Here's an interesting question for your next workshop, faculty meeting, or maybe even a dinner party? “Would you rather that your children were literate, numerate, or curious?” Pick one, and why? For many, it’s a tough choice; for most, you want all three. But if you had to choose one, which one would it be? In case you’re wondering, yes this is a leading question, which I’ll get to in a moment. But I for one would want to start my response by first asking exactly what you mean by each of those three words. Now I know I'm being picky, but we refer to literacy and numeracy, and even curiosity as if we have a shared understanding of their meaning. But as we have raised so often in this space, that’s simply not the case. Do you mean functionally literate? reading at age-level (whatever that is supposed to mean)? And is your definition of literacy a traditional one that relates to the printed word? Or are you thinking of a more contemporary perspective as Audrey Watters … [Read more...]

After more than forty years learning about learning, I'm intrigued by how much I still need to learn. I mean, from time to time, I’ve had profound insights on the topic, aided by the research and writings of many of the people Will and I often reference in our work, (and in our most recent White Paper 8 Must Read Books for Educational Change Leaders which you can snag in the sidebar at ModernLearners.com), but there is still so much more I want to know about learning. As a result of our work in Change School, and many of the workshops we’ve run, I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on people’s beliefs about learning.  Sadly, by far the most significant insight I have gained from that is just how little we talk about it, think about it, or allow those beliefs to guide practice. Learning is, after all, what we are here for isn’t it? And yet over many decades we have too often come to accept schools as places dominated by a teaching culture, rather than one of learning, as Will … [Read more...]

During one of our regular Roundtable discussions in Change School this week, one of our school leaders asked a very interesting question. “Given the number of books that have been written and papers that have been presented around  school change over more than 50 years by some very well informed and esteemed writers, why has there been so little change in schools and why do you think it will be any different this time ?” It’s a question that we’ve all struggled with from time to time, however, I do think the answer becomes a lot clearer if we step back and look at the bigger picture, which tells the story of school reform over the past hundred years and highlights why this time is different. Most importantly, it also gives meaning to the work of those who have gone before. For our purposes, I think that story beings early last century when  John Dewey,  Maria Montessori, Rudolf Steiner and others started challenging the wisdom of the early traditions of the teacher-centered … [Read more...]

For a few days last week, the world’s biggest edtech event, ISTE in San Antonio, made me confront some harsh realities. Late on the third day, as I sat listening to our colleague Gary Stager’s ISTE session on the 50th anniversary of Logo, I was reminded of just how painfully incremental our adoption of computers in schools has been.  I mean, half a century is a long time, far too long a time for us to still be waiting to see what computers can make possible for learners. Nineteen sixty-seven might have been the year of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album, but more significantly, it was also the year educational computing as we know it was born.  It was the year that Alan Kay gave birth to the concept of a ‘laptop’ computer for kids, which he sketched on a flight back to the US after working with Jean Piaget, Seymour Papert, and some young students.  And, importantly, it was the year that Papert and others released the first version of  a computer language for kids, which they called … [Read more...]

As the school year comes to an end in the Northern spheres, and many attend graduation ceremonies and start throwing caps high into the air, it may be opportune to consider just how we define success. While no doubt we want everyone to be successful in their own ways,  taken to an extreme the school sports can soon start to look more like a ribbon ceremony with every participant getting a ribbon or medal just for taking part. On the other hand, I’m sure we see too many instances of over enthusiastic parents who want their kids in as many competitive sports as possible, sometimes when they’re barely out of nappies, so they can “get used to the way of the world” or something like that. Which brings us to the way the world does function, and for many decades, the corporate sector largely measured its success on profit and share price if they were a public company. However in stark contrast, in the mid-‘90’s John Elkington developed the quite radical notion of “the triple bottom … [Read more...]

As you sit back and watch the NBA’s playoffs or whatever sport grabs your attention at this time of the year, think for a moment about the talent of the people you are watching, and more specifically, when and how that was identified. For some it was obvious from an early age. For others, they had to work hard at it and wait for a scout to see them in action. In both cases they had the good fortune to see their talent and passion align. Given the obscene amounts of money that sports stars can earn today,  it’s only natural we find more and more parents eager ( sometimes over-eager) to identify sporting talent early and do whatever they can to see a child reach their full sporting potential. The same can be said about creative talent.  However, while we do nurture young talent in music, theatre or art, the opportunities for fame and fortune are certainly a lot of less, even though the occasional "star is born." So what about the rest? What about the 99%+ of other kids who … [Read more...]

What were you doing four years ago? For some that might seem like a recent memory, while for others so much water has flowed under the bridge it seems like forever. For Will and I, it was a conversation over a great bottle of red that launched Modern Learners. One thing that all of us do know is that in those four years we have witnessed more change in the world around us than we have ever seen before. That thing called the internet, effectively non-existent 20 years ago, linked 1 billion people by 2005, 2 billion people by 2010 and 3 billion people by 2015. Now, over half of humanity is online. So what’s changed in our schools? For too many, not much, but for an increasing number the past four years have meant a big shift in thinking about what school could and should be. Hopefully that’s you, but then maybe you’ve been in that space for longer than four years, so the exciting thing for you is... now you’re not alone. For one thing, you’re now part of the rapidly growing … [Read more...]

As we work through our busy lives, I’m intrigued by how readily we seem to accept so many of the assumptions that impact on that work. I don’t think for a minute that this is something we do consciously, but when you have so much going on in your life, you simply don’t have the time or inclination to reflect or test the veracity of what we assume to be correct. Take our use of proxies. As Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame outlined recently in his annual newsletter, a common example is process as proxy. Good process serves you so you can be more effective or efficient in what you are seeking to achieve. But if you’re not watchful, the process can become the thing. It’s the sort of language and double-speak that clumsy bureaucracies thrive on, and the education sector is certainly no exception. It can happen very easily in large companies, public sector organizations or schools. The process becomes the proxy for the result you want. You stop looking at outcomes and just make sure you’re … [Read more...]

There are two planets in the Universe of Today, Planet Earth and Planet School. Planet Earth can seem a little crazy at times, but it's connected, complex and in a constant state of change. It’s a cultural melting pot, and people are continuously communicating across more countries, more often in more mediums that we might have ever imagined. Working on Planet Earth is very different to what it used to be. Everything seems interconnected, interrelated and most critically, interdependent. The traditional rules of order have changed, where many of the assumptions about business that were previously valid, are no longer relevant. Risk-aversion is not an option, rather it is now about the pursuit of opportunity when the context seems much more uncertain. People work when they need to, as they have to, often from a variety of venues including their home, and more frequently, not for long with one company. Their employment is no longer dependent on what they know, but rather on what … [Read more...]