New Ways of Accrediting English and Maths
I would welcome your thoughts on this new initiative. There is considerable disquiet about the way GCSEs are going. By joining the Progressive Awards Alliance, you can be part of a change movement that could influence the future of regulated assessment.
Please consider joining.
The opening night of the Bath International Festival is a truly unique experience: hundreds of local performers, choirs and community groups participate in over twenty venues across the city: a different act at every venue every 1/2 hour… all of it free… and a massive fireworks display to close the event at 10pm: great to be part of!
Cindy and I will be performing some of Cindy’s amazing catalogue of self-penned material. I hear that there is a Steinway grand piano there… I’ll have to get off the bass guitar and onto that beast for at least one number (-:
Cindy and I have been musical directors for this all-female community choir for around 10 months. They have come on leaps and bounds. Highlight of the set will be a James Bond themes medley, with one of the choir members (who is also an outstanding pianist) joining me for some four-handed big big orchestrations!
Our a capella group. Since we are sandwiched between two high octane gospel choirs, we have gone for some more reflective arrangements, debuting two of them: “Pretending to Care” by Todd Rundgren, and “This Marriage” by Taverner
Hope you can make it to one of the performances.
Marius
Yet again, another 20 minutes of brilliance from a gifted communicator and educator. Every time he talks, I find it inspirational, and it spurs me on to the possibilities of change.
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_how_to_escape_education_s_death_valley.html
If you haven’t got time to watch the whole clip, here are some jewels about diversity curiosity and creativity:
3′:30″ “human beings are naturally different and diverse… and education systems are based not on diversity but conformity… measured against a narrow set of standards…”
5′:00″ on ADHD “10% of kids being diagnosed. I don’t say there is no such thing. I do not think it is an epidemic…if you sit kids down hour after hour doing low grade clerical work, don’t be surprised if they begin to fidget! Children are not suffering for the most part a psychological condition… they are suffering childhood”
6′:00 broad curriculum gives children a chance to prosper…
6′:25 “… if you light the spark of curiosity in a child, they will learn for themselves…”
7′:30″ “…education is about learning…”
8′:42″ “… the dominant culture in education today is not about ‘learning’, it is about ‘testing’… curiosity has been replaced by a culture of compliance…”
9’50” on creativity in schools …..”instead, we have a culture of standardisation…”
12′ 59″: it is the responsibility of the system to engage the learner…. not the learner’s responsibility to comply to the system
14’30”: system leadership is too much about “command and control“…. it should be about “climate control” (policy makers treating education like an industrial process)
16′ 30″ and finally, on the culture of schools and the excellent “Death Valley” metaphor
ENJOY!
The figures would be very different for a Fair Trade product!
Francis Gilbert has written a good article on the Modern Baccalaureate movement, framing it against Gove’s introduction of “do-or-die” exams!
http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/tag/archbishop-sentamu-academy/
I consider myself extremely lucky.
I have managed to combine a career in education with one in the performing arts. I have been a Head of Science and a Director of Music. Seeing education and learning from these two perspectives has really opened my eyes to the power and potential of a balanced and inter-connecting enquiry-based curriculum… compared to the damage that can be done through the current polemic based largely on the acquisition of knowledge into “silos” of academic subject-related content.
My music teaching benefited hugely from my experiences trying to introduce the first NC framework in Science in the eighties. Despite being an unworkable and over-prescriptive behemoth, it really did give me an understanding of the power of a well designed spiral curriculum, with knowledge and skills progressively building on knowledge and skills. Likewise, I tried to introduce as much creativity as I could into my science lessons.
I have always been concerned about problem solving in the school context. Most exercises, aimed at of course passing exams, are “closed” activities… variations on 1+1=2… even up to the highest routine cognitive activities within A-level Maths or Physics.
Real life seldom presents such order and predictability.
Within Music, “composition in context” is a form of open problem solving (for example, creating a sound track for a silent video clip). This is a great example of 1 (compose soundtrack) + 1 (for a video clip) = anything you want it to be.
So in Science lessons, I did my best to create space for free thinking and creativity.
Two small examples: One day, one of the Year 10 students described how a carrier bag fell apart in the supermarket car park, and the chaos that ensued. This was the cue for two weeks of experiment design, investigation and exploration: “Which supermarket made the toughest carrier bags?” “How do we know?” “How could we test an hypothesis?” “What are the variables?” “How can we control the variables?”
On another occasion, in the period of revision leading up to the Year 11 final exams, we decided to design and create a range of active games to help the kinaesthetic learners in the group. It was absolutely wonderful seeing a group of 16 year olds from a challenging multi-cultural inner-city community, boys and girls, running around doing timed multiple choice science tests by trying to knock down skittles labelled A, B, C, D and E with footballs, hoops and hooks…. magic!
The creative element of both these activities, in a scientific context, involved setting problems without known answers. I had no idea what experiments the learners would come up with, given the limited range of science equipment available in the average school lab. I had no idea what games the Year 11 would come up with. But in devising the games, selecting the questions to revise and agreeing the answers, a lot of learning was happening, albeit obliquely. In devising the experiments, we also encountered and reflected upon materials, elasticity and forces (although, for health and safety reasons, revolving 1 kg weights above your head on strips of plastic, faster and faster, until the plastic snapped did not get passed the scrutiny commission!).
There are rich rewards open to teachers and learners who work together, across the subject divides, to create new learning opportunities, drawing from their own subject knowledge and experiences, but open to the possibilities presented by other disciplines.
The 21st century is being defined not by the accumulation of knowledge, but by the creation of new knowledge. The geek and the artiste must unite!
Sometimes you have to be patient, even on the internet.
This is a massive presentation, with graphics and embedded video…. lots of them.
So, click on the link, then go and make yourself a cup of tea… because it will take ages to load.
But when it does, you will truly be “scip”-ing 5 years into the future of education! The best bit of CPD I have had for ages!
I do not usually wish to bore people with my playlists of favourite music… a rather indulgent pass time! But I do not know how I missed this glorious piece of indo-flamenco fusion from the daughter of Ravi Shankar, released in 2011. Enjoy! Better still buy the album!
