Not School!

I just read and heard this discussion about "Not School" from connect.educause.edu - see article here.

This is amazing

What struck me:

-It is not school it is LEARNING
this is so important - and makes you think about what School is and what LEARNING is - how are they different? We want learning - where are schools failing - are they purely socializing structures?

-they have "changed the semantics" by calling students "researchers"
what would this do if we changed the way we look at students - if we saw them as researchers - part of the quest for knowledge - determining what they want to research

-because the learning is personalized every child is a success story
the more we allow kids to personalize their own learning the more we are going to engage them.

-kids are "hungry to learn"
excellent point - kids may not be excited about going to school but every child wants to learn - the question is what do they want to learn we need to allow them the opportunity to choose!

-we do what is convenient for us in schools today
I have seen this so often and been a part of it - it is so much easier to do what is convenient - we need to be pushing the envelope and doing what is hard

-20th century ideas on how schools should operate will not make sense going forward
I'll begin to sound like a broken record on this I'm sure - but it is so true and so important. Schools must change - not just how we teach but the learning environment also. We need to make radical reforms.