiency.
Focuses on big Ideas and concepts over specific expectations
Values ongoing, descriptive feedback over marks, categories and reports.
Inspires integrated, interdisciplinary learning over single-subject approaches.
Encourages inquiry based learning in real-world settings over lessons in isolation
