As the parent of a child not too far off entering high school, a number of issues surrounding her education concern me. Not least of which is how are governments in Australia - Federal and State - dealing with the increasing need for students of today to have an education that is connected, collaborative and conversational.
It’s my view that schools are falling a long way behind the 8-ball in terms of providing our children with the type of education they need these days:
- connected - yes our schools are largely online, but use of online resources is limited by computer availability, blocking of legitimate resources, lack of teacher training in using online resources. It’s often the case that the kids are ahead of the teachers in their skill level at finding and exploiting online resources, or that sites that contain blacklisted words are blocked in spite of legitimate educational content, or that resources in schools are so tight that kids get physical access to a computer in class or the library only occasionally;
- engaging - the classroom is still largely run on an Industrial Age model where our kids are taught to behave like factory automatons, ready for a job on the production line. It’s anti-creative and busywork focused and not at all designed to equip our children for a world where bursty thinking, creative knowledge work is ever-increasingly the norm. Take a look at Sir Ken Robinson’s talk from TED 2006 if you’re not convinced:
- dynamic, diverse and passionate - literacy and numeracy are unarguably critical components in a well-rounded education. But the target shouldn’t be “functional literacy and numeracy”, it should be deep expertise. As well, the notion of creative and arts subjects as lesser to literacy and numeracy is madness. In all schools, the aim should be to produce graduating students that are not only appropriately educated in many subjects, but to do so in such a way as the students are invigorated and excited by the things they are taught. We need to graduate more people like polymath, Ben Dunlap, of Wofford College. Ben’s talk at TED 2007 is truly incredible:
- delivered by the best possible teachers - my daughter’s teachers have been largely very good, but it’s not enough. Teachers need to be driven, passionate, exceptional. And they need to be paid for it. The best teachers with the best outcomes in their classes should be paid a wage and bonuses that reflect their excellence. By no means am I saying that teachers aren’t good enough. Mostly they are. But the system they work with doesn’t allow them to fly. Until only recently, Australian teaching unions were vehemently opposed to performance pay for teachers;
- collaborative on as many levels as possible - between students, between teachers and students, between classrooms, between different schools, between different countries. I especially want to see more involvement from parents, particularly in areas of low socio-economic profile. The involvement and encouragement offered by parents in the education process is a key factor in educational success or lack thereof (I am witnessing this first hand in my extended family);
- targeted at producing graduates equipped for work in the 21st Century - in Australia there is a massive skills shortage across many industries. It’s arguable our schools, from primary school to universities, are not adequately considering the needs of business and society in preparing graduates for work and worthwhile, functional participation. Issues such as the shift to knowledge work in much of business, the need for creativity, the apparent schisms between worker generations are all issues I feel are sometimes inadequately dealt with.
I’ve been thinking about these issues for a while now, but was prompted to write about them by two events:
- my friend, Bronwen Clune, contacting me and suggesting that we create a movement in Australia to take action on these very issues from the point of view of connected, digitally empowered parents, and;
- a visit, to happen tomorrow, to my daughter’s school board (of which I am a member) by the State Opposition Leader, Zed Seselja, so that he can put his party’s position on education.
My view is that there is just one critical question we should be asking our educators and the politicians responsible for education policy and programs:
What are you actually doing - now, tomorrow, next year - that will ensure our children are equipped with the best connected tools, inspired and engaged by the diversity of their education, taught by the best possible teachers and equipped with all the right skills to enter society as a valuable, contributing collaborative member of the workforce?
I’m not interested in policy exploration, white papers, committees and the like. I’m interested in positive, measurable action.
Well that’s the first call to action I guess.
Great stuff Stephen (Trib) - there’s a definite need for those of us working in the industry to evangelise the web to schools and parents, a lot of whom still fear it and undervalue its role in the future of our children.
I strongly believe that an open and collaborative education is the way to go. And it need not be expensive - there are a thousand educational possibilities through inexpensive and free tools that exist out there already. Skype is just one example of a technology that could be used to connect children around the world to learn from each other about different cultures. It just takes some of us to do it I suppose - either as parents or teachers.
Let’s get connect.ed :)
I wholeheartedly endorse the sense of what you are saying here, Stephen - we share an appreciation of the connected world, and teachers that were more accountable was one reason we put our kids through non-government schools. There is an issue (generally - applies in corporates as well) around pay-for-performance … performance schemes are always game-able and gamed, and usually have too narrowly-focused objectives, so leave unrewarded many useful activities. They are also difficult to structure so that you get the outcomes you really want - it is almost impossible to expect same reactions to same stimuli from different people.
Hey - I’m not saying it’s impossible … but I AM saying nobody seems to have got it right very often.
Another excellent posting Stephen. Just last Friday I was discussing with friends the gap between the digital literati and the digital laggards (largely in the context of organisational behaviour).
There are two sticking points here, both cultural. Firstly, social media has happened over a short period of time - for many in fact, just in the last two years. Hard evidence is requried to shift the mind-set of those that are not yet on the digital bus that the times are changin’. Secondly, openness and collaboration go against the still dominant culture of control and hierachy.
Some say the latter is a generational issue: change will happen over time. But there is an opportunity cost here. Maybe another item for the curriculum is to study emerging Internet culture, including beyound Australia.
Perhaps the materials for such a subject could be put together through openness and collaboration.
[…] acidlabs » Connect.ed On the future of education (tags: education youth collaboration australia social learning) […]
Hi Trib
You are right about need for action but there is also a great need to use technology at a national level. Instead of pouring money into state based inflexible bricks and mortar factory systems we need to utilise proven systems such as a national learning management system so we can enable and track skills acquisition and access to learning. We need to equip and accelerate innovation that is happening in spite of systemic limitations and control. Collaboration is critical as you point out.
As Shirky points out the costs of organisation can be taken out of the systems and in fact are being taken out in spite of resistance. Self organisation can be utilised in the service of open and innovative education if we want it. Deep thinking is required. We need leadership through the entrenched old thinking.
a few more factors that (IMHO) have greater impact
- class sizes. How many kids in your class? 25? 28? ideal size is something like 15-16. This is a Govt funding issue (more teachers, more deputy principals, more classrooms, bigger schools - it’s a can of worms)
- the amount of time wasted on behavoural matters. your sweet little innocent might not be in a position to see how much school resources are tied up with the “bad eggs” but I can tell you schools principals and deputy principals will have a lot more chance to improve their schools IF PARENTS WERN’T SUCH LOUSY PARENTS!!! (and it’s more widespread than you think)
- all this talk of performance pay for teachers is skirting the issue that good teachers don’t have a career path after X number of years. Not all want to move into administration. There are not enough positions for curricula or teaching leaders within the school system. In a lot of cases they just leave and do something else (for the record, I have no problem with good teachers earning $100,000+ a year. I just have issues with the selection process and criteria/”jobs for the boys”. Oh, and the tenure that protects the “dead wood”)
and that’s just some issues. There’s a lot more at stake than that. An example: how many parents turn up at your P&C meetings? How many have a meaningful dialog with the teachers, deputies and principals of their school? How many parents actually care more than just sprouting “somethings gotta be done”?
what I’ve just said won’t apply to everyone reading this - but I bet, if you scratch the surface, you’ll find it somewhere….
@Rob totally agree, and nice call on Shirky, tools and cognitive surplus. Action on education needs to be national, no question. And, as you say, completely collaborative. Politics must take a back seat on this.
@Barry thanks for the valuable input.
I agree that too many parents are inadequately involved in their kid’s education - at the school level and as mentors. My extended family experiences this issue intimately - I have relatives who are effectively victims of parents who see no value in education beyond a place to send your kids for babysitting.
It’s the very reason I am deeply involved in Hannah’s school and make time daily to be with her to help with homework and other more “life education” in the sense Ben Dunlap talks about.
Class sizes are an issue. The likelihood in the near future that we will see ideal class sizes seems remote. So, we need other strategies - aides, mentors, a community and national approach.
Career path for teachers is a major issue. I witnessed it first hand with my Dad, who, while a great school administrator, was far happier in the classroom. There needs to be a career path in education (and many other industries) for experts and mentors who do not want a role in management or administration. They can be the leaders, the mentors, the instillers of value and culture.
Tenure is an evil that needs to be excised. If any person in any organisation (school or otherwise) has stopped adding value and is cruising, they no longer deserve to keep their job.
Hi trib,
I’m an educator and it’s great to see tech parents actually talking about this stuff and actioning it! All too often ICT in education is driven by highly conservative system administrators with no education background, and unfortunately there are a lot of ICT administrators & teachers (with education backgrounds) in schools who are sysadmin wanna-be’s and have forgotten the fundamental basics about education.
The ICT infrastructure is the greatest enabler to learning we have had since Gutenberg’s press and instead of opening it up, it seems to get closed at every corner (50mb mailbox limits are one such small, but tangible indicator).
The video’s you posted are required viewing by my team as well as @mpesce keynote the Digital Education Revolution recently (http://www.viddler.com/explore/mpesce/videos/14/1.732/)
So what am I doing? http://www.connectlearn.net was stage one. being providing information to teachers on how to transition. stage 2: where I work I have a number of teachers out of the classroom and working with me for a year. during that year I expose them to the richness of using open tools and the web as a tool and platform for publishing and exploring, at the end of the year (when they have complete the other project they are working on!) they return to school and become an integrated ICT evangelist, and usually have a great impact because they are not the “computer teacher” and make it real for others. Stage 3: yet to happen, but to move on from here and back into a school to see if I can move a whole school in this direction.
not much, but one small step by one bloke that hopefully assists a few students along the way. Cheers,
@Trib as a relative new comer to the school system, kids are 3 and 5) I have found so far that the good teachers have a passion for teaching that goes beyond salary - money is not necessarily the best motivator to retain the best people with the energy to engender the youngest members of our community with the knowledge/skill and love of learning they need to succeed - that being said I am sure it would not hurt either. I think for me the changes you are looking for in the education system will require some fundamental changes in the recognition awarded to teachers who are arguably shaping the minds of the generations to come - are they given the best tools, the best resources, are they treated with respect? school systems should not be productions lines, but more places of nuturing, inspiration, imagination - but schools then are just a symtom of the greater societal issues - where individualism reigns - everyone wants the best for their kid - no teacher is good enough for their kid… what about, whats better for society - how do we progress as species - is it individually? No! as connected individuals, as communities…. as humanity; gregarious, diverse, talkative, sharing, altruistic, imaginative, creative, engaged - connected - connections required to put the people back into communities, and the pride and respect back into teaching.
“money is not necessarily the best motivator to retain the best people with the energy to engender the youngest members of our community with the knowledge/skill and love of learning they need to succeed”
perhaps. but have a look at the statistics of how many teaches drop out of the profession after 5-8 years, taking their energy, motivation and experiance with them. Mate, I’m a former IT TAFE teacher and while I really enjoyed it, at the current pay rates I’m not going back…
@ barry.b in no way did I mean to imply that teachers are not underpaid currently - but there needs to be some non-monetary recognition of their efforts - something that says something about their status in society… perhaps that is money in todays society, but in my “ideal” world, our communities would appreciate the impacts made by teachers on our kids in additional ways. cheers
“something that says something about their status in society..”
*something* sounds a bit nebulous. Lets deal with tangables.
There’s been a fair bit of research on this already. Both Julie Bishop and Julia Gillard have been sitting on reports for a while now (how do you think the notion of “performance pay” started?)
Contact the various teachers unions. They’re talking about worthwhile career paths and better working conditions.
sure teaching is a “calling”, but at the end of the day, it’s also a job.
And if there’s a teacher reading this who hasn’t been abused by children or parents, bullied in the workplace, ignored by the community, under resourced, overworked, held back by the deadwood, can’t get worthwhile PD, no future … consider yourself lucky.
and once you fix all those problems, THEN you can start trying to seriously do worthwhile ICT things in the classroom.
until then you won’t get wholesale movement. The best you’ll get is just small pockets of excellence that will evaporate when that “switched on” teacher or principal leaves. I’ve seen *that* far too many times.
Yes, I’m ready - thanks for starting this conversation.
I agree that teachers definately deserve better incentives for their efforts. But performance based pay for teachers is a difficult proposition. On what do you rate them? Attempts at applying improvements in classroom test scores to measure teacher performance in the US resulted in some teachers gaming the system to get the bonus.
When I was at school, there were a few teachers that I had that stood out as the best, but they achieved that through different means. My Physics teacher was hugely devoted to his job, holding voluntary extra classes before school and throwing a lot of extra effort above and beyond the stardard required. Conversely my English teacher was very good at the way she interacted with students 1 on 1, encouraging each student to achieve their best in different ways.
Results, time, interaction, instruction are all aspects that go into being a good teacher. They can all be difficult to quantify.
Lack of career progression is another issue that I hadn’t thought of.
In terms of IT in schools, my Aunt is involved with ACT Education policy in relation to IT. I’ve spoken to her about the issues that schools have with licensing digital materials.
I know that most Dip. Ed programs these days are getting involved with teaching the prospective teachers about using social media internet tools, like wikis and blogs. Though from what I’ve seen it seems a bit haphazard.
Stephen, I implore you. If you go down this path, get it 100% right by not ignoring the underlying issues that have caused this situation to arise in the first place. These are not 2008 issues - they are 2001 ones not yet solved.
you are spot on saying there has been too much talk and not enough action, but there’s been a hell of a lot of boffins who have dived into this half-cocked without understanding the depth and breadth of this problem. the schools are littered with failed results of dead programs or dying inititives - students directly suffer when this happens. You want case studies/examples of this?
we have a federal education department and six state ones, Universities (training teachers) and TAFE’s (TAFE in schools programs) all looking (or have looked) at this issue. Sure they have their own problems of not singing from the same hymn book, reinventing the wheel or (in the case of reintroducing phonics in Queensland) going back to the future. Check this barney out:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/edpod/stories/2008/2306385.htm on how educated people still get it wrong.
and, compared to the hundreds of people researching and implementing education strategy and policy with multi-million dollar budgets and decades of experiance, are you *sure* you have an answer that will not only work in the safe comfortable middle-class sourounds of the ACT, but also Redfern, Inala, Mt Isa, Alice Springs, et al? Because *that’s* where reform needs to target - the battlers. the kids that _really_ do it tough.
I’ve said enough now and best of luck to you on this journey. If you treat it like any typical well run ICT project you’ll have a head start. Thorough requirements gathering, buy-in from stakeholders, contingency, implementation strategy. but most of all, listen to those that have tried and failed in the past. This whole thing is nothing new.
“Education Roundtable: do we need a revolution?”
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/archive/audioonly/edp_roundtable.mp3
(esp the part about “wired” schools and funding**)
“Schools for the 21st century”
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/edpod/stories/2007/2000292.htm
** for the record, next week the wife is running the school fete to buy two more interactive whiteboards for her school … to replace the ones that have been stolen…
Today’s Conversation Hour (ABC 702 local radio) was with Greg Whitby who sounded very impressive in his approach to modern schooling. “The emergence of relational technologies means learning can now take place anywhere and anytime. Our schools must be able to meet the demands of a knowledge age”
The conversation will be available as a podcast in the next day or so … http://www.abc.net.au/brisbane/conversations/default.htm
Whoops - dropped the link to Greg Whitby’s site : http://gbwhitby.parra.catholic.edu.au/index.html
isn’t it just so telling that Greg Whitby is from the private (faith-based) school sector. I’m glad he’s got the time and resources to work towards promoting his ideals.
in 2004, while working for a private faith-based high school in Sydney, my eyes were well and truly opened by a whole school who “understood”. Where every single child was expected to have a laptop, pull lesson down from a (wifi) network share, create video blogs of excursions, forum posts, international video link-ups, television-quality assignments, etc. And they’d been doing this for a while and was just about to roll this out down to primary school level.
and yet last year the local large public high school in a comfortable middle-class area here in Brisbane finally introduced it’s ICE program that went somewhat towards this goal. Sadly, only enough infrastructure to off it to 2 classes of year 8 students, not all nine. and only a shadow of what I saw in 2004.
Principals, deputies, teachers et al in public schools would *all* love to improve the ICT literacy of students in line with the real world. But this is a luxury they can’t afford, both money AND time. They’re too busy keeping the roof up over kids heads, finding resources to obtain social workers for childen in risk or having behaviour problems, extra support for children with learning or other disabilities, teaching the basics, books, *_basic_computers_in classrooms_* , surviving yet more stupid and short-sighted ideas from State or Federal government “boffins”.
lets talk about equity. Lets talk about a quality education for ALL children, no matter what their social-economic status or city Vs country.
lets ensure ALL children thrive in the 21st century and ICT literacy doesn’t turn into yet another version of the haves and have-nots.
Wow, so many great points here I’d like to respond to but I am going to just focus on one:
As an ex-teacher who still works in schools on a consulting capacity, I couldn’t agree more that we need a massive revolution in the way we approach education in schools. But the biggest stumbling block I see is our assessment systems. The problem in NSW is that as students approach the senior years everything is geared towards the final exams and university entrance scores. I taught secondary Maths. At this level you are starting to get close to the ‘interesting’ Maths and there are some great things you could do that would make the experience more collaborative and connected with excellent graphics programs and online experiences and investigations. But the problem I faced was that the syllabus was so crowded, it was a race just to try and help students understand the bulk of the course material – you couldn’t leave anything out, not just because it was in the syllabus but because students university entrances were being determined by these exams. There are so many things I would have loved to be able to try and do but was unable to - more due to time constraints than anything else. Our school had the facilities, I had the expertise, we just didn’t have the luxury of time. I can’t immediately see a solution to this problem – I guess the first step is recognition of the problem. But while we are in an educational system that is so exam-focused I can’t see major change being possible. I do wonder if we go to a national curriculum in Australia if things will change as not all other states have the big external exams that we have.
One last comment: I wholeheartedly agree we need to pay teachers well. After teaching on a great salary in HK and Singapore where teaching is a respected profession I was horrified to come back to the Australian pay scale. BUT. If you want an impressive salary, then you need to be accountable. Teaching is one of the few professions where you can close the door and pretty much do what you like an incompetents are shuffled from school to school. Some schools are already leading the way – one of the schools I taught in students (and parents) evaluated teacher performance every year, you had to set your goals and professional development for the year and Head teachers would sit in on your lessons at least once a year. And so it should be! And how about this for an idea, double teachers pay but give them only 4 weeks holiday a year like everyone else and have them teaching community courses or adult education in the school holidays…….
Prue, that’s exactly what was being said on http://www.abc.net.au/rn/edpod/stories/2008/2265585.htm so you’re in good company with those thoughts.
to be perfectly honest though, based on the research by Dr. Sugata Mitra and his “hole in the wall” project** I’d rather see the teaching of ethics (classical ethics not “right and wrong”) to teach critical thinking and leave the children to nut put the tools themselves.
I mean, we’re still talking about hammers and other tools here (ICT literacy)
More important (IMHO) they know how to communicate, how to interact with the world and it’s people around them
… and why
** some core info here:
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/india/thestory.html
a really bad recording of a talk of his http://design-notes-deepankar.blogspot.com/2007/11/sugata-mitra-can-kids-teach-themselves.html
Ah, Trib, a rather large subject, but one that in my mind can best be compared to all areas of our society that grapple with adoption of new technology. Business, media, politics and education are the 4 pillars of an essential network I have my clients understand..and interestingly all four pillars have similar uptake rates for new technology and especially online collaboration = low! Why is this…well in my limited experience it does not stem from budget constraints, leadership or lack of vision…it stems from a lack of critical mass and understanding. Whilst there are some great and passionate comments here - there are 23 (including this one). Many of us here have large ‘social media’ followings in to the 000’s..whoopdy doo! For the average Australian (of which there are 13 million adults!) the uptake, understanding and general interest in the things we discuss here is VERY LOW. This is the issue…how do you get the average Australian interested and engaged in this conversation/subject? After 15 years of leading some of the biggest change and technology projects in the land, I have not yet found the answer to this…and until someone does, I fear for the ‘revolution’ required that some people refer to here. In closing, I am not admitting defeat; I am the worlds most disgusting optimist, but I think we may be missing the real issues here, and not focusing on the root cause of the problem. The solution may ultimately rest with the average Joe and Jane…not our leaders or indeed us!