Short rant. Articles like – Education needs to be pulled into the 21st century – cause many educators to smile and nod in agreement. The report broadly splashes all the latest and coolest terms that cause sensible educators to viciously agree: “In an increasingly complex and competitive world, teachers must understand technology and connect coursework to the global economy, curricula should eliminate less relevant material and incorporate modern skills such as global awareness, technology and media literacy, and standardized tests must include these new subjects”.
Ok. That’s very nice. We are then treated with the typical mis-focused comment: “I hope to encourage policymakers to better equip our graduates for today’s and tomorrow’s jobs”. Education isn’t only about creating employees. It’s about assisting individuals to develop into the types of people that can tackle and handle the continual gyrations of a complex world. I don’t buy into the “education must prepare people for jobs that don’t yet exist” view. Education – as it always has – must prepare people for an unknown future. This isn’t new. When I was going to school, the particular job that I have today did not exist. How should we prepare people for, let’s say, the current financial crisis? By training people to be stockbrokers? No. You can’t prepare people for black swans. People must be capable of handling uncertainty, but also adapting as environments shift and change. At it’s most basic, education must move from epistemology to ontology. Getting back to the report: give us something useful. Statements as broad as those provided in the article (i.e. “develop new programs, standards, partnerships and assessment measures”) are hardly a basis for action. Perhaps it’s time that we stop focusing on what our curriculum is and start focusing on how we actually do curriculum in the first place.
-
‹ Home
Contents
-
Categories
-
Tags
Adoption Articles Blogging Classification/Ontologies Collaboration Community Connectivism Content Content Management Copyright/IP/DRM Design Elearning Evaluation/Assessment/ROI Games/Simulations Information Architecture Innovation Instructional Design Knowledge Management Learning Learning Objects Legal LMS Media Networks Open Source Podcasting Random Thoughts Research Resources ROI Search Semantic Web SNA Social Standards Storytelling Teaching Technology Theories Tools Trends Usability Wiki Wireless/PDAs XML
-
Archives
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
- December 2005
- November 2005
- October 2005
- September 2005
- August 2005
- July 2005
- June 2005
- May 2005
- April 2005
- March 2005
- February 2005
- January 2005
- December 2004
- November 2004
- October 2004
- September 2004
- August 2004
- July 2004
- June 2004
- May 2004
- April 2004
- March 2004
- February 2004
- January 2004
- December 2003
- November 2003
- October 2003
- September 2003
- August 2003
- July 2003
- June 2003
- May 2003
- April 2003
- March 2003
- February 2003
- January 2003
- December 2002
- November 2002
- October 2002
- September 2002
- August 2002
- July 2002
- June 2002
Blogroll
-
RSS Feeds
-
Meta
3 Comments
Curriculum Development? It’s a black art practised by those who have mastered its secrets and is not for the uninitiated to even attempt. There are no first principles in curriculum development, so the officially sanctioned curriculum can never be criticized. A “virtuous” circle.
Before we insist that educators change how they teach in classrooms, we need to engage educators in continued professional learning, using tools similar to those they might later introduce to students.
Knowing that the strategies we employ in the classroom are directly linked to prescribed assessment practices, my hope is that educators will discover the need to change, by seeing value in their own connected learning.
I agree with all of the above. I mean, it’s not a matter of education. I believe that the world goes too fast and it’s hard to catch up at times. people learn their jobs working and having real experiences in the “battlefield”, education is just a mere basis, not very stable either, sometimes. what we learn is often irrelevant to what we are going to be. Because, let’s say it, we don’t really know what we want to do when we’re at school, do we?
and even if we do what we want to become, it’s likely that we change our mind and we find ourselves doing something totally different…
I just think that we will build our skills and perfectionate them anyway, so let’s just stop giving a hardtime to teachers…
Comment from http://www.aabtraining.co.uk/aid.htm
First aid training courses for appointed person and first aid at work is now being run across the uk to aid companies with compliance issues.