Teaching the teachers – School of the future

Intro course to schools and creativity:http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_sa...

All of the other links available on youtube from Sir Ken Robinson should also be quite interesting for anyone keen on the topic. Sir Robinson has been working or reorganizing the education system for over 20 years and is one of the most diligent critics of the today’s educational systems worldwide
I will give you only some minor points that I agree on with Sir Robins and many other that Nino already mentioned in the text:
1.Representational systems – you are most probably aware that we use 5 senses to create our representations of the world (similar to what neuroscientists would call qualia). These are visual, auditory, kinesthetic (touch, emotions, balance, pain), gustatory (taste) and olfactory (smell). Out of the five, people rely on the first three much more than the taste and smell. Tests so far indicate that each one of us usually has one primary system that she/he prefers to others, moreover most people use primary and a secondary system in their communication and learning. For example, my primary system is Kinesthetic and my secondary system is Auditory. This implies that a preferred way of learning for me is to Feel (try out, test, pilot, do a case study) and then Hear (listen, talk about a topic) NOT visual (PowerPoints, other slides and overheads, charts and tables etc).

Now, if we consider that, according to research that I have access to, about 50% of the people are primarily VISUAL, about 40% are kinesthetic and only about 10% are Auditory (it also explains why most of the people are concerned about their looks and appeal, and their feelings, and most of the time do not listen to other people. We think that if I see you there is no reason to listen to you. )

Now, if you allow me to take you back to high school and remember what was going on during the classes you will surely remember the endless talks and lectures our teachers delivered. That’s nice – it covers about 10% of the people who are Auditory. Some of the most ingenious teachers we had even used some pictures and slides, maybe a chart or some maps. That’s also nice but it does not happen that often – now we have about 50% of students who are visual and 10% who are auditory stimulated at least to some extent.

That leaves us with just about 40% of the students who need to try stuff out, experiment, touch, and pilot and learn while doing. But we don’t care. And to the best of my memory those visual and auditory people were not very stimulated by the lectures to begin with. How should the kinesthetic feel to have their needs completely ignored?
2.We have a whole set of illness or disorders that we can pin to students that do not comply with the manner of teaching and discipline. If a child in the primary school does not behave as the teacher wants or learns at the pace and method the teacher claims is the best than the child is either stupid or ill. God forbid that there is something wrong with their teaching methods!

Albert Einstein had ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder commonly treated with a drug called Ritalin), however he was quite lucky that we did not know about ADD back in his time, so we just called him CRAZY. If he was in school today, he would have been prescribed Ritalin, a drug that makes little children sit down, behave and smile. There have been NO studies, or at least I have not seen one, about the effects of drugs such as Retilin on children’s creativity, but I am betting money that the effect would not be enhanced creativity.
3.Lastly for this text: Who is responsible for the proper communication and knowledge transfer? The teacher (The sender of the message, the initiator of communication, the expert in the field?) or the student (The Learner)? For anyone who has at least some basic knowledge of communication it is clear the responsibility for the message transfer is on the Sender, the Teacher, the Initiator. Why then I constantly hear that the children today are not willing to learn, to develop, to expand their skills and knowledge? Wait a minute: whose job is it to motivate them to learn, to get them eager about knowledge and the world? The professor’s? Hmmm? Someone is not doing their job I guess!
These are only some short points that came to mind first. This discussion is never over, is it? Unfortunately it has not been resolved in any country in the world. Education system is one of the most inert systems I have ever encountered. It is dominated with professors who do not feel a need to change or improve. Why should they? It’s the student’s fault anyways. We professors are teaching them the same way we did for decades; it is those ungrateful, pot smoking, uninterested students that are to blame!

that's my 5 cents for this topic :D

------------------
Ko drzi ovaj svet? PIONIRI!
A vi, Nemate pojma!

@Jelena - those 3 bolded "headlines" are the flipcharts I'm mentioning :)

As I said, not much - more like using common sense... But still, it would be worth doing it even if only the "big idea" popped up.

And this proved to myself that initiating a dialog with teachers is actually possible. Even if Serbian part of the group was quite "relaxed" and had no issues with picking up a call in the middle of conversation etc :), they were still quite active and  objective when it comes to their work and the system they work in...

Intro course to schools and creativity:http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_sa...

All of the other links available on youtube from Sir Ken Robinson should also be quite interesting for anyone keen on the topic. Sir Robinson has been working or reorganizing the education system for over 20 years and is one of the most diligent critics of the today’s educational systems worldwide
I will give you only some minor points that I agree on with Sir Robins and many other that Nino already mentioned in the text:
1.Representational systems – you are most probably aware that we use 5 senses to create our representations of the world (similar to what neuroscientists would call qualia). These are visual, auditory, kinesthetic (touch, emotions, balance, pain), gustatory (taste) and olfactory (smell). Out of the five, people rely on the first three much more than the taste and smell. Tests so far indicate that each one of us usually has one primary system that she/he prefers to others, moreover most people use primary and a secondary system in their communication and learning. For example, my primary system is Kinesthetic and my secondary system is Auditory. This implies that a preferred way of learning for me is to Feel (try out, test, pilot, do a case study) and then Hear (listen, talk about a topic) NOT visual (PowerPoints, other slides and overheads, charts and tables etc).

Now, if we consider that, according to research that I have access to, about 50% of the people are primarily VISUAL, about 40% are kinesthetic and only about 10% are Auditory (it also explains why most of the people are concerned about their looks and appeal, and their feelings, and most of the time do not listen to other people. We think that if I see you there is no reason to listen to you. )

Now, if you allow me to take you back to high school and remember what was going on during the classes you will surely remember the endless talks and lectures our teachers delivered. That’s nice – it covers about 10% of the people who are Auditory. Some of the most ingenious teachers we had even used some pictures and slides, maybe a chart or some maps. That’s also nice but it does not happen that often – now we have about 50% of students who are visual and 10% who are auditory stimulated at least to some extent.

That leaves us with just about 40% of the students who need to try stuff out, experiment, touch, and pilot and learn while doing. But we don’t care. And to the best of my memory those visual and auditory people were not very stimulated by the lectures to begin with. How should the kinesthetic feel to have their needs completely ignored?
2.We have a whole set of illness or disorders that we can pin to students that do not comply with the manner of teaching and discipline. If a child in the primary school does not behave as the teacher wants or learns at the pace and method the teacher claims is the best than the child is either stupid or ill. God forbid that there is something wrong with their teaching methods!

Albert Einstein had ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder commonly treated with a drug called Ritalin), however he was quite lucky that we did not know about ADD back in his time, so we just called him CRAZY. If he was in school today, he would have been prescribed Ritalin, a drug that makes little children sit down, behave and smile. There have been NO studies, or at least I have not seen one, about the effects of drugs such as Retilin on children’s creativity, but I am betting money that the effect would not be enhanced creativity.
3.Lastly for this text: Who is responsible for the proper communication and knowledge transfer? The teacher (The sender of the message, the initiator of communication, the expert in the field?) or the student (The Learner)? For anyone who has at least some basic knowledge of communication it is clear the responsibility for the message transfer is on the Sender, the Teacher, the Initiator. Why then I constantly hear that the children today are not willing to learn, to develop, to expand their skills and knowledge? Wait a minute: whose job is it to motivate them to learn, to get them eager about knowledge and the world? The professor’s? Hmmm? Someone is not doing their job I guess!
These are only some short points that came to mind first. This discussion is never over, is it? Unfortunately it has not been resolved in any country in the world. Education system is one of the most inert systems I have ever encountered. It is dominated with professors who do not feel a need to change or improve. Why should they? It’s the student’s fault anyways. We professors are teaching them the same way we did for decades; it is those ungrateful, pot smoking, uninterested students that are to blame!

that's my 5 cents for this topic :D

------------------
Ko drzi ovaj svet? PIONIRI!
A vi, Nemate pojma!

@Jelena - those 3 bolded "headlines" are the flipcharts I'm mentioning :)

As I said, not much - more like using common sense... But still, it would be worth doing it even if only the "big idea" popped up.

And this proved to myself that initiating a dialog with teachers is actually possible. Even if Serbian part of the group was quite "relaxed" and had no issues with picking up a call in the middle of conversation etc :), they were still quite active and  objective when it comes to their work and the system they work in...

Nikola, do share some flip-charts so we can have cool stuff to discuss about :) this way I can only AGREE with everything you said (which is not enough)