Category Archive

The latest post by Dr. Scott McLeod on his blog Dangerousy Irrelevant questions what K-12 educators may be/are “secretly hoping” through a humourous little cartoon (I won’t re-post it here, because unlike Dr. McLeod, I don’t have permission; you’ll need to click on the link to see it).

Now obviously there isn’t a blanket answer here for all K-12 educators.  I’m also sure Scott McLeod is already well aware of some of the issues I’m going to take up here, but I’m going to do it anyway for the sake of being able to achieve some semblance of a train of thought this evening (my brain seems to have switched off).

For some teachers, sadly, there is a hope that the content they have always taught will be eternally relevant.  For others, there is a realisation that today’s content isn’t going to be the be-all-and-end-all for their students.  Those teachers can and do make amazing things happen in their classrooms.  I hope that sometimes, just sometimes, such glimmers of hope do shine momentarily out of my classroom windows.  Yet we also need to remember that such fantastic teachers are restricted and frustrated by systems, curriculums, governments and sometimes even school communities that simply haven’t made the realisation yet.

I also think I need to make a point that might make some teachers of long division, state capitals and cursive writing feel a little better.  Just because you teach these things doesn’t make you a bad, or even outdated teacher.  What you need to be concerned about is whether this content is the sole driving force of your teaching.  Any teacher who remembers their Educational Psychology from uni, particularly the work of Piaget, will remember schemas.  Yes people! The idea that new knowledge is constructed and understood through the addition to, extension, or even redefining or disproving of existing understandings (this is a very watered down explanation, I know).  So let’s not slam content completely.  There is content that children need to learn in school that they will need as the basis for developing further understanding throughout their lives.

On the other hand, anyone who thinks a person is going to get a job based on their abilities in long division and cursive handwriting, and their knowledge of captial cities, is not thinking all that realistically.  There is a certain amount of content that children need to learn in school (or perhaps they negotiate what they need to learn and construct their own understandings; perhaps a discussion for another time).  Perhaps the best way of seeing the content is that helps contextualise the learning of skills and values that I think the fabulous, innovative teachers are seeing as becoming increasingly important to develop within students.

Let’s take the long division as an example.  In the outcomes-based syllabuses of the state of New South Wales, the outcome connected with the learning of long division is this:

NS3.2 Selects and applies appropriate strategies for multiplication and division

Long division is only one part of that of course.  Yet it’s only when you go into the content that you see what the NSW Mathematics Syllabus demands.  Embedded within this are a whole range of skills, including:

• estimating
• selecting appropriate strategies (yes, long division is not always the best way)
• using operations in real-life situations
• checking answers in the original situation
• giving valid reasons for an answer, etc., etc.

These skills are all tied in with the five outcomes that make up the Working Mathematically strand of the syallabus.  It’s the embedding of these skills into the learning that make this syllabus a marked improvement on the old one (which was exceptional for its time).

So where am I going with all of this?  Well, the point I’m looking to make is this.  The shift needs to be away from a focus on learning content, and being satisfied we’ve achieved as teachers because our children know the content.  After all, new content is produced at an alarming rate; we cannot begin to imagine everything that our children will need to know when they leave school.  The shift needs to be towards learning essential content through the mastery of lifelong learning skills.  If children know how to learn, and value learning, then that is what will make them a valuable commodity in the labour market of the future, because they will be able to apply themselves to what needs to be done.

I can take my own experience as a rough example.  When I started school, there were no computers, so there definitely weren’t any Learning Technology Coordinators.  When computers were introduced, I learnt how to type, how to word process on the old Apple program Multiscribe, played Sim City, eventually used a PC once I got to uni, etc.  Yet once I actually became an LTC (after already teaching for a little while), none of the software I’d learnt as a child was going to help me - it wasn’t there.  My primary school wasn’t networked in 1989, we could only save our own data on magnetic disks… you get the picture.  A lot of what I do now has been learnt through getting a taste from someone, somewhere, perceiving that it’s something we need as a school (and consequently that I need to learn), and having an interest in playing around till I get the hang of it.  One of these days, we LTCs will have done ourselves out of a job, because using computers in classrooms will be as common as writing on a chalkboard, and I’ll be looking for the next thing I need to learn.

In a previous post, I mentioned our new Federal Government’s plan for an “Education Revolution”, which (among other things) made promises of increased technology hardware for school students and improved broadband Internet speeds across the country.

In fact, I remember finishing that post with “Of course, I could offer several far more revolutionary suggestions for education if the new government would like to hear them…”

Seems like Greg Whitby is thinking along the same lines I am on this matter.

He suggests in his post Revolution of the Mind that more hardware doesn’t go anywhere near far enough, and he’s right.  The government’s quoted desire for this “education revolution” is “to keep Australia prosperous beyond the mining boom.”  Fine.  Understand completely.  But how exactly will Australia remain prosperous beyond the mining boom?  Is it in skilling up Australian children in other trades?  Is it in simply ensuring that children can read, write, add and subtract?  Or is it in ensuring that today’s children have the skills and abilities to effectively respond to challenge and change so that they may remain constantly ready to work within occupations we haven’t even imagined yet?

What is the precise learning outcome that this revolution seeks to achieve?  Do we want to put computers in the hands of four grades of secondary students simply because we think it needs to be done?  What good will it do?  If we can answer that question, then we might be on track to making a difference.

Asking this question might also begin to see the ball rolling on a whole part of the education revolution that the government policy doesn’t seem to address.  Good educators already know that the hardware in itself doesn’t change learning, and doesn’t make a difference to learning results.  Australia’s schools need a revolution; one that begins in the minds and hearts of every teacher; one that is driven by a desire to see every student do their very best; one that challenges the students just as much as it challenges the system that governs their education.

Then, on top of that, all levels of educational leadership in this country, from the school level to federal government, need to provide the support to make this revolution happen.  For mine, the most important resource is not money, but rather the community’s faith in its professional educators to do their job well.

I like John Connell’s blog because he is someone who keeps me up-to-date with news from different parts of the world related to my line of work. Also, I get an occasional glimpse into happenings in Scotland, something I wouldn’t get otherwise.

Today I read in my feed reader just one example of John Connell’s blog keeping me informed. It was of an interesting set of survey results from the United States, which suggest that parents believe schools there do not prepare students for working in the modern world.

The results suggest that parents do believe there is a place for “basic skills”, but unfortunately (in their opinion), 21st Century skills necessary for competing in a contemporary global market are being neglected; to the detriment of students. I must say that I agree with them. Not in their assessment of the US Education System per se (overseas education systems are not my field of expertise), but their assessment of education and schooling in general at this time.

Of course, teachers and school administrators have their part to play in this.  Yet, behind this, there is also a political cloud that looms.  “Basic Skills” are apparently what the electorate want taught in schools.  Now, when the electorate has a conservative tendency (as is typical here in Australia, for example), that’s hardly surprising.  Yet, if all we’re going to teach are “basic skills”, then I can only imagine we’re preparing our children to work in a particular working world.  The problem is, the jobs they’ll be prepared for won’t exist here in Australia (or the US or UK for that matter), because as Thomas Friedman makes clear in The World is Flat, they’re far cheaper to do elsewhere.

Read the media release about the survey.  Make sure you scroll down to view the results summary and key messages in the .doc and .ppt files.