Traditional vs Innovative Education- "a case of either/or or both/and"?

I recently attended a couple of conferences and for four days in a row listened to an array of amazing speakers. The principals who had gathered received the same message from many of the speakers, "Our educational leadership must disrupt the status quo."


Why is this? You all know the answer to this question – because today’s children will not only be living in, but will provide leadership to, a world that is vastly different from the one that exists now, a world that we can barely imagine. (See Changing Paradigms http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U for a great explanation of this). Traditional education was designed for a world that was known and dependable. But today, education must be designed for a future that cannot be known and that will always be changing. Think about how much the world has changed – 8 years ago Google did not even exist. Can you imagine a world without Google? Google, Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and this is only the beginning. Our children will see more change in just a few years of their lives than we will see in a lifetime.

This is why education must move forward – because the world our children face now and will face in the future is different. And we are doing them a huge disservice if we dish out a factory model education that was designed for another era. For those of us who know better than that, it would be hugely unethical to do so.

Education must prepare our students to not only be able to participate in the global economy and contribute to it, but to be leaders in it and leaders of it. New Zealand’s goal of creating an internationally competitive knowledge economy largely depends on graduates being able to use powerful conceptual tools to solve real-world problems. One of the most powerful conceptual tools is, of course, mathematics. However, there is strong evidence that although students are coming through our schools reasonably proficient in performing various mathematical techniques and procedures, their ability to apply these procedures successfully to solve real-world problems is severely limited. If NZ is to develop an internationally competitive knowledge economy, we need students coming through who possess a wider range of competencies and understandings than our current learning environments seem to cultivate. Our students do need to learn key mathematical skills, techniques and strategies, but of equal or greater importance is taking this knowledge and learning how to apply it to real world problems and contexts.

As a result, at Amesbury, we believe an inquiry based, problem solving approach to mathematics learning is what’s needed. Hence, maths may look a little different here at Amesbury. However, it’s not a matter of either innovative or traditional, but of both/and. It's about having all the tools of innovative and traditional learning  and deciding how to use them in the best interests of the students. Students need to learn the techniques and skills of maths as well as how to apply them. The question is, do we teach the skills first, which is what often happens in traditional schools, and then when the students have mastered the skills in isolation, do we then give them opportunities to use the skills in a real context? Our preferred approach is to begin an inquiry – which provides the real-life context and the more authentic the context the better, assist students to identify the skills that are needed to carry out the inquiry, and teach those within the context of the inquiry. Learning is then not decontextualized, but is within a context and for a purpose. And there is a strong evidence base to suggest that learning is more profound when it is embedded in an authentic context that relates to the student’s real world and when it is for a purpose.

Part One of Lesley's Presentation for the Term 1 Community Evening.