via Ohio Department of Education, written by Jonathan Juravich.
Ohio’s Strategic Plan for Education, Each Child, Our Future, specifically speaks to what teachers already know — that each and every student in our classrooms is important and valuable. Their individual success is our priority. It is our role as educators to be sure they are continually challenged, prepared and empowered. This is what encourages me about the new strategic plan — a plan that supports and highlights the excellent work already happening in countless classrooms throughout our state.
We know our students’ successes depend on more than academic content knowledge. That’s why Ohio’s Strategic Plan for Education focuses on all four of the Equal Learning Domains noted below:
- Foundational Knowledge & Skills: For future success, students must be equipped with foundational skills that support lifelong learning, such as literacy, numeracy and technology.
- Well-Rounded Content: All students need exposure to a broad range of subjects and disciplines as they discover connections and relationships among ideas and concepts. Explorations in the sciences, social studies, arts, health, physical education, world languages and career tech can lead students to identify their individual passions and aspirations.
- Leadership and Reasoning: Learning to be a leader involves more than just taking charge. Students should engage in opportunities where they learn from mistakes to make improvements for the future, listen to others while striving to achieve a common goal and utilize meaningful feedback. By drawing on previous learning, developing creative solutions and innovating new ideas, students are developing skills of reasoning that will serve them well in any postsecondary path.
- Social-Emotional Learning: Purposeful investigations into social-emotional learning provide children the tools to become resilient and persistent in life. Life is a shared journey, and living as part of a community involves thoughtful consideration of feelings and social interactions. Navigating relationships involves an understanding of awareness, collaboration, empathy and responsibility.
In these four domains, we are empowering our students to do what we joined the essential field of education to do — to support our students in their quest as lifelong learners.