Brave New World 1: Dumping School Subjects To Succeed

I'm kicking off a new line of thought on the back of last month's Naace Annual Conference on the elements we need in a Brave New World of education.

I've written the first post over on our partner site at GETideas.org, looking at the fascinating and, yes, brave work going on in schools who are choosing to harness the RSA's Opening Minds Curriculum.

I'm hoping that apparenly embattled leadership colleagues in the US might sit up when they see the confidence of the youngsters I interviewed for the post, and feel that they can engage in a different way of doing things from the perceived norm.

I sit on the Board of Trustees for this framework that sets out competences, not school subjects, as the principal mechanism through which students learn the 'hows' and 'whats' of the world. It's not dissimilar in goal to the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence, with the RSA's Opening Minds accreditation scheme acting as a means to provide stellar professional development and coaching between schools who "are there" with those new to this way of thinking and working.

The post on GETIdeas.org features this video clip, above, that I shot at the recent Opening Minds launch event at the Institute of Education in London.

Comments

[Cap Lee]

Be it blending the subjects or dumping the subjects, the direction is correct. We don't go to work and just do one subject. We blend them. Why wouldn't we do the same in school if we wanted to make learning real. And then proficiencies woul guide the students pathway to success.

Nay sayers would say it's about making school play time, in realty we are making school real, for the first time ever. In the states, Gary Indiana did it in the early 1900's And then came the artifical test and theyt trend set in Gary was sabotaged in no other than New York City

Go to www.WholeChildReform.com

Cap Lee
Milwaukee USA