Mindblown

“The winds of change blow through our minds,
They call to kith and kin and kind,
To gather strength and linger where,
Our visions, hopes and dreams adhere
To conscious thought and weighty plans
That tilt the platforms where we stand
And skew aged vantage points to view
The stirring landscape of the new.”

Welcome to the threshold of the 21st Century – “The stirring landscape of the new”. A blank canvas for writers of Science Fiction and a much vaunted destination for futurists. It’s a place of promise, of great change and new beginnings, but more substantially, it is the evolving environment our children must grow to maturity in.

We accept that advances in technology are immense catalysts for societal change, (ask any sci-fi reader), and we are, without doubt, experiencing exponential change on a global level. Great news for all techie help-desk personal, but what implications does it have for people in the business of education? Well, for starters it means we’ve reached a place where we need to step out of the classroom for a moment and confer. We need to consider our present position, to examine emerging opportunities ,and ultimately, to re-consider our direction. It’s time to stop and think, and ask a few questions – and we are. In fact, many of us are throwing our arms and eyes heavenward fairly regularly .

The Shift
If I could choose just one question from the exhaustive list , it would be;
“How can we possibly prepare our students to thrive in a world that is changing so fast we barely recognize it?”
The question itself tells us something about our discomfort, it hints at powerlessness. We are accepting that our society is changing dramatically, but also presupposing that we have no part in this change, that the whole thing is totally out of our control. That it will happen to us and not as a result of us. We’re even fearfully assuming some kind of apolcalyptic change when we could be planning for a welcome re-genesis. In short, change scares us.

So, let’s consider shifting our vantage points. Couldn’t we simply be asking how we can manage this change to our best advantage? We’ve already recognized the increasingly urgent need for change in our present system of education, so what if we decided to use this opportunity to take control of the process and become active designers of a newish and more effective version of an education ‘system’?

Well, we have exactly that opportunity. The advent of the new New Zealand Curriculum provides a chance to examine our traditional practices, to examine context and content, to discuss what applications we would keep from earlier systems and what we could sensibly discard. Here’s an opportunity for our profession, as a whole (rather than as pockets of isolated educators within random timeframes), to examine what evidence we presently have about learners and effective learning environments, and use current pedogical understandings as an informed basis for change in our communities. We have an opportunity to establish ‘systems’ that don’t simply pay lip-service to popular phrases such as ‘seamless education ‘and (that old favourite) ‘lifelong learners’.

Old World Metaphor
For tailors & seamstresses; this is a chance to bravely unpick stitches, re- measure the fit and re-cut the pattern accordingly – with the realization that the finished garment may be fundamentally different to the original and will , without doubt, need ongoing alterations.

New World Metaphor
For techie geeks; this is a chance to run a new system on another platform – something that better recognizes and serves the needs of today’s users. A platform that considers the opportunities brought by emerging technologies , one that recognizes and addresses the needs of people living in an information-rich society and coping with such things as flexible specialisation in the workforce and changing social roles.

Sowing it up

We need to plan this carefully. It would be so easy to place patches over our existing systems and processes without examining their present, and future, functions and effects. It would be equally easy to rush at this and establish rapid changes without due consideration and effective consultation.

We must consider that everyone has an interest in sewing this up. We’ve always known that it takes a village to raise a well-balanced child and we recognize that both educators and communities know what is best for their students. It is obvious that our communities are increasingly aware of the need for 21st century change and are just as concerned about the future of their children as those whose business is education. We need to make time to listen to them, and to listen most carefully to those who are truly effected by any proposed change ; our students, their families and our teachers. Equally, we must nurture and encourage the innovative dreamers, planners, designers, developers and implementors abounding within our profession.

If we do, we have a wonderful opportunity to build something special for future generations : to plan, design, develop, and implement a more seamless system of educational policies and processes within and between our learning communities. ‘Systems’ which use available technology sensibly to support effective communication, on-going developments, day-to-day operations and collaborative programs, and ultimately : to support the development of an integrated framework effectively linking our individual learning institutions (schools), and our wider learning community ie. REAL learning communities. Communities where learning is truly celebrated and supported for all individuals.

DM Dyet May, 2008.