Girls of the national school, Llanymddyfri (1891) - CC Commons.wikimedia.org
So I read this post from Scott McLeod that challenges us to think of 5 things we have to stop pretending if we are to #MakeSchoolDifferent. I really like the 5 things he wrote and the idea of stopping pretending, but I am not a big fan of the hashtag. It somehow implies that a) school equals learning.... i.e. can we be at school and do things differently, but this does not necessarily lead to better learning and b) that different is better. My own, far too long, hashtag would be #MakeLearningIrresistibleByTacklingFalseDichotomiesRigidStructuresPseudoProblemSolving&HighStakesAssessment TechnologicalPanaceasAndPuttingLearnersAndPedagogyAtTheHeartOfLearning (and I think I could probably add on more characters!)
So for what it is worth, we should stop pretending...
- that schooling leads to deep learning
- that one size assessment fits all
- that we can quantify potential
- that we learn the same way now as we did 10 years ago
- that technology is optional
