Quotes from Tom Peters on education.

Tom Peter's book 'Re-Imagine' is well worth a read if you want to keep up with future trends. The following are few quotes to do with education that have caught Tom' attention. Tom thinks schools couldn't have been planned better to crush creativity than if they were planned to do so!'The main crisis in schools today is irrelevance' says Daniel Pink in his book Free Agent Nation.And Alvin Toffler writes 'Our education system is a second rate factory style organisation, pumping out obsolete information in obsolete ways.( Schools) are simply not connected to the future of the kids they're responsible for.''It is an inescapable reality that students learn at different rates in different ways.That creates the need for a schedule of sensitivity...

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Posted in: Big Picture,Rants and Raves,teaching and learning

Quotes from Frank Smith and John Taylor Gatto

John Taylor Gatto is the author of 'A Different Kind Of Teacher'. Frank Smith's book is called 'an Insult To Intelligence'.From Frank Smith:'The time bomb in every classroom is that students learn exactly what they are taught.'From John Gatto:' School teachers aren't allowed to do what they think best for each child. Harnessed to a collective regime, they give up thinking seriously about students as one-of - a -kind individuals regardless of what they may wish were true.'And Gatto of standardized testing says:' What standardized testing actually measure is the tractability of the student, and this they do quite accurately.Is it of value to know who is docile and who is not? You tell me.'Smith says:' I discovered the brutally simple motivation...

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Posted in: Big Picture,Creative teaching,Educationalists,Personalized Learning,Rants and Raves,teaching and learning

This thing called reading

Years ago Frank Smith was very popular with those who believed in holistic or experience based learning. A quick look at his book reassures me that his ideas make as much sense as ever.I never really get involved with reading or literacy but it seems the 'default mode' for most primary teachers.When you visit primary classrooms you become aware that the great part of the school day centres around literacy and numeracy. For all this emphasis reading still seem to be a problem for some students it ever was.And to keep teachers on the straight and narrow there are those who see salvation in phonics waiting in the wings to distort the process even more. Schools have been deluged with 'best practice' ideas about how to run their literacy programmes.And...

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Posted in: Rants and Raves,teaching and learning

Inquiry based learning -an approach to personalised learning.

A student doing a observational drawing as part of her current inquiry study. There was a time when inquiry based learning was central to all that happened in the primary school day and other areas, such as literacy, were used to develop both the skills required to research and also to contribute appropriate content. The blog below is based on an UK article sent to me by David Hood and, although it is written about secondary students, it applies to all age groups. There is no doubt that it is in year 7 to 10 that school need to dramatically rethink their programmes if they wish to engage their students.A summary of a paper sent to me by NZ educator David Hood written by Ruth Deakin Crick (2008) Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol,...

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Posted in: Big Picture,change,Creative Schools,inquiry learning,Personalized Learning,project based learning,School Vision,Secondary Education,teaching and learning

Living at the Creative Edge: School transformation

I recently read an American article outlining the transformation of an Australian middle school and thought the ideas worth sharing. The Australian school was selected as one being successful in a very difficult socio-economic situation. To me it provides insight into how education could evolve if only it could escape the conservatism academic pull of the past. The school motto ( vision) is 'Living on the Edge'. The school believes the 'edge is only the beginning' and that everybody involved needs to aim to be 'the best we can be'.Education is difficult in disadvantaged situations where it is pretty obvious that the old ways are not working so it was great to read about a school that seems to be beating the odds. The approaches they have developed...

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Posted in: Big Picture,change,Creative Schools,Creative teaching,inquiry learning,Integrated Learning,Personalized Learning,Secondary Education,teaching and learning

Fostering creativity and how to squash it!

Creativity is all about having the freedom to explore ideas without judgement until whatever is being thought about crystallizes into something that satisfies the artist or scientist - or a student at school. All too often this vital 'messing around' is ignored as teachers apply their 'intentions', success criteria, WALTS or 'best practices' and in the process demean unplanned imagination. Sameness is a word that describes much of the work seen in schools. The illustration are visual ideas about birds Braque was exploring before beginning his painting.We seem , with the future introduction of National Standards, to be heading back to imposing greater standardisation on our schools. Ironic, as we are entering what some are calling an 'Age of...

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Posted in: Creative teaching,Creativity,national standards,Personalized Learning,teaching and learning

Educating Boys...and girls?

Sometimes it seems easier to think about who succeeds at schools than who don't. All too often schooling does not suit boys. This is the thesis of a book, yet to be published, by Massey University Education Lecturer Michael Irwin. My blog is simply an edited extract published in the Sunday Times. It would seem to be a book well worth acquiring. Much of what the extract says reflects what those who have long believed important -an activity/inquiry arts based programme is the basis of productive learning. And such programmes would also suit girls by making them more adventurous? And it makes light of the Governments current push to focus even more on literacy and numeracy with their reactionary National Standards.!'Boring! It is like a prison.Wish...

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Posted in: Big Picture,Creative teaching Educationalists,inquiry learning,Integrated Learning,Personalized Learning,project based learning,teaching and learning