Let's talk learning (2)

Innovative not Experimental
Amesbury School is a 21st century school, concerned with 21st century learning – it is absolutely not “experimental”. However, it is unashamedly innovative. Innovation refers to the creation of better or more effective products, processes etc. It starts with what we know and attempts to make it better. Our thinking is strongly researched based – and we are focused on best practice from around the world. Our mandate to be innovative comes from the educational vision of the Establishment Board which, after consultation with the Amesbury community, chose “innovation” as one of the school’s key values.

We are a 21st century school because we are preparing students for THEIR future, not for OURS. If we are truly doing this, then school will and must look different from the education we received. We cannot say, “Well it was good enough for me and look at what I achieved.” The fact is these children are not our generation and we are doing them a disservice if we think their education should be just like ours. I found some video footage from the 1940s and it is interesting to note that people like John Dewey, whose educational thinking has been hugely influential for the last 100 years, was saying exactly the same things then that we are saying now. 70 years later, sadly, it seems not much has changed and yet the world has changed dramatically in many ways. Check out this seven minute video. I imagine you will find it as fascinating as I did: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opXKmwg8VQM.

The Ignite talk I gave last week focused on the need to develop a sense of urgency about changing how we deliver education to meet the needs of the 21st century. If we do not get urgent about this, not only do we put our future economies at risk, but we risk setting our children up to struggle and, perhaps, fail in the future – especially those who are less resilient and less adaptable.

Yet when we try to create the change that common sense tells us is necessary, time and again we hit resistance. Why is it that human nature is so resistant to change? It seems counter intuitive to me to resist that which is essential to one’s own survival. Yet that is exactly what we do. Everyone is talking about the importance of 21st century learning yet how much is really changing in our schools? We know that change is difficult because people have deeply embedded ideas about the way the world is and when confronted with what change might actually look like in practice, it hits up against these paradigms, and creates fear and anxiety. So how do we get people passed that to allow necessary change to occur?

Simon Breakspear, a recognised thinker in education, said of innovation and change – “get started and then get better”. That’s the process we are involved in. Based on the best thinking we have available to us, and based on the mandate we have from the Board of Trustees, we have started. Now we are in the process of “getting better” which will involve constant self-review and is a process that will never end. I believe this focus on data and what it is telling us makes innovation as safe as possible for all of those involved. I am very committed to our practice being data and evidence-based and we are committed to being responsive to what data is telling us. Hence, we have already sought feedback in a number of ways from students, parents and teachers and are on our second round of collecting, collating and analysing achievement data.

As I have said in a previous Blog Post – in terms of the change that is necessary, it is not a case of traditional education or innovative 21st century learning. It is a case of both/and. In fact the world does not particularly benefit from labelling things and placing them in boxes or from taking this kind of binary approach. Labels like traditional, innovative or experimental actually take away from the real question that is central to a consideration of schooling and that is, “What do our children need to be successful participants in their present and their future?”

......More on this in my next Let's talk learning" posting.