Some thinking on Education, from New South Wales
By darcy • Jan 25th, 2009 • Category: FeaturesThe illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
Alvin Toffler.
Recently I came across the photographic images of a classroom and an operating theatre in the late 19th century, juxtaposed with their 21st century incarnations.
Of course, the hospital was a transformed place that looked impressively high tech but the school was frighteningly similar – dusty chalkboard out the front with teacher talking, class silent.
Discussing this with a colleague, I expressed my dismay at what this image said about our profession but found his response, “operations are much more serious than teaching – they’re life and death,” worthy of further thought.
I guess many people would agree with his assertion. However, the gap between the ‘real world’, including home environment and that of the school is so stark that one wonders if it will become more life and death in the not so distant future. Many predict that Western economies are increasingly going to struggle to compete with India and China (who now have such impressively large ‘English-speaking’ populations), as well as assist citizens to maintain, if not improve their living standards.
Some have commented that students in poorer, non-Western countries are more motivated to learn and do so, despite the challenges. I am not certain about this but feel the culture of learning in some countries (India, for example) makes a real difference, along with cheap digital technologies and the internet that make it possible to innovate. Perhaps students in the UK, USA and Australia are very comfortable and learning is just not that urgent compared to other parts of the world.
Students languishing in irrelevant institutions will not learn if what they are offered is something technologically primitive and standardized testing, the least expensive way governments can attempt to monitor and improve schooling, tends to lead to even more disengagement as schools and teachers under pressure to achieve in the test, teach to the test. The institution that is school needs to change and change radically.
Education is critical and there are many hurdles to clear before ‘the system’ reforms to benefit individual and society.
The challenge of maintaining our cultural values and civil societies has always been an important one for schools. Now, new challenges, like avoiding environmental catastrophe, urgently require clever, innovative approaches in education, allowing opportunities for critical thinking and problem solving to create and collaborate on future solutions. Business as usual in schools is not enough and technology will have a fundamental role in our collective future.
Of course, not all schools and classrooms are technological wastelands and teachers untrained or not prepared to use the new tools. However, even when the technology exists teachers and systems often employ it dubiously.
The internet, the printing press of our era, has to be utilized effectively by our education systems. The paranoia about child protection issues and fears of the legal implications has lead to filtering and censorship, especially of crucial Web 2.0 sites. Teaching students how to use the internet safely requires a more sensible approach. The infrastructure to allow each student a laptop with wireless connectivity is not yet ubiquitous by any stretch of the imagination but this – or mobile devices – have the potential to provide great educational freedom.
Knowledge no longer resides with teachers or in the bookroom. The gates have been thrown open and the gatekeepers need new roles.
Web 2.0 tools allow students and teachers to collaborate, create and publish outside the walls of the classroom. ‘Classroom 2.0’ is an exciting place compared to what is currently on offer to most but teachers need to ‘get it’ – as do administrators and educational leaders.
Increasingly students must take responsibility for their own learning and the teacher becomes more of a facilitator, creating the conditions that allow individuals to progress at their own pace. Self-directed and independent learning will become the norm and the teacher will have more freedom to be the ‘guide on the side’ rather than the ‘sage’ at the front of the room.
In fact, there is not really the same need for students to attend the ‘bricks and mortar’ classrooms in the same way as in previous centuries. Blended learning must be an important part of any future. Our communities perhaps need a place for the young to attend but regimented approaches involving uniforms and bells ringing to signal one must move to the next work station have no place any longer. This factory model is just irrelevant.
Even at the crassest level, employers need employees who can think and use their initiative not people who have to wait for the instruction from their superior. Fast capitalism has a flat structure and hierarchies are not the answer for most companies.
Education systems must focus on three key reforms, each of them supported by digital technologies, rather than focusing on the technology itself:
1. student assessment must be developed that reflects societal change and need;
2. teachers are the backbone of the system and they must be life-long learners remunerated for their career commitment to their own personal learning and professionalism;
3. pedagogy needs to be updated and connectivist (which is an updated constructivism), not necessarily bound to geographical spaces
1. The high-stakes testing regimes implemented in the United States, UK and Australia to monitor educational standards need to be abolished or reformed. Quite simply, these systems currently do no assess the skills required by an individual or society in the 21st century. Rote learning of facts and exam-taking skills are far less important than the ability to respond flexibly to complex problems, using technology to produce new knowledge and to be able to communicate effectively and to work in teams. Critical thinking, problem solving, communication, collaboration, creativity and innovation, as well as wide-range of (multi)literacies are the skills that now need to be assessed. Changing assessment will change teaching & learning in schools.
2. Staffing schools is the most expensive area of education. It is essential that teachers are properly trained, suited to their vocation and prepared to undertake constant updating of skills and professional knowledge. Society needs to invest more to attract and keep the best and brightest. Professional development needs to focus on the individual and place responsibility with the teachers for developing a PLN (Personal Learning Network) that assists them to stay relevant.
3. Pedagogy largely remains unchanged and needs updating. It is not possible to go into the detail in this article but teachers and institutions need to create individualised learning conditions whereby students are empowered to take responsibility for their own learning. A developing learning theory for the digital age, connectivism, understands that learning is not linear…may reside in non-human appliances” and that all our “…decisions are based on rapidly altering foundations…” may form part of the basis for this revitalisation: http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm
Our images of schools need to change and focus on learning more than the ‘bricks and mortar’.
When people insist on change, change happens. When citizens insist that the standard of education in their schools improves to reflect societal changes, politicians and bureaucrats will act. Currently, the economy is the force driving any political action in education. The people need to add their voices to that cacophony to help shape the reform – now!
DISCLAIMER: the views expressed in this article are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer (unfortunately).
Darcy Moore is a deputy principal at a large high school in NSW, Australia.
Blog: http://darcymoore.wordpress.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Darcy1968
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You’re right Darcy!
Politics is your forum Darcy – consider it.
You will be able to make more change impact from outside the system than from within (imho)
PJ
Thought provoking article, I love the comparison of the images…I’ve had the same discussions with family and colleagues and the “operations are much more serious than teaching – they’re life and death,” sometimes comes up, in a various forms.
‘Our images of schools need to change and focus on learning more than the ‘bricks and mortar’.’ I am finding myself agreeing with everything you post!
I agree that changing assessment is a key path to changing the way a school operates. I heard a podcast of a lecture by Erica McWilliam talk about the move from sage on the stage –> guide on the side –> to meddler in the middle. That struck a chord with me. It’s long but worth the listen, it’s called ‘Unlearning Performance’ and can be found on itunes u or click through http://www.griffith.edu.au/podcasts/
Thanks for the post…cc
Thanks Peter, Troy and Colin for your positive comments (and link).
Some would see it as cynical, but the assessment is the key to actually transforming any ed. system, the pedagogy will catch-up. I just worry that we do not have time to wait, something needs to be done yesterday.
PJ, I think poltics is being transformed and that all of us are potential politcians now that we have tools that allow organisation (Alfie Dennen’s point with this site one would imagine).
Cheers,
Darcy
It is a very stark comparison indeed. Just look at the issue of email for teachers (in New South Wales public education anyway). I’ve had email as an IT professional since 1989 – sure, it was internal email only withing the organisation I worked for, but it was an email address and it was used everyday. I joined DET in 1993 and I had email that worked between every office in the state. Then internet capable email appeared for me in 1994 and I never looked back. Throughout all those years, I got no training is “how” to do this stuff. It was expected that I would know how to do it – as a professional who must keep up with the times. Conversely, email for teachers was announced in 2001 and was ready to roll in 2002. But as soon as it was ready, the teachers union chose to ban it outright. It remained banned for FOUR years. When the ban finally was lifted in 2006 it came with a proviso that if any teacher wanted to OPT-OUT of email, they could. Sadly a large percentage actually did opt-out. And today in 2009, you can go to just about any high school in NSW and identify a significant number of teachers who to this day will not use email. If they won’t use email, what chance is there of them taking on seemingly more complex ICT resources?
And we wonder why the classroom hasn’t changed much?
It’s refreshing to read such an eloquent account of the challenges and the possible futures for education. Stu’s comments that follow are alarmingly true. Being prepared to learn skills and when they are no longer relevant learn new skills is essential. It’s clear schools aren’t yet creating sufficient opportunities for students to develop the skills required in the 21st century, nor are they testing the extent of their acquisition.
Working with my staff over the past two years I’ve been slowly introducing digital strategies and talking about it almost everyday. While TALE was still a bit problematic and a bit clunky, before dedicated TALE servers, I loaded up TLF Learning Objects directly to the school server and with support from the school executive, managed to begin to introduce them at Teaching and Learning staff meetings and on Staff Development days. A few people really took them up. We’ve now started to point people in the direction of Web2.0 strategies. I sense that the DER roll-out is challenging a few old habits, in fact I think it has the potential to act as a real catalyst.
Thanks for the Blog. Just sorry I hadn’t found it sooner.
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