I loved this article as I personally know a large amount of people that work for Google!
I believe I am preparing students to get a job at Google. At my current school site, we have really been stressing group work and encouraging collaboration between the students. It's not the most natural for the students right now, but they are progressing everyday and becoming better and better communicators. We also stress accountability with our students. We always check in with every group and have them discuss their findings but when we bring it to whole class discussion, we specifically ask the student that we haven't heard from to ensure they are on the same page. Accountability is a very large part of taking ownership. We aren't always looking for mastery, instead we are looking for improvement.
I agree with their philosophy. I guess my big difference is that I still feel grades reflect a lot of the learner and omitting them completely is just not something I am comfortable with (yet). Especially when the SATs and colleges are still so grade dependent, it makes it hard for me to imagine not looking at grades as an important aspect of education.
Google fosters many different types of people and I can see why GPA is not of the utmost importance. After reading this article, I would almost say that what they look for sounds very similar to how many charter schools operate, specifically High Tech High. I see a strong correlation between the description of the type of students they have and the type of workers that Google looks for.
"Your degree is not a proxy for your ability to do any job. The world only cares about — and pays off on — what you can do with what you know (and it doesn’t care how you learned it)" (Friedman). I mean look at me, I'm teaching math but my degree is in Architecture. It doesn't matter that my degree is in Architecture, it matters that I can effectively educate kids on mathematics.
I believe I am preparing students to get a job at Google. At my current school site, we have really been stressing group work and encouraging collaboration between the students. It's not the most natural for the students right now, but they are progressing everyday and becoming better and better communicators. We also stress accountability with our students. We always check in with every group and have them discuss their findings but when we bring it to whole class discussion, we specifically ask the student that we haven't heard from to ensure they are on the same page. Accountability is a very large part of taking ownership. We aren't always looking for mastery, instead we are looking for improvement.
I agree with their philosophy. I guess my big difference is that I still feel grades reflect a lot of the learner and omitting them completely is just not something I am comfortable with (yet). Especially when the SATs and colleges are still so grade dependent, it makes it hard for me to imagine not looking at grades as an important aspect of education.
Google fosters many different types of people and I can see why GPA is not of the utmost importance. After reading this article, I would almost say that what they look for sounds very similar to how many charter schools operate, specifically High Tech High. I see a strong correlation between the description of the type of students they have and the type of workers that Google looks for.
"Your degree is not a proxy for your ability to do any job. The world only cares about — and pays off on — what you can do with what you know (and it doesn’t care how you learned it)" (Friedman). I mean look at me, I'm teaching math but my degree is in Architecture. It doesn't matter that my degree is in Architecture, it matters that I can effectively educate kids on mathematics.