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Infusing curricula from class into life lessons

Dubai - Educational administrator indicates that we are first educators and second administrators.

Lou Holtz, the famous US football coach and TV personality once said: "The customer is not always right but they are the ones who sign your paycheck."
Now, I never want education to be thought of as a consumer good or students thought of as customers, but a bit more consideration of whom we serve would be welcome, I am sure.
In such services, the student should always come first. At times, we as educational administrators, forget that we are here because of our students, not vice-versa.
Educational administrator indicates that we are first educators and second administrators.
Also read: Why educating young minds matters
Often we forget that and charge forth like steeds and leave our students in the dust. In doing so we leave pedagogy and learning behind.
In education today we talk of outcomes. Outcomes based on learning should not only be for the classroom, but as an institution of education first learning outcomes should be considered in everything that we do, even as administrators. Not a change that we implement nor improvement that we make should not have specific educational as well as functional or even fiscal outcomes to them.
Secondly, I am an administrator by profession and by advanced degree. As administrators we think that is only extracurricular activities. I often worry that when I say such it could be considered blasphemous and somehow they could come for my degree, but years of career maturity has taught me differently, however.
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Engagement, instead of being locked to the out of class, should be joined with the curricular.
Everything we do should come together to become one singular educational experience. We should meld what is done outside of the classroom with what is going on inside.
We should become, if you will, not even just co-curricular, but meta-curricular.
The Dubai Solar Schools project is a wonderful one. It is just such an opportunity to blend an awesome eco project that could potentially save Dubai schools millions with an educational program and teaching students about the values of renewable energy.
In infusing such into the curricula and infusing curricula into the project itself, we not only affect our current culture but culture for years to come through becoming educators first and administrators second.