The classrooms people are familiar with today will soon be a thing of the past because of advances in educational research, a visiting official from the U.S. Department of Education said Tuesday.

Sharon Porter Robinson, assistant secretary for educational research and improvement, met with SIUC education experts and area school officials to discuss educational research’s role in shaping tomorrow’s schools.

The roundtable discussion in the Student Center was one part of Robinson’s two day visit of SIU facilities in Springfield, Edwardsville and Carbondale.

Advertisement

SIU Chancellor Ted Sanders, who served as Robinson’s guide, said the trip was an opportunity for Robinson to get away from Washington to see the tangible results of federal education policy.

It’s important to get outside the Beltway and see what’s going on in the real world, Sanders said.

Robinson said because the nation’s educational needs are changing, the structure of schools should change too.

It’s not a time to continue to fund what we’ve already begun, she said. Our old habits are going to be challenged by new knowledge.

She said a great influx of new students into the education system and growing diversity of students are two issues education researchers must study to make schools that fit students’ needs.

She said such changes in American family life also create a need for enhanced school systems.

Families that have working parents have schedules that are different than what our social services were set up for, she said.

Advertisement*

Robinson said school schedule changes to fit working parents would have been nice 15 years ago, now it’s necessary.

Robinson said government education research should be taken into the field and analyzed to see the effect different methods have.

We want to make systems that make us aware of our impacts, she said.

Robinson also said the traditional image of teachers as workers who merely follow instructions from their superiors and supervise one group of kids should be phased out.

She said teachers must be allowed to have more input on school curriculums and must work with each other to develop teaching strategies.

We need to see collaboration in broad terms, she said. No teacher will know enough to answer all the questions students have.

Robinson said this expanded role for teachers is already beginning.

I think it’s beginning to happen, she said. It’s not such a romantic notion.

Michael Mugge, superintendent of Murphysboro schools, said he was not sure of this.

I think you’re half-right, he said.

Mugge said archaic, old-model teacher’s unions must also change to meet today’s needs. Mugge said tenure sometimes dampens a teacher’s enthusiasm on the job.

They have to understand that if we’re going to get off-center with this, they have to be a change agent, he said.