John Abbott speaks about the fact that children are innately inquisitive and insists that schools need to capitalize on this fact.
Featured in this video:
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.
Changing large systems is difficult. When you grow up and succeed within the traditional system, it’s hard to see what’s wrong and it’s even harder to imagine that we can do it any other way. Traditional schooling models are entrenched in our collective psyches and in our culture and, as a society, we have invested a great deal in keeping them the way they are. Sometimes, it’s easier to rally behind the very loud voices of “educational reform” than to dig deeper, think longer term and contemplate a complete re-envisioning of the system as we know it.
John Abbott speaks about how schools have it wrong.
Featured in this video:
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.
The changelearning website project emerged from the collaboration of John Abbott and Heather MacTaggart, the Executive Director of [[http://classroomconnections.ca/|Classroom Connections]], a Canadian non-profit educational organization dedicated to optimizing student learning.
Over 40 billion dollars a year is spent in Canada getting our children from Kindergarten to Grade 12,[i], yet over 40% of our youth fail to meet expected performance levels for basic subjects[ii] and almost one quarter of our children fail to graduate with their peers.[iii]. Students are disengaging grade by grade[iv], a trend illustrated by their increasing dislike for school[v], declining academic achievement[vi] and rising rates of teenage depression[vii] and suicide[viii]. Contrary to Canada’s most fundamental democratic tenets, minority and low-income children are the hardest hit[ix].
Canada has a lot to be proud of when it comes to education. We rank well internationally, our schools are filled with intelligent, passionate educators, access is free and the majority of our youth graduate from high school to join a diverse and primarily peaceful, well-functioning society. Many of us, however, have a niggling suspicion that something isn’t quite right. When you can’t think of a single teenager who enjoys school and is excited to learn – something is wrong.
