Twenty-First Century Schools Committee

I”ve been rereading a chapter on design in Daniel Pink’s book Whole New Mind this afternoon (sitting on the porch, since it IS spring break.) and was thinking about creativity, design, and schools.

Then I ran across this video on TedTalks of Sir Ken Robinson talking about education and creativity.   His words rang true:

“Kids will take a chance and if they don’t know, they’ll have a go….They’re not frightened about being wrong….I don’t mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative, but what we do know is if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.”

Robinson thinks we are educating people out of their creative capacities.   We educate all students as though they are going to be professors; we educate them in the head only.  He feels this isn’t going to serve our students in the future.

Students think they should take practical courses based on what they will do as a job, and the whole education system around the world is based on university entrance, so it tells a whole group of students that they aren’t talented, because their talents lie elsewhere.

He’s writing a new book called Epiphany about how people discover their talents.  The video is a fascinating conversation starter.

The Washington Post reports on how difficult it has become for colleges to communicate with their students, because of the myriad of communication pathways.  

Students no longer have land lines in many colleges, change cell numbers frequently, and may not check their campus email often, since they prefer instant messaging or Facebook.

A couple of universities are experimenting with letting students sign up for emergency text alerts to their cell phones, while others are letting them tailor what the college sends to their email, so they’ll know it pertains to them.

I was at a lecture on campus recently and realized how many students in the lecture hall were working on laptops while listening to the lecture.   Colleges are having to address how technologies are changing the classroom in ways high schools are not yet.  But my question is–are we preparing our students to be successful in these kinds of environments?