The National Association of Elementary School Principals has a video posted on YouTube titled Vision 2021 (also embedded below). You can learn more about the vision:
The mission of VISION 2021 is two-fold:
- Understand the drivers that are shaping teaching, leading and learning; and how the future is changing for pre-K-8 principals; and
- Envision strategies, models, structures and relationships that will realign NAESP with the future.
NAESP also has a blog.
A few things about the video bothered me. First, I just don't think the video is done that well. I know I'm one to talk, since my presentations aren't exactly high quality either, but I'm also not the NAESP creating a public service announcement. And - except for Did You Know? 2.0 where XPLANE took care of the higher quality - I wasn't originally intending them for the world. But the part where the four of them are on screen speaking in unison didn't inspire me to think of 2021. (And, yes, I know, I should go back and improve my presentations now that they do have a wider audience - so this is a little bit of the pot calling the kettle black.)
Second, in the About This Video section they do a nice job of describing their video, but they don't link to their website. I know they list the main NAESP site at the end of the video, and the vast majority of folks would be able to find it, but I would've thought they wanted to make it easy to click through directly to Vision 2021 to learn more.
Third, and I don't think this is just because they take a shot at 2020 Vision, but - for me - the tagline of "Hindsight is 20/20" doesn't quite work with the title of Vision 2021. 2021 doesn't have much of a ring to it, and I don't follow the logic of 2020 is hindsight, so therefore 2021 is the future. If you're looking back at 2020, wouldn't that mean you were in at least 2021?
Fourth, in their blog entry about the YouTube video, they don't link directly to the video. They link to YouTube, but they tell their readers to:
access the video on the YouTube Web site by typing �NAESP� into the search engine.
Finally, I just can't help noticing the irony that they posted it on YouTube, when presumably a very high percentage of K-8 schools can't get to YouTube because of their Internet filter. I couldn't find it on TeacherTube, so they must think YouTube is special in some way - has some quality that inspired them to post it there. (In their defense, I did eventually find it on the Vision 2021 site in RealPlayer format).
As I read over the above, it sounded pretty negative, so I almost decided not to post this. I do think it's good they are taking a look at the future and trying to figure out what our students need, and I don't want to knock them for their effort. I just wonder if they could've made their video - and associated posts - just a bit more appealing.
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