The latest from dougbelshaw.com/blog
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- Wednesday Wisdom #10: Application and ability
- HOWTO: Create iTunes audiobooks from MP3s
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- Things I Learned This Week – #10
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Question Time #10
2 CommentsI’m still way behind on my RSS feed reading, but I did have time to read a post over at Futurelab’s Flux blog entitled 21st century schools. It reflects on eight questions being asked in the public sphere by the European Commission. I’d be interested in your views on the following questions… :)
- The curriculum: How can schools be organised in such a way as to provide all pupils with the full range of key competences?
- Lifelong Learning: How can schools equip young people with the competences and motivation to make learning a lifelong activity?
- The economy: How can school systems contribute to supporting long-term sustainable economic growth in Europe?
- Equity: How can school systems best respond to the need to promote equity, to respond to cultural diversity and to reduce early school leaving?
- Inclusion: If schools are to respond to each pupil’s individual learning needs, what can be done as regards curricula, school organisation and the roles of teachers?
- Citizenship and democracy: How can school communities help to prepare young people to be responsible citizens, in line with fundamental values such as peace and tolerance of diversity?
- Teachers: How can school staff be trained and supported to meet the challenges they face?
- Management: How can school communities best receive the leadership and motivation they need to succeed? How can they be empowered to develop in response to changing needs and demands?
Feel free to pick and choose which questions you answer. I’ll start the ball rolling with the first comment… :p
Published on July 19, 2007 · Filed under: Uncategorized;
2 Responses to “Question Time #10”
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Although they all kind of link together, I'm going to look at those concerning curricula, inclusion and teachers:
1. If you'd have asked me this question 3 years ago I would have preached revolution, not evolution. However, having seen the practicalities of the situation since beginning my teaching career, I think that subjects need to start combining within existing sectors or faculties to offer examination courses that pull on cross-curricular competencies. For example, the Humanities GCSE we offer at our school is beginning to do this. From there, we can move on to even more radical restructuring.
5. The teacher-student relationship needs to change, as teachers just cannot be the 'fount of all knowledge' in this day and age. See my post The kind of school in which I want to work for more on this…
7. External one-off INSETs are dead in the water and a complete waste of time as far as I'm concerned. More and more schools need to pull on the resources they've got in terms of teacher expertise. This can be supplemented with the greatest professional development tool of all: the RSS reader! :D
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I agree with what you have to say on #5. I would also suggest that teachers identify themselves as co-learners and model and enthusiastic approach to revelation and discovery.
This is a question we have been visiting and revisiting as a cohort of classmates on the MA programme. But that doesn't cover the issue of curriculum.
Most of my career has been spent in a corporate environment, where I have done the business analysis and the learning needs analysis. I spent two years in an FE college, and was deeply frustrated by the concept of curriculum. I also felt sullied by the stated requirement of the assessing body's management to teach to the test. I felt qualified to build up a list of learning objectives for each learner based on existing knowledge and identified needs. Admittedly, I was working with adults, and achieving the same end with children will bring a different set of challenges, but I don't see how we can lay any claims to personalised learning as long as there is a standardised curriculum with standardised testing.
I wish I could say I had the answers. I wish I could say: "What we need to do is…" and lay it all out. Sadly I do not. Like so many others, I can't say what needs to be done, only what needs NOT to be done.
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