Special Report – Sir Ken Robinson
| EDUCATION
The future of schools lies in questioning status quo In teaching circles, Sir Ken Robinson may be most famous for his TED talk Do Schools Kill Creativity?, as well as his ongoing campaign to make education more relevant, interesting and productive for children. On March 21st and 22nd, Sir Ken will host a variety of sessions and give a keynote speech at the National FutureSchools Expo and Conferences, where educators from all over Australasia will converge at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre to be inspired by the best in educational leadership, innovation and technology in Foundation – Year 13 schooling. While we all wait for March, School News has connected with Sir Ken for his take on the future of education: what we should change, what to hang on to, and how teachers and principals can transform learning for their 21st century learners – so schooling in Australasia is meaningful, fulfilling and relevant. Sir Ken has often said, “teaching is an art form, not a delivery system” and with more educators turning to ‘clinical teaching’ (the process of overlaying clinical practice onto teaching practice to assess and ensure teaching practices have an impact), it seemed pertinent to ask Sir Ken if there’s room in creative teaching for science and art. “We make too much of a difference between science and art,” he replied. “It’s often assumed that to be a teacher you just need a good degree in whatever it is you are being paid to teach, but it’s simply not true, it was never true.” He says, while “a great teacher obviously knows their material”, the real skill is “engaging people in the material” and “firing up their imaginations”. “Great teachers are like great doctors or lawyers. They have a whole reparatory of skills; techniques and approaches, and a lot of experience, but the real
One of the consequences of having such a narrow view of ability in this testing mania is that it generates a very wide perception of inability.”
skill is knowing which skill to apply where, and how to adapt it to the people in front of you.” He added that great teaching is about “judgement and connoisseurship”, and while gathering relevant data means “you can be objective about what you’re doing”, he posited that education “has become far too data driven”, sidelining teachers’ judgements. “It’s like a medical examination happening with data being generated, while the patient is dying on the table. You need to make sense of the data, so you can apply it to the situation you’re confronted with - here and now.” Sir Ken says he doesn’t see instruction as a separate science. He said, “there are elements of teaching that can be learned that are skilful and informed by experience and information, but it shouldn’t be reduced to some sort of algorithm”. Sir Ken is not against all forms of standardised testing. “There are some areas where it’s perfectly legitimate, like with language learning. “There are all sorts of things that go on in schools that depend on human contact. Contact with individual teachers, your interaction within the school community, and your links with the
broader community. None of them is more important than another. “Having a rich curriculum and having expert, well supported teachers; having informed assessment, and having links with the greater community is what makes a great school.” Sir Ken often speaks about “organic systems” being key for situations involving people. “Education is more like gardening than manufacturing: the thing is that gardeners know that there are conditions under which plants flourish and that’s true of all human communities - what it comes to is the culture of the place.”
Creative schooling: the wider view Sir Ken maintains that his approach to education is neither hypothesis nor theory: “I’m simply describing what happens to be the case when you go into schools. If there’s a rich curriculum, if there’s interactive teaching, if there are close links with the community, kids flourish. If they’re sitting at desks all day having the life tested out of them, they don’t.”
So, what can be done? He suggests persuading policy makers, “who are setting the tone from above” that “standardised
– Sir Ken Robinson
testing, narrowing the curriculum and imposing more conformity are actually counter-productive in their own terms” must be part of the discourse to influence the political conversation. “A lot of things get in the way of students and teachers realising their potential: one is the great pressure of testing, and there’s every reason to push back. One of the reasons I wrote my new book, You, Your Child and School, is because parents are disaffected about testing and they are pushing back too - and I’m keen to encourage them because it’s counterproductive and doesn’t serve anybody.” While the cogs turn at the usual pace of an institutionalised system, I wondered how school leaders can support teachers within their own micro-society to enact the ‘education revolution’. Sir Ken began with defining the difference between learning, education and school. “Children love learning; they learn voraciously. They don’t all get on with education and some of them have a bad time with school. The difference is that learning is a natural process of acquiring skills and understanding; education is a more organised approach to learning, a more formal approach very often; and school is a community of learners.” Term 1 - 2018 schoolnews
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