These are points from the discussion on Education for the Future.
Q. What are our attitudes to Australia’s education system?
P.Become quite concerned about it because of grandkids God knows what’s going on in primary schools because of NAPLAN. The grandchild is distressed. I’m trying to make little of it because she has to do it. Can buy NAPLAN books in newsagents. Even child-centred learning in preschools is going. It scares me.
C: Seems we’re back in the 20th century and we have 2 grandchildren going to private schools. The values in primary schools seem to be that you get beaten up (grandson’s Aspergers) so he’s off to a private school. The other is bright and he was just sitting still. So he’s gone off to a private school and is loving it. They’ve put him up a couple of grades in some subjects but he has a home base at his social level. We would not have imagined private schools before. I think 15 year old boys should be doing something else preferably physical. We’re all a bit anti-school. Once you’ve learned to read and write and do a bit of arithmetic.
I: Concerned most about broadscale education rather than formal education – the constant dumbing down of our society especially by media.
N: Dumbing down of the process to the extent that I don’t even know if the political masters are given the information because of self-censorship in government. Belongs to the Brisbane chapter of the Association of Peak Oil and we are looking at putting together a paper on Peak Democracy because of the inability to get enough leadership.
A: Despair about dumbing down in ABC. ABC always present in my life as a learning joy now being dumbed down. Schools bureaucratic inaccessible to community. Addicted to feral learning the passion of lifelong learning.
N: Concerned about having to justify his learning by referencing itself to something extrnal authority in order to have his knowledge accepted externally. Huge time and energy waster.
B: A story: When M our youngest was in 5th grade they had an open half day at school and we could go along and sit in the class. The teacher was liked by the kids and was considered one of the best teachers in the school When the teacher entered the class all the kids sat up straight and didn’t speak. She gave 10 spelling. They exchanged to mark them. She asked how many got 10 etc pitting children competitively against each other.
His philosophy of education is that teachers don’t teach; learners learn and if you try to teach you get in the way of learning.
How much effect might something like climate have on it? 50 years ago colder countries were better educated but now air-conditioning has changed that.
N: The best person to learn from is someone who is passionate about teaching. If you provide flexibility for the teacher to decide how and what to teach it enables them to be passionate.
Students ask: Why are we having to learn this stuff? And for the teachers Why are we having to teach this stuff? And why are we having to try to justify it to the students?
Background: On OECD rankings Australia doing better than you probably thought it was.
Finland has been top of the league tables for several times now. Here is a set of bullet points on what it is about Finland:
[ul]bipartison education policy began 40 years ago
education unions and employer organizations cooperate in developing how to do it
nine years of primary schooling starting at age 7
teaching positions are coveted well paid well trained valued 10% selected
all permanent teachers are trained to at least Masters level and are encouraged to continue learning
teachers have high autonomy’
teachers have input into school regional and national policy
matriculation is only mandatory exam (upper secondary school)
learning to learn is emphasis from the beginning
difference between top and bottom quartile is 2nd lowest worldwide
ALL educational expenses covered by central government[/ul]
Q. What are the current issues that people need skills for?
Q. What are the most important issues that we face currently nationally?
Rate of global change and crises so rapid and chaotic that planning wicked
Rapid population growth & resource depletion (oil water soil..)
Rapid colonialization of national resources and marginalization of citizens
Indebtedness (financial) of population
Need for strong sense of who we are and how we work together
Imbalance in how nation earns money (mining resources services agriculture tourism)
P: Lifestyle changes (so many things impacting on us at the moment we are going to struggle to keep living a normal life)
C: An attitude that comes as a result of things like education and Medicare that it is something that is done to you a pervasive sense of entitlement of privilege from outside. Expectation the government will solve your problems for you.
I: Lack of leadership. Petty politics rather than statesmanship exhibited by governments.
N: Starting from the system premise that what we’ve got isn’t going to work. What are we trying to create or maintain and how do you create resilience and focus on things if you believe what you are doing isn’t worth maintaining. What are we trying to create or maintain and for what?
A: Rate of global change and crises so rapid and chaotic that planning wicked
B: Unpredictability of even the near future and the way most of the world reacts by trying to increase control.
Q. What are the future issues that people will need skills for?
How can we deliver these?
A:Rapid population growth & resource depletion (oil water soil..)
N: The transience of community. We need connection to place. Then we can work out who needs to do what.
I: The increasing ‘need’ for centralised control but at the same time the increased impotence of the controllers to effect anything material.
C: The government health systems changing our biology. Vaccinations antibiotics changing the gene pool to a whole different set of wellness illness responses. Governments putting a whole lot of money into responses that weren’t even applicable 50 years ago. Likely to fall in a heap.
P: How people can find out what is actually true given there is so much crap out there. Media concentration and the simplification of complex issues. Deliberate manufactured obscurity and misinformation.
B: Multiple interconnected crises in a global economy without global governance. Civilisation could collapse within months.
Q. What skills understanding and whatever else do children and adults need to deal with this?
Q. What kind of education system could deliver on that?
A&N pair discussion:
Skills needed to deal with this:
Reading numeracy to analyse
Critical analysis skills
Risk assessment and contingency planning skills
Radical action to resist & overcome colonialisation of populace & resources (C. You’re advocating courage.) ?Physical fitness defence skills
Speaking out with a powerful clear voice
Heaps of money management skills along parsimonious line.
If we are serious about the transformation needed is it to revolt against the system or is it to survive in a new system. Do we try to turn the Titanic around or do we build a new boat.
Accumulate stores of clearly identifiable and accessible core knowledge that can be accessed at need
Not losing the knowledge. Respect the culture. Respect the elders. The lore. The law. Learned by everybody. Different custodians for different levels of meanings but everybody speaks the same story. The same metalanguage of care and respect for country. Everybody knows the rules and if they break them they are punished.
P and C: Read and write add up and subtract money have a critical sense of all presented data detecting error and illusion.
The education system that will deliver on this: Changes will come from informal systems. Eliminate the power struggles from teachers (teachers-pupil teachers- parents teachers – curriculum departments) and engage parents so they don’t feel alienated.
I and B: Healthy skepticism curiosity self-reliance rather than dependency systems thinking excitement towards learning capacity for collective governance at any scale concern for the other.
Encourage informal education systems and hence diversity of approaches. Diversity will give them resilience.
Some form of market place and exchange
The responsibility and choice of learning is with the learner
The learning spiral as explicit metaprocess.
Begin with the educators of the educators.
Raise the prestige of education.
Formal systems should be universal.
Processes for dealing with the emotions aroused by global change & chaos – sing paintdance emotional processing methods
Manual skills for basic living – cooking sewing typing playing an instrument