Peter Slattery

Here we are in Bali and watching the children head off to school each day.

And I have no idea really just what happens in school here though yesterday I did chat with an American living in Bali who has a child at school, and is herself a teacher and on the local school board. And she thinks highly of her experience here. And I try to pay attention, and still I wonder how and in what ways the children grow up here. I was speaking to a traveller the other day who said: ‘I have heard children crying here, but they have all been Western kids.’ Hmmm….

So with possibilities in mind, I again say thanks to Wes Fryer for the following.

And I think I might just quote him holus-bollus and you can decide what you think. It is another comment in the ongoingly important discussion about education and the world we live in. Sometimes…with two small children…I just look at the future (ie next week?) and LOL….oh and have the occasional thought and even discussion…sometimes with people other than myself.

This is what Mr. Fryer has to say referring to the Bloom’s model:

‘This mode of teaching is certainly “messier” than traditional, teacher-directed instruction, but this is exactly the sort of dialog we need to prepare students to be engaged and educated citizens in the 21st century. Our need for critical thinking is greater today than ever before. Are you living in an echo chamber? Are your students? We need to find ways to regularly step outside our bubbles of normalcy and question both our assumptions and our sources of information. This inquiry-based process should allow us to act as true “sceptics” guided by a scientific way of thinking rather than “deniers” driven primarily by ideologies or other biases. Our digitally connected learning landscape makes this need even more apparent than it was a decade ago, last year, or last week.‘

There is something obviously marvellous about the work of Julian Beaver. It’s clever, it’s aesthetic, it’s compelling, it’s engaging…and I think one of the things I like most about what he does is that it is out-of-the-box different. It has required effort and long hours and much failure and much faith and much endurance. There is something wonderful here for those of us involved in working with children and young people…something about encouraging the not-quite-as-we-expect, something about applauding the unlikely. Especially when someone is engaged in an adventure in its early stages and ‘can you make a living out of this?’ will almost certainly get a ‘no’. Well, Julian plugged on anyway. And aren’t we glad he did!

Thanks to Wes Fryer for this entry on his website. A really nice idea for communication and imagination in the world of today.

There is a beaut YouTube vid on my site from a few days ago about learning. The title of this post is taken straight from that. It is a little difficult from the credits at the end to work out exactly who is saying what so you might want to go look for yourself. But the title above comes from Stephen Heppell. And the following comments, which I found really interesting and encouraging, come from Daniel Pink.

‘The coin of the realm is not memorizing the facts that they are going to need to know for the rest of their lives. The coin of the realm will be:

Do you know how to find information?

Do you know how to validate it?

Do you know how to synthesize it?

Do you know how to leverage it?

Do you know how to collaborate with it?

Do you know how to problem solve with it?

That’s the new 21^st century set of literacies and it looks a lot different than the model that most of us were raised under.’

 

Richard Louv , author of seven books about people, being connected and being in the great outdoors, has some stuff to say about ‘gettin out in the woods.’ In Australia we might say ‘bush’ but same same. In an article in Orion he says:

‘A growing body of scientific evidence identifies strong correlations between experience in the natural world and children’s ability to learn, along with their physical and emotional health. Stress levels, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, cognitive functioning—and more—are positively affected by time spent in nature. “In the same way that protecting water and protecting air are strategies for promoting public health,” says Howard Frumkin, director of the National Center for Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “protecting natural landscapes can be seen as a powerful form of preventive medicine.” In October, researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine, Indiana University–Purdue University at Indianapolis, and the University of Washington reported that greener neighborhoods are associated with slower increases in children’s body mass, regardless of residential density. Such research will be immensely helpful as we rethink our approaches to urban design, education, and health care, in particular our societal response to childhood obesity.’

Sitting with bums on seats-usually hard (seats that is)- and surrounded by our four walls maybe aint the way to go in our schools.

Education and our young people continues to be, as it should, a disturbing topic for many of us. The heading for this post does not come from me. It comes from the Edutopia web site. Check out this interview with the notorious Alvin Toffler.

‘Forty years after he and his wife, Heidi, set the world alight with Future Shock, Alvin Toffler remains a tough assessor of our nation’s social and technological prospects. Though he’s best known for his work discussing the myriad ramifications of the digital revolution, he also loves to speak about the education system that is shaping the hearts and minds of America’s future. We met with him near his office in Los Angeles, where the celebrated septuagenarian remains a clear and radical thinker.

Edutopia.org: You’ve been writing about our educational system for decades. What’s the most pressing need in public education right now?
Alvin Toffler: Shut down the public education system.

That’s pretty radical.
I’m roughly quoting Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, who said, “We don’t need to reform the system; we need to replace the system.‘

Go to the source to read more. It’s worthwhile. The final words are these:

‘You’re advocating for fundamental radical changes. Are you an optimist when it comes to public education?
I just feel it’s inevitable that there will have to be change. The only question is whether we’re going to do it starting now, or whether we’re going to wait for catastrophe.’

This I think is important. From Wes Fryer who constantly blogs (I can read his block because I have no filters) about the foolishness of internet filters in all sorts of places including schools. He found himself at a school trying to access Flikr and found himself blocked. He had this to say on 13th April 2010.

‘First of all, the technology director in the school holding our workshop had specifically whitelisted flickr.com the day before, on Monday. Yet today, on Tuesday, the site was mysteriously blocked again. I guess the district’s Internet content filtering could be considered, “highly aggressive.”

Second of all, the webpage title of this “blocked” message was:

busted

The English Wiktionary definitions for “busted” which apply in this case are:

Caught in the act of doing something one shouldn’t do.

and

Caught and arrested for committing a crime.

The normative message from this content filtering page is: You have committed a grevious error. You are in the wrong. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Perhaps we could go even farther. Is part of the message: Accessing websites not approved by our school district’s Internet provider is a big game, and for your last attempt we give you a score of ZERO?! You failed, you’re busted!

Internet content filtering is not game. It’s not funny, and I resent being shown a message which implies I’m a criminal when I’m only trying to visit a website which provides access to millions of educationally valuable, copyright-friendly images for teachers and students to use.

The third comment I’ll make about this “blocked” page is the message at the bottom. The assumption inherent in this offering of “alternative websites” (Google, Yahoo, CNN and Fox News) is that the only reasons a learner at the school would be using the Internet is to either search for information or read the news. These are CONSUMPTIVE activities. This supposedly “helpful” set of links on the block page (which I’m sure is viewed hundreds if not thousands of times over the course of a school year by students as well as teachers) completely misses the point that the Internet can be used, is being used, and SHOULD be used by learners for serious work CREATING and SHARING content on websites which power creative productivity. A mindset persists in schools and many businesses that “real work” on the computer is done only in Microsoft Office, and “the Internet” is used just to “look stuff up” and read the news. This perspective is sorely out of date.’

AND:

‘One of the teachers in our workshop today, when asked the question, “What instructions: guidelines do you give students NOW about getting photos to use in a video project?” responded:

Pictures must come from a legal website. No obscene pictures.

When I asked the teacher how he defined “a legal website,” he said it was a website which students were able to access because the district’s content filter allowed them to view it.

Let’s deconstruct this comment, because the assumptions here are a BIG problem. This teacher assumed that EVERY website which was NOT blocked by the content filter was OK. That somehow, the school’s Internet filter was acting as an all-knowing, uber-grandmother figure, granting permission and giving blessing to any site which was NOT blocked / on a blacklist. I regret to suggest this perception is common. I lament this perception, as well as its normality in schools.

Folks, WE are the filter. Our minds are the filter. Legality and ethics are not defined by the whim’s of an Internet service provider, a tech director who decides to block or unblock websites, or for that matter by a company which decides today “certain applications” are cardinal sins to own and use but tomorrow become authorized in “their online store.”

We make ethical decisions and judgements based on values, not based on the whims of organizations or individuals. I tried to make this point in our workshop today and my discussions with this particular teacher, but I don’t think I made much headway. The perceptions that “if the filter doesn’t block it, it’s OK for the kids to use in a video project” as well as the belief that “it’s not my job to make decisions about right and wrong online, since our content filter does that for us” are both erroneous and depressing at multiple levels.

We’ve got so much work to do when it comes to digital literacy and digital citizenship.’

On ‘Life Matters’ ABC Radio 22nd March 2010, there was a show about the families of those with someone in prison. The show tells us that in NSW alone there are up to 14,500 children with a parent or parents in gaol. ‘Shine for Kids’ is an organisation that was set up in the early 80’s to support the families of those who have someone in prison. And Gloria Larman CEO of Shine For Kids, says that without support, the children of those on the inside are themselves, more likely to end up there as well. ‘Shine for Kids’…worth a look.

Love riding a bike. Don’t like falling off it. Or being knocked off it…sydney traffic ain’t bike friendly. But I ride anyway. And with a 4 year old on the back I am mostly on back streets, foot-paths and through parks.  I notice in the papers lately (Sydney Morning Herald March 16th) we in Sydney are described as one of the most cycle-unfriendly cities in the world. I’m inclined to believe it. Cycling in America is fun compared to here. And you don’t need to look far to find things wrong with the United States…but I enjoy being there and find people friendly INCLUDING towards people on bikes . And they can’t hear I have an alluring aussie accent when they drive past so it cannot be my irrestible antipodean…ness, that is warming people to me.

John Pucher from Rutgers University in New Jersey reckons we need to get rid of the laws about wearing helmets and start to develop a culture of safety and where cycling is less about flash bikes and drop handle bars and more about ordinary people just getting about. Sounds good I reckon.

I have lived in Copenhagen, Ie cycle heaven. It would be a rare Dane who would not look before opening a car door to get out. Here in Sydney, people throw a huge slab of metal in front of you without a thought. And that’s it isn’t it? We are not taught to ‘THINK BIKE’…which is what we should be doing with our children and young people at school. I suspect not all Danes (though most probably) love bikes…but I also suspect they still look before opening a car door. Laws about wearing helmets seem NOT the way to go…promoting cycling does.

It would not be hard to start this stuff early. And if I had any say in the matter, I would like young people driving at an early an age as possible. Not getting licences.  That we can still do in the teens (or better still, late thirties!!). But we know it is hours on the road that protect young and new drivers. Being able to handle skids and what to do when you hit an oil slick, and really, how many times has that happened in my decades of driving? Yes I know it does happen, but not nearly as much as driving down an ordinary street with cars on it and pedestrians who might just jump out at you. I suggest lots of hours behind the wheel starting as young as possible so that when we arrive at teenagerdom, driving might not have quite the status, excitement and death-defying attraction that it does now. We have this great system in Australia where we manage to coincide leaving school, getting a driving licence and being allowed to legally drink all at about the same age. Now that was a neat piece of planning wasn’t it?

So: bikes good. Teaching our children and young people about bikes is good. Combinging this with time driving would also be good. Gee…drivers who can drive AND who look out for cyclists (in a good way)? What a dream.

This is American. If you are from Australia, hear it in an Austalian accent and apply it to our
society, our schools, our young people, our children…and see what you think.

Thanks to Wes Fryer for including this on his site.