Radical, Dude

One of my favorite parts of being a teacher is when a student or group of students inspire me to do something.  During a discussion of science denial, one of my students asked what we could do about it.  Have a passion for what you do, share that enthusiasm with others as much as you can and, in the words of John Lewis in his Daily Show interview, "get into trouble… good trouble," was my response.  How do you get into good trouble?  For Mr. Lewis it was peaceful protests in the American south for equal rights.  For students perhaps good trouble is advocating for healthier lunches, campaigning to ban plastic water bottles from campus or raising money to have solar panels installed.

Then came the question that really got me thinking.  "What kind of trouble do you get into, Mr. Monty?"  Honestly, I don't get into enough trouble.  I love education.  Just ask my wife who likes to say that I would spend the rest of my life as a professional student if I could.  It is because of my love for this field and for my students that I want to be part of changing education for the 21st century.  This blog constitutes my first step in this process.  I chose a blog because it is a place for me to share my ideas and research and because blogs have the potential to effect change.

The name "Free Radical Education" is both a play on words and what I believe is required of education in the 21st century.  In chemistry, a free radical is a highly reactive species and thus prone to changing its chemical makeup quite rapidly.  This sort of change is what I believe is required to transform education.  Change in education currently proceeds at a rate more like the reaction between hydrogen and oxygen to produce water at room temperature (it's possible, but so slow it is undetectable) or, even more apropos, the halogenation (substitution of fluorine, chlorine, bromine or iodine) of an alkane (compound composed of carbon and hydrogen with all single bonds), which does not proceed at all unless catalyzed by exposure to UV light.  Interestingly enough, the reaction in the latter analogy requires free radicals to be formed.  What I'm saying in my own geeky way is that we need more free radical educators to be catalysts for change to take place now, not three years from now.

Unbeknownst to you, your thoughts have travelled over space and time via space-time e-mail (pun alert, the acronym for this is STEM).  You are wondering why you should continue reading my blog.  Am I an expert?  Am I so awesome that I travel the world providing top notch professional development experiences?  Short answers: all educators are experts in something to some extent; while I may be awesome in my own way, but I do not travel extensively providing professional development.   Here's why I think my blog will be worth reading.

• Unlike other higher profile education blogs, I'm not trying to sell you my books or earn speaking engagements, so it doesn't benefit me in any way.  I do, however, hope it will benefit students, which is the goal of everything I do.
• With 9 years of experience I'm not your typical "expert", but ask yourself this: do you have to have 20 years of educational experience to identify things you would want to change and ways of making those changes?  Aren't there also good or great teachers who haven't been in the field for very long?  
• This blog will not be one dimensional.  Technology, flipped learning, international mindedness, homework, curriculum development… you name it they tend to have dedicated blogs, but who has time to go to so many different blogs and stay up-to-date on educational research?  I plan to address all of these topics and it won't just be my opinion, but research/evidence-based discussions.
• What have you got to lose?  If you have a broad, nerdy sense of humor you might even get a few laughs out of it.

If you've read this far, you have probably figured out that I am very passionate about what I do.  If I connect with even a small number of like-minded educators then my goals will be achieved and if we can light a fire of change that blazes through the educational community perhaps we can inspire students around the world to learn in exciting ways.