Sir Ken Robinson gives a talk on the challenge of educating kids for the future. Entitled "do schools kill creativity?"
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An occasional blog by two 30-somethings with kids, living in suburban New Zealand. We attempt to live our lives mindful of the environment, our health, the well-being of our children and all within a framework of following where Jesus might lead us. Does that sound spanky or what?
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5 comments:
I have a few issues with this talk. Firstly, he doesn't really offer any alternatives- ie oh, we need to teach children to be creative seems to be whole point of the talk... I don't think there is a teacher / school in NZ, anyway, who / that wouldn't agree with that. In many ways, schools in NZ have worked hard to try and value creative arts equally with other subjects (as reflected by their equal weighting as NCEA subjects) but 'the public' has strongly resisted this with challenges like 'how can you say that kapa haka is as important / as hard / as 'worthy' as English?
The real problem I have, however, is the underlying assumption that all children come from families with the same level of 'cultural capital' (whatever you want to define that as). One of the things about schools is that they provide opportunities to _all_ children. Ok, there are lots of issues and plenty of children still don't come out of schooling unscathed, but for many of them, the alternatives are much worse.
And this is the problem with talks like this... they assume an ideal world. There is a really interesting school in chch called Discovery1 (I think the secondary version is called Unlimited) and they are doing some really cool things with students... or with a small group of carefully selected nice, middle class students from supportive families with plenty of $$$...
I'm certainly not trying to argue that schools are perfect, and every school certainly isn't perfect for every child. However, school have changed a lot in the last 30 years and, to be honest, the main thing that holds them back is not the schools but the public perception about how schools SHOULD run...
PS and I don't mean to quibble with what I am sure was a throw away comment, but Steiner method does teach eurhythmy every day... poor little dancing blighters :)
oops, it seems I got a bit carried away.. sorry about that!
:) You're welcome to have a wee rant. Education is the thing that you do.
I totally agree that most schools and teachers would pursue a more individually tailored program if they could. That class sizes and parental opinion is mostly what keeps them doing stuff like assigning homework to primary students and attempting to get the kids to move through subjects as a group as much as possible (as opposed to being able to explore stuff in their own way at their own pace).
I remember my own scoffing disdain at the "everyone's a winner" approach :) in retrospect this was at least partly because I received a lot of self-worth from achieving highly at academic subjects. How could home economics be considered as 'worthy'? :)
I've now done an almost complete about-face, I think. Here I am with my degrees and my expert training in genetic engineering and biotechnology, living a very happy fulfilled life growing veggies, reading books with my kids, having trips to the park, networking with other mums, reading good books etc etc.
It has taken me some time to detox myself from the notion that the only worthy or worthwhile pursuits are those recognised by academia. That pursuing and achieving academic brownie points actually means anything. I was good at school, but the things I was good at have turned out only to be useful for being at school...
So. I agree in many respects. schools would be different if they could be. The general public prefer them to be places where you come out with a bit of paper with A, B or C written on them. Even so, they are essential if we are to avoid an even greater divide between the haves and the have-nots - at least this way the have-nots have a half a shot at learning to read.
Personally I think schools do a great job given their limitations and challenges, and the scope of what keeps getting dumped on them as their new responsibilities.
But I am glad that we have the freedom to say "thanks, but no thanks".
And compulsory dancing every day? sounds as pointless as compulsory trigonometry every day :)
P.S am glad you had a good visit with your Mum. Say Hi to her from me next time you're talking to her. xoxo
Yes, I take your points about schools, but I think you undervalue what you gained from it. In the end, at this point in your life, you gained the ability to pass on 'learning'- whatever that may be- to your children. It's probably fair to say that without the good-at-school education you had, you may not have the skills and / or confidence to pass this on to your children. I guess my real issue with that guys's talk was that that he very much speaks from a point of privilege...
By the way, don't get me wrong, this is not an attack on homeschooling- I think you need to do the thing that you think is right for your child- you certainly don't need to justify it to me
Oh probably. You know how when you go through that differentiation-from-your-parents thing you focus on all the things you won't be doing and that they did wrong? I think it's something like that with schooling/formal education with me just now. Undoubtedly school opened up huge areas that neither of my parents were equipped to explore with me or expose me to. And I had some absolutely cracker teachers who were awesome.
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