Read more: Local, State, Education
Dr. Anthony Muhammad, an Education Consultant recalls his second grade class in 1976 with Mrs. Wolf at Carpenter Road Elementary in Flint.
"I can tell you, when I left I could read anything you put in front of me," Muhammad said. "Everybody in our class could and I just want that for every child and I got it here at Carpenter Road."
To help every child have the quality education Dr. Muhammad had, he travels the world training adults in the education profession on how to transform the public school system into a more productive learning environment.
"I think it was TIME magazine at the turn of the millennium, who ran an article and it said if Rip Van Winkle fell asleep in 1900 and woke up in 2000, the only thing he would notice is the public school system," Muhammad said.
Dr. Muhammad is a contributing author to the book, The Collaborative Administrator: Working Together as a Professional Learning Community. The book focuses on three different school transformation categories, the first one: Focus on learning.
Dr. Muhammad says, "We've always focused on teaching, learning hasn't really been our focus.
But in 2009, Dr. Muhammad says we are in a different ball game. "We need to measure what students take away and what justifies good practice is that students walk away with the intended learning we had when we started that instruction."
And one way of assuring all students are learning, Dr. Muhammad says all educators need to collaborate together.
"That collaborative culture is more than just teachers talking," Dr. Muhammad says. "It's a whole system wide approach to not having a bunch of one room school houses, but to operate like a real organization."
But Dr. Muhammad says to most school systems, collaboration is a foreign way of doing things.
"When I taught, I taught what I wanted to teach, how I wanted to teach it, I assessed it the way I wanted to asses it and there were three other seventh grade social studies teachers and we never talked," Muhammad stated.
And according to Muhammad's teachings, things need to change. He says its time all students receive the same quality education so there are positive results among all children.
"If it means remediation until the sun comes up, if it means teaching a student in different ways until we are satisfied that our job is done until a student demonstrates that they have learned what we intended them to learn when we started teaching."
Dr. Muhammad will be holding a conference at the Embassy Suites in Detroit November 5-7. You can learn more by clicking on the link below.
