We have all seen youth who can spend hours perfecting complicated skateboarding feats, learning new computer games or mastering animation techniques – it is impossible to stop them from learning. Yet these same teens may struggle with learning in a classroom setting. Part of the problem is that classroom learning is often abstract, disconnected from any real-life application or the natural context for using new information.
John Abbott discusses the history of western education and the loss of the apprenticeship model (learning by doing) to the current schooling structure.
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John Abbott is the President of the [[http://www.21learn.org/|21st Century Learning Initiative]], an initiative to facilitate the emergence of new approaches to learning in the United Kingdom.
No curricular overhaul, no instructional innovation, no change in school organization, no toughening of standards, no rethinking of teacher training or compensation will succeed if students do not come to school interested in, and committed to, learning… We need to look, not at what goes on inside the classroom, but at students’ lives outside the school’s walls.
Laurence Steinberg, Beyond the Classroom, 1997
This Policy Proposal, from the 21st Century Learning Initiative in the UK, is written to assist those in positions of influence to initiate powerful changes to current educational arrangements. The circumstantial evidence for such a transformation of learning is drawn from the best in research and practice from around the world. The paper shows that better informed, and more effective, models of learning could be organised through a redistribution of expenditures and responsibilities, at a total cost no greater than current levels of expenditure.
Education critic John Abbott quotes Bill Gates who states unequivocally; “High schools are obsolete… by that, I mean that even when they are working exactly as designed (they) cannot teach our kids what they need to know today”. Abbott explores what we know about our species that might help us understand better how humans learn and how to provide young people with the learning experiences they need.
(This paper was delivered to The Campaign for Learning, 10th June 2005, Kensington Town Hall, UK.)
The latest research and theories from evolutionary psychology, neurobiology and cognitive science demonstrate the various ways that humans have evolved over time to be extremely effective learners. John Abbott discusses what current research from various fields can tell us about how the adolescent brain works and how educators can work with adolescent learners to maximize their potential.
The apprenticeship system has a long history as an effective vehicle for work-based learning, but modern times have seen negative attitudes to apprenticeship and a poor image of trades, as well as a lack of information and awareness of apprenticeship. This is unfortunate because in the contemporary Canadian context, apprenticeship can help to address two distinct problems: labour shortages in the skilled trades and youth unemployment.
(Source: Canadian Council on Learning)
An important study in the area of apprenticeship training in Canada helps set the agenda for removing perceived employment barriers for skilled trade apprentices and to dispel some of the myths and reinforce the concept of apprenticeship training in the minds of the public.
(Source: Canadian Education Association)
