Empower. John Spencer

to anyone, allow for collaboration, and be used for a variety of innovative purposes.

      As teachers, we have to embrace the notion that technology can open up a world of learning opportunities and then give our students the chance to own those opportunities.

      Truth #2 comes from a quote I (A.J.) first heard Tom Murray say on stage: “Every child in your class is someone else’s whole world.”

      As a parent who now has a child in school, this really hits home for me as I watch my daughter leave for school every day. Empowered learning brings us closer together through communication tools, real-time collaboration, and sharing meaningful and relevant work that brings the learning to life.

      But it does more than that. It transforms our social/human connections with little moments that can make a kid’s day or make a parent proud.

      Truth #3 is all about the story.

      It’s one of the best ways to teach and a favorite way of ours to learn. Stories have passed the test of time, and continue to enlighten and motivate people every day to learn and grow.

      Our current world has transformed storytelling. Technology expands our depth of story and allows us to share stories wider and farther than ever before. When something goes “viral,” it means a story has struck a chord and reached millions of people unlike at any other time in history. As teachers and students, we can use technology to transform our storytelling and how we learn.

      The true power of a story comes from two things: learning from the story and then sharing your story with an audience and with the world. Empowered learners know stories are the gateway to pursuing their passions and future.

      Truth #4 is something I firmly believe and try to say every time I speak at a conference or school. As mentioned earlier, our job as teachers is to help students prepare themselves for anything. To frame this as a story, we are the guides, and our students are the heroes of the story.

      When we don’t know what the future holds for our students, our job changes. Teachers can be guides who empower learners because we can be free of always having to be the content experts (especially as content continually changes). Instead, we share with our students that we ,too, are master learners. Knowing how to learn is a skill we can share with our students to help them learn anything.

      Truth #5 is based around this quote: “The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”⁸

      Empowered students are part of a learning environment where unlearning and relearning is the norm. This type of environment is where we can get new information and analyze it, apply it, and use it to create or evaluate. Empowered learners adopt a mindset that praises unlearning and relearning and treats the process as a continuum.

      Truth #6 is something all of us who work in education know: We have an impact. We make a difference. It’s why we got into this profession in the first place, and it’s what keeps us here and moving even on the hardest days.

      Empowered environments allow our connections and impact to move beyond the classroom walls and continue to be powerful, long after our students are out of sight.

      There is no better time to be in education than right now. Education is the bridge to so many opportunities for our learners. We must step aside as the gatekeepers and instead move next to our learners to take the journey together.

      These six truths help us to stand firm against the fads and next “best thing” in education while focusing on what works to make our learners’ experience both meaningful and relevant while they are in school.