What do these four people have in common? c/o @SSAT @KenRobinson

What do these four people have in common?

By SSAT on 8 Jul 2011 in Globalisation, Leadership and Innovation, SSAT National Conference 2011, Uncategorized

Their talent was not identified and nurtured when they were at school.

Paul McCartney  – ‘I went through my entire education without anyone noticing that I had any musical talent at all.’

John Cleese  –  ‘I did very well at school, but not at comedy. I went all the way from kindergarten to Cambridge without any of my teachers noticing that I had a sense of humour.’

Mick Fleetwood  – ‘I was a total void in academic work, and no one knew why…I was incredibly unhappy because everything at school was showing me that I was useless according to the status quo.’

Gillian Lynne  – ‘I walked into this room, and it was full of people like me. People who couldn’t sit still. People who had to move to think.’  (Gillian on being admitted to a dance school).

Just four examples from Ken Robinson’s book – The Element – How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything.  He writes: ‘Some of the most brilliant creative people I know did not do well at school. Many of them didn’t really discover what they could do – and who they really were – until they left school and recovered from their education.’

A damning condemnation of education systems around the world and a situation that could get worse. In England the newly created English Baccalaureate does not include the creative arts. Will the creative arts be marginalised further? Sir Ken will certainly express his forthright views at the National Conference and he will be answering your questions on creativity. He also has strong views on the shortcomings of the education systems in England and the USA.

Sir Ken argues that the two systems are:

• Preoccupied with certain sorts of academic ability…particularly with words and number. These skills are important, but there is much more to human intelligence.
• Focussed on a hierarchy of subjects with mathematics, science and languages at the top; humanities in the middle; and the arts at the bottom. Within the arts there is another hierarchy with music and visual arts having a higher status than theatre and dance.
• Too reliant on standardised tests.

These views are shared by a diverse range of people, for example, James Heckman, a Nobel prize-winning economist believes the answer is to, ’stop educating children as if exam results were all that mattered. Start thinking instead about how we build character.’

Education Ministers around the globe have a relentless focus on PISA and TIMMS results and their nation’s position in the league tables. There is also a strong focus on the challenges of globalisation and the competition posed by students in other nations. Michael Gove’s speech to the Royal Society on 29th June is a good exemplar of this:

‘At school, British 15-year-olds’ maths skills are now more than two whole academic years behind 15-year-olds in China…we have plummeted down the international league tables: from 4th to 16th place in science; and from 8th to 28th in maths…And when I see the pace at which other countries are transforming their education systems to give more and more of their students masters in maths and science, it only reinforces my determination to reform our system here so our children can have access to the essential knowledge which truly empowers. If we are to keep pace with our competitors, we need fundamental, radical reform in the curriculum, in teaching, and in the way we use technology in the classroom. Unless we dramatically improve our performance, the grim arithmetic of globalisation will leave us all poorer.’

Many of the speakers at this conference would agree that education needs a radical reform, but would argue that Michael Gove – like many others – has not understood the real global challenge and the real issues for schools. Tony Wagner, co-director of the Change Leadership Group (CLG) at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has a different thesis. He states:

‘Schools haven’t changed; the world has. And so our schools are not failing. Rather, they are obsolete – even the ones that score the best on standardised tests.’ Wagner’s belief that in today’s highly competitive global ‘knowledge economy’, all students need new skills for college, careers, and citizenship. The failure to give all students these new skills leaves today’s youth at an alarming competitive disadvantage.

Tony Wagner, Bill Skilling from Oxford County, Michigan, USA, Julie Young, Florida Virtual School and Sir Michael Barber will work with us to try and answer some of the following questions:

• What are these new skills, and why are they so important?
• Why don’t schools – even the best ones – teach and test them?
• What are the best ways to hold schools accountable, and how do we need to differently prepare and support educators to meet these new challenges?
• How do we motivate today’s students to want to excel in this new world, and what do good schools look like that are meeting these challenges and getting dramatically different results?

The conference builds on the 2010 conference and the SSAT’s work on personalising learning and students as global entrepreneurs. Student voice and new technologies are two of the gateways to personalising learning. Professor David Hargreaves advocated the principle of co-construction, and Alan November will provide practical examples of this. 

Alan’s paper – Digital Learning Farm see – provides ways that ‘we can restore the dignity and integrity of the child as a contributor.’  Like Michael Gove, he wants to use new technologies more effectively in the classroom:

‘We have powerful, easy-to-use tools such as screen casting and podcasting that give students opportunities to contribute content to the class. At the same time we can also provide them with rigorous and more motivating assignments andbetter prepare them to become more productive in our new global economy.’ Alan will involve students from schools that are participating in the programme being run in partnership with the SSAT. They will demonstrate how they have produced web pages to support subject learning for their peers. This is groundbreaking work and schools will be given the opportunity to sign up for the second cohort.

To take part in this debate book onto SSAT’s National Conference.