Connectedness changes learning
The gob-smackingly huge failure of schools that I referred to in my last blog is the failure by the majority of schools and the UK education system as a whole, to recognise that the way young people learn has changed.
The digital revolution has made possible a new and better way of learning, which young people have adopted. That the majority of professional educators apparently cannot see this is a failure of understanding in their core purpose - promoting learning. This is why I used the phrase 'gob-smackingly huge'. It is comparable to doctors not adjusting their practice when the nature of disease became understood, and we discovered about infection and bacteria.
I can only conceive of two reasons for this. The first is that the majority of people in education systems are incompetent, but I know this isn't true. We have a lot of very good teachers who care deeply about how their pupils learn. That they are not seeing this change in learning suggests that something is inhibiting their experimentation with the changes the digital revolution has brought and hence the development of their awareness that there is now a better way to promote pupils' learning. The second possible reason is that those in positions of power in our education systems, particularly school leaders and the politicians and bureaucrats who run our education systems, are not primarily concerned with getting the best learning possible but have other priorities that they focus on instead.
In saying that there is a new and better way of learning I am not saying that all past practice was wrong. Far from it, teaching has developed a very great deal in the last 50 years and there will continue to be a place in teaching for the best current practice. The 'new and better way' arises because a new and very powerful factor has become available - connectedness. Our young people, from a very early age, are now connected, to information, to computer based systems and tools, and to other people. This is a hugely radical development for which there is no precedent. The closest I can come to conceiving of a precedent is to imagine that books, literacy and huge libraries all happened in a matter of two decades but that schools continued to teach orally.
There are a few schools that over the last decade have embraced this developing connectedness and have adjusted pedagogy and teaching to capitalise on it. They have shown the way. There is no shortage of video and articles explaining how these schools generate better learning, but the majority of schools still deny children the opportunity to use their personal devices in school. And they take little notice of how pupils' connectedness can change the learning of the children out of school.
So if the children and their families are now connected, and many teachers are connected themselves and quite capable of bringing connectedness into their professional approach to teaching, what is the inhibitor? It can only be something the other group of people in our education systems are doing, the school leaders, politicians and bureaucrats. And as these people are in general not bad people but people acting in good faith, it can only mean that their main priority is not quality of learning but something else.
I put it to you that politically the prime purpose of education systems is to exercise control over young people. Initially this was about reinforcing the power-base of the organisations that provided education, initially the churches and then the independent schools that arose. They presented themselves as the gatekeepers of knowledge that would enable advancement, for those wanting entrance to positions of power in the state, the military and the church. Then as it became necessary to educate more than just an elite, nation states got involved and set up their own education systems.
The fact that developed-world education systems are about control first and learning a poor second is clearly evident in the way these education systems operate. But it is wilfully obscured by maintaining the myth that learning is the prime aim. This had better be the topic of another blog.
The digital revolution has made possible a new and better way of learning, which young people have adopted. That the majority of professional educators apparently cannot see this is a failure of understanding in their core purpose - promoting learning. This is why I used the phrase 'gob-smackingly huge'. It is comparable to doctors not adjusting their practice when the nature of disease became understood, and we discovered about infection and bacteria.
I can only conceive of two reasons for this. The first is that the majority of people in education systems are incompetent, but I know this isn't true. We have a lot of very good teachers who care deeply about how their pupils learn. That they are not seeing this change in learning suggests that something is inhibiting their experimentation with the changes the digital revolution has brought and hence the development of their awareness that there is now a better way to promote pupils' learning. The second possible reason is that those in positions of power in our education systems, particularly school leaders and the politicians and bureaucrats who run our education systems, are not primarily concerned with getting the best learning possible but have other priorities that they focus on instead.
In saying that there is a new and better way of learning I am not saying that all past practice was wrong. Far from it, teaching has developed a very great deal in the last 50 years and there will continue to be a place in teaching for the best current practice. The 'new and better way' arises because a new and very powerful factor has become available - connectedness. Our young people, from a very early age, are now connected, to information, to computer based systems and tools, and to other people. This is a hugely radical development for which there is no precedent. The closest I can come to conceiving of a precedent is to imagine that books, literacy and huge libraries all happened in a matter of two decades but that schools continued to teach orally.
There are a few schools that over the last decade have embraced this developing connectedness and have adjusted pedagogy and teaching to capitalise on it. They have shown the way. There is no shortage of video and articles explaining how these schools generate better learning, but the majority of schools still deny children the opportunity to use their personal devices in school. And they take little notice of how pupils' connectedness can change the learning of the children out of school.
So if the children and their families are now connected, and many teachers are connected themselves and quite capable of bringing connectedness into their professional approach to teaching, what is the inhibitor? It can only be something the other group of people in our education systems are doing, the school leaders, politicians and bureaucrats. And as these people are in general not bad people but people acting in good faith, it can only mean that their main priority is not quality of learning but something else.
I put it to you that politically the prime purpose of education systems is to exercise control over young people. Initially this was about reinforcing the power-base of the organisations that provided education, initially the churches and then the independent schools that arose. They presented themselves as the gatekeepers of knowledge that would enable advancement, for those wanting entrance to positions of power in the state, the military and the church. Then as it became necessary to educate more than just an elite, nation states got involved and set up their own education systems.
The fact that developed-world education systems are about control first and learning a poor second is clearly evident in the way these education systems operate. But it is wilfully obscured by maintaining the myth that learning is the prime aim. This had better be the topic of another blog.