IT???

Now more than ever before young people have the opportunity to control the flow of information towards them – new trends are being set and old ones dying at a rate we have never seen before – Rocket packs and flying cars were the dream of the 1950s as we were sure that mechanical developments would continue unhindered into the twenty first century and beyond. They didn’t. What we got instead was a change in the way we access and use information. We are now able at the push of a button to recall PHD theses, discover the past, the future or have someone explain how to change a spark plug. The world speaks to itself in the blogoshpere, youtube, facebook et al.

What is the point in being a teacher, who, as Ken Robinson has pointed out, works in and supports an education system designed by David Hume and perfected by the spinning Jenny and Stevenson’s Rocket. We are anachronisms and we are behind the curve.

If we are going to be teachers for the 21^st century then we need to embrace the changes – that is a must – and no one will argue, but we cannot keep up. We cannot jump up and down and buy new toys every five minutes apple-ing or google-fying up our schools to kit them out with apps and tablets and e books or whatever will come next. That is not something for institutions to decide – that is for the people.

Institutions such as schools need to realise that the framework of education is being taken out of their hands, and rather weep – we should rejoice. We can now focus on what really matters. If we can’t control mechanism or delivery – we can concentrate on strategy – showing the world why we need to learn, not how.

I became a teacher because I wanted to inspire young people. There, I said it. Young people today instead inspire me. They are smart, able and intelligent in a way I never was and will never be. Rather than impose my learning structure or thinking process on them, I need to see their naturally evolving practices and show them how to use them to get better and better. Help them see the utility in knowledge, the beauty in art and the rewards of knowing more tomorrow than they did today.

http://howtoteachandlearn.blogspot.co.uk/