Another Australia Day week has come and gone. This year more than ever I simply tried to ignore it but Michael Coghlan’s image deserves some backup.
While it was great to see the show of multiculturalism in Michael’s photostream I’m getting a sense of an increasing proto-nationalist undercurrent in any show of Australian ‘pride’ these days.
The flag flying, tattoo and towel-bearing yobbos, and the ‘If you don’t like it (read – if you don’t like the way we behave towards you) – LEAVE’ sticker messages, are simply a more crass and explicit pronouncement of a much larger groundswell however. The number of apparently intelligent people succumbing to the paranoia and ‘one world government’ conspiracy theories represent another movement I’m finding disturbing.
In Sydney it has reached a point where laws must be enforced to stop all alcohol consumption in and around many public places on Australia Day. It wouldn’t take much for another Cronulla riot scenario to eventuate.
Increased press about finite resources and panic about water may have replaced terrorist fear for now; it seems we’re only happy to be warm and fuzzy about embracing diversity when there’s plenty to go around. But at the same time global warming conspiracy theories and redneck demands to be unaccountable for destruction of private land holdings indicate an unwillingness to act with foresight and adjust personal ways of life. Goodness knows how the old ‘Think global; act local” message would be now misconstrued.
There’s a lot we DO need to celebrate about living in Australia but at present it feels as though we’ve lost our way. How we get back on track is the question I can’t answer.
“Only when the rivers run dry, the trees are all gone and the animals are all dead will humans realize that we can’t eat money…” Unknown.
I’d been pondering the skills and capabilities and attributes I think the contemporary education system needs to support in young people today when I came across the following video thanks to a post from Rod Lucier in his The Clever Sheep blog. I first saw it a couple of years ago but it was good to revisit ….
So what do young people need to effectively operate, and be the change agents, in a world that will see substantial change in their lifetimes ….
He refers to the work of Henry Jenkins et al who in 2006 list …
• Play — the capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problem-solving
• Performance — the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery
• Simulation — the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes
• Appropriation — the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content
• Multitasking — the ability to scan one’s environment and shift focus as needed to salient details.
• Distributed Cognition — the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities
• Collective Intelligence — the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal
• Judgment — the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources
• Transmedia Navigation — the ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities
• Networking — the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information
• Negotiation — the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms.
and to Tony Wagner’s seven survival skills:
• Critical thinking and problem solving
• Collaboration and leading by influence
• Agility and adaptability
• Initiative and entrepreneurial-ism
• Effective oral and written communication
• Accessing and analyzing information
• Curiosity and imagination
To these Christopher himself adds empathy.
So, what’s missing?
Here’s my own additions. I’d like to hear what you would add….
creativity and lateral thinking
compassion and civility
perseverance and persistence
the ability to critique and validate
the ability to filter and synthesize large amounts of information
cultural awareness
resilience
balance
risk-taking
the ability to self-promote and manage a virtual identity/ presence and content
The big question is of course, how well does the current education system acknowledge and focus on these?
I have to share my ‘stars’ for today via Pageflakes ….
Libra – Sep 23 – Oct 22
You’ve just about had it with a certain person — the one who seems to be living for nothing else lately than to aggravate you, in any way possible. The bad news — for them — is that even though you’ve had quite the week, you’ll catch a second wind this morning, and be more than happy to use it to defend yourself. The good news — for you — is that the universe has seen fit to arm you with an amazing array of verbal astrological weapons. Better warn them before you really get going!
and I always thought it was because I was on the cusp of Scorpio.
Watch out!
Early-adopters, ground-breakers, risk-takers – call them what you will, bu most workplace leaders and innovators I know cannot remember the last time they themselves had any substantial professional development opportunities.
Their ongoing issue is that they are constantly developing the skills and knowledge of others. Typically local events and conferences, and workplace learning strategies are designed for the bulk of employees interests and needs. It is the so called ‘early-adopters’ who run the sessions and inspire the attendees. They also mentor and provide constant informal support within their units and Faculties.
But read my lips!!! – leaders and innovators require exposure to new skills, ideas and technologies too, and they shouldn’t be left to outlay personal funds and time to meet this need.
Unless this happens people like Mike burn out and find a space where motivational interaction and learning occurs. The success of in-house support etc depends on keeping leaders and skilled employees happy and motivated. They need to be actively encouraged to engage online and they need to be supported to identify and attend at least one inspirational event each year. The trickle-down benefits of flying a person to an international event are significant.
Yes we are FAR better off now with online connections and events, but there’s nothing quite like actually physically mixing with and conversing with like minded innovators.
Mike captures the loss beautifully when he says “It’s the feeling that I’m missing out on the excitement, the creative energy, the showmanship, the passion and the fun – missing out on the incredible aire of enthusiastic jubilation that makes for an incredible collaborative learning environment.”
With an death toll over 100,000, people trapped alive, disease and horrific untreated injuries, homelessness, looting and despair you would expect all in the vicinity to cease normal activity and to assist in any way possible.
But it seems some money hungry companies and tourists cannot sink low enough. While the tragedy in Port-au-Prince continues to unfold a 4370-berth cruise liner laden with cocktail drinking, jetski riding tourists docks in Labadee on Haiti’s north coast.
In light of my post – Education: right or privilege – this morning I came across the Jan 5 post - Innovation needed now – Education, by Jeffrey Phillips on the Innovate on Purpose blog. It’s interesting to read to further elaborate on the issues at hand. While it focuses on the US, the same issues exist here in Australia.
The post responds to a query re “what product or sector is in most need of innovation” and outlines why the education system should be a focus.
In summary he suggests that:
the primary and secondary education system is based on learning models from the 19th century; it is irrelevant to today’s world
we aren’t teaching kids relevant skills or how to learn, and we often channel all of kids into a collegiate (university) experience – “ Why do we continue to prepare the students for “knowledge worker” jobs when clearly there are many demands and opportunities, and proclivities for other skills? We need to resurrect the concept of apprenticeship and place more emphasis and value on learning skills beyond the classroom. We need better definitions about what kids need to know, and more importantly, we need to teach them how to learn and how to teach themselves and others.”
since most educational systems are government monopolies rather than private enterprises, there’s little innovation and little incentive for new entrants
the educational system is clearly failing – failing the students, failing the teachers and failing to create people who can join the workforce or create their own companies. “ At this point we need disruptive innovation – a complete rethinking of the pedagogy, curriculum, technology and intent of education, followed by a restructuring of how education is offered and consumed.”
If you only read one book in 2010 please make it ‘Half the Sky‘ by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.
They say…
“We wrote a book devoted to women in the developing world because if you want to fight poverty and extremism, you need to educate and empower women and bring them into the economy. ” “Half the Sky lays out an agenda for the world’s women and three major abuses: sex trafficking and forced prostitution; gender-based violence including honor killings and mass rape; maternal mortality, which needlessly claims one woman a minute. We know there are many worthy causes competing for attention in the world. We focus on this one because this kind of oppression feels transcendent – and so does the opportunity. Outsiders can truly make a difference.”
This is a devastatingly sad and hard hitting book that will open your eyes to the plight of women and girls around the world.
I like visualisation tools and Wordle has proved a nice graphical way to capture the essence of a piece of writing or site.
Tagul (currently free in beta) it claims is more than ‘just a toy’ (referring to Wordle) and is ‘designed to be used on blogs, web pages or any kind of sites as a replacement of ordinary tag clouds’. ‘Each tag in Tagul cloud is linked with an URL and is “clickable” that enables visitors to use it for navigation. Also Tagul utilizes widely used flash platform (instead of less common java platform in Wordle) that is light weight and stores the clouds on a CDN to deliver clouds to wide audience instantly. Tagul has some features that Wordle doesn’t, like custom shapes selection and multiply fonts usage in one cloud.’
So with a bit of fiddling and the install of a Flash plugin I got it working here. I deleted a number of irrelevant tags (verbs etc) and have set it to update each day. Links from the tags go to a Google search so there’s some interesting potential for education. I’m expecting a number of strange tags to creep their way in as a result but we’ll see what happens.
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
Yesterday was MLK day and I’m commemorating his life and work by listening to his famous speech once again. This was 1963 and I was not quite 4 years old. We still have a long way to go to achieve King’s dream.
” Son of a Baptist minister, student of theology, adherent of Ghandi’s teachings and the writings of Henry David Thoreau, Martin Luther King Jr. brought his supreme oratory skill and a visionary message of nonviolence to the fledgling African-American civil rights movement, leading it to historic influence. He spearheaded the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, spurring the United States Supreme Court to declare segregated busses unconstitutional, and the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech to a gathering of supporters 200,000-strong.
In the early ’60s, King’s all-encompassing message — addressed to men and women of all different creeds — drew support from major leaders, among them President John F. Kennedy, and laypeople of every color. The youngest man to receive the Nobel Peace Prize (he accepted the award in 1964, at age 35), King is remembered for his unbending commitment to the improvement of the lives of all people, even as the stormy ’60s brought out leaders promoting more radical, separatist and militant ideology. His hopeful voice came to fill the hearts of millions, and still strongly resonates today, as citizens in America and elsewhere enjoy a world he envisioned but didn’t live to see: more equal, more whole. ”
I’ve experienced three different scenarios and from both inside and outside the system. My boys were lucky enough to spend at least some of their primary school years at a one teacher rural school (I hope they agree with that!). The school was in a close-knit community of people from very diverse backgrounds but who generally owned land and were committed to community development, and to each other. The boys teacher also lived in that community. Some parents had educational backgrounds (and interestingly quite a few went on to retrain in education-related fields in later years) but most were farming, parenting, studying or simply escaping from the big-smoke.
The school always welcomed the presence of parents and there were always parents around. Once a week we ran activity afternoons where parents could share their interests and skills (however obscure) with small groups of kids who chose their activity from the offerings for that term. The NSW governance structure ‘School Councils’ came into force at the time and we all did our bit in various roles on that, in addition to P&C fundraising activities. The level of involvement was up to each parent but there was certainly a sense that anyone was welcome.
Larger non-rural schools are a different case.
Even as an educator myself I generally stayed away. Partly this was because I was working and there was little opportunity to do much out of hours. School Councils and P&Cs were cliquey and there was a sense that they were run by a parent ‘elite’. I guess I made a decision that I had done my bit at Afterlee and it was time for others to contribute. IN dealings with teachers, I made a point of not identifying myself as an educator and had some rather interesting interactions with teachers who certainly did their best to treat me as an imbecile, and at best in a patronising manner. I felt like a child entering the domain and was treated as one. There were exceptions of course.
So it’s hardly surprising that many/most parents prefer to stay away. Given that many had negative schooling experience themselves, their child’s attendance is a necessary evil to be done with.
While snippets of the paper resonated on the whole I have to say I found the paper pretty patronising. There was a sense of designing programs to deal with parent inadequacies, of telling parents what they should do. Of the case studies provided I thought the Logan Square Neighborhood Assoc’s ‘Literacy Ambassador program’ totally pompous and uninviting.
Fault for non-engagement was placed on parental low-income .
Schools are a public service and teachers public servants. It is their practices that need to adapt. Services need to be offered that will entice the community in. Night classes designed and run by community members need to be encouraged using the infrastructure. If parents are hesitant to enter the school events and meetings should be taken outside school gates, in the parents comfort zone. Schools need to listen rather than preach. ALL types of contribution need to be respected and applauded – if parents wish to ‘bake’ celebrate that not denigrate it. Find out what the parents’ strengths are and ask if they will share them. Identify the skills of parents and arrange for them to share/teach those skills and interests. Make an ‘open door’ policy and truly welcome parents to enter the classroom. I’ve seen the faces of young children (unfortunately lost in later years LOL) beam at having their parent present. Parents know when they are simply tolerated – they’re not stupid. Just having parents inside the classroom is enough to begin with. Let them get a feel for what goes on before negotiating a task/role. Don’t assume they want to listen to children read. In fact don’t assume they are good readers themselves!
Following on from my last post, we need to rethink the education structures and design. We need movement and overlap between ages and focus. Increasingly we will need to break down the walls and consider online opportunities to enrich the lives of learners and to make full use of the rich pool of resources that is the local, and global, community.
