Meet Patrick Higgins, Director of Curriculum for Humanities

If you’d like to be featured in our Meet the Edcampers series, fill out this form!

Name: Patrick Higgins

How are you involved in education?
I am the Director of Curriculum for Humanities in Sparta Township Public Schools, Sparta, NJ (way up north).

What’s your ideal classroom or school like?
It would look a lot like what Shelly Blake-Plock has going on down in Maryland.  Several things going on at once, and when the superintendent walked into the room he or she would have a very difficult time figuring out who was doing the teaching and who was doing the learning.

Have you ever attended an unconference before?
Sort of.  I attended the first EduCon a few years back, which had an unconference feel to it, but I don’t think it truly fit the definition.

If you were to lead a session at Edcamp, what would it be about?
I’ve got two ideas flying around:

The first has to do with building an online school.  How would you do it knowing what you know about the successes and shortcomings of today’s existing models?

The second is much more grounded in physical schools of the future.  For example, given that our society is not going to change in regards to the custodial aspects of school (parents that work rely on schools as a place for their kids to be safe while they are at work) what does that say for the physical spaces (interior design) and physical structures (scheduling design) of schools?  How can we reshape what our schools look like given the fact that we are still going to have children in them for 8 hours a day?

Do you have a website or blog?
http://chalkdust101.wordpress.com

Are you on Twitter?
@pjhiggins