Governments and education systems around the world have invested significant amounts of energy and money in an attempt to reform K-12 schooling. Attempts to ‘revolutionise’ schooling have proved to be at best, well-intentioned or at worst, failures. What we know is that there is no single roadmap for taking schooling forward in today’s world. However, we do share a common educational purpose — to improve the learning outcomes for all students regardless of academic ability, cultural background and socio-economic status.
We live in a world that is changing with incredible speed, both locally and globally. We know that one of our greatest challenges is to provide an education that is relevant to today’s learners.A relevant education for today’s learners is not simply sustained by introducing more technology into classrooms. It requires governments, policy makers and systems to go beyond simply altering the edges to transforming the very core of schooling.
Everything that has informed our processes and thinking must be re-conceptualised. A 21st-century education is responsive and relevant to today’s world and cultivates every student’s capacity to think creatively, to work collaboratively and to learn independently. What teachers think and do must be informed by an understanding of the needs of today’s learners and the demands of what Daniel Pink refers to as the‘conceptual age’ ruled by creativity and empathy.
Sir Ken Robinson affirms this need to transform schooling in his latest TED2010 talk. He calls on educators to ‘dis-enthrall’ themselves from the ideas and pedagogies of an industrial age. He envisages an education system (based on agrarian principles) that strives to create the right conditions in every classroom for learners and learning to flourish. When learning is personalised for every child, we move schooling from a one size fits all model to one in which diversity is celebrated and innovation is cultivated. Predicated on the dynamics of good learning and teaching, it includes key principles such as:
- The importance of the teacher – the most significant lever for bringing about and sustaining educational improvement
- School cultures which emphasis continual learning, reflection and collaboration – with teachers learning and developing alongside teachers (Richard Elmore refers to this as raising the overall quality of teaching in the system)
- Professional climate which forges and re-forges the essential connections between research, reflection and shared practice in the sharpening of strategies that yield positive outcomes
This focus on teacher-learning and building leadership capacity recognises the growing research – the influence of good leadership and teaching on student learning outcomes. It is sustained when teachers are able to reflect and learn from good practice as a team of professionals. When teachers work together, lead by strong leaders they are able to make the best collective decisions about student-learning. Learning is the work for 21st-century schools – it is strengthened by best practice, enabled by technology, supported by systems and governments and enriched by the myriad of connections made with an expanding global learning community. This is when we see what is possible.
2 Responses to A Relevant Education for 21st-Century Learners
This is an insightful piece on the need to change schools and schooling. I wonder if it goes far enough. There are two things here.
a) The philosophy is a little top-down. It appears to presuppose that teachers are the only ones in a position to prescribe appropriate learning when in fact they themselves can learn much not only from their students but from the community around the school. Such a model of collaborative learning making use of every talent, skill, knowledge and experience in the community enriches the learning experience – Mawson Lakes school in Greg’s own country is a world leader in this field, while other schools in South Australia eg St Columba college, have developed their own charter for including the whole community in their curriculum. (This as a result of the European Commission’s PALLACE project linking stakeholders in Europe, North America, Australasia and China which I managed between 2002 and 2005). It doesn’t always need strong leaders, but certainly strong team work.
b) Secondly while it mentions the power of technology and communication between an expanding global community it might also have mentioned the absolute necessity of engaging students and teachers in an outward-looking curriculum which actively opens the minds of students to both local and international issues. Our greedy and self-serving generation has bequeathed a poisoned legacy of planetary problems that they will need to solve. They have need of the mental tools that will enable them to do that.
I hope that this helps to widen the debate that Greg has so ably started.
I’ve watched Sir Ken Robinson’s TED Talk on how schools kill creativity, its a very thought provoking talk and converted me to the idea that a standard carriculum is not the best way to get the best out of every student.