Grace Rubenstein

• • Get rid of that machine model of the brain. It’s-Robert SylwesterMon, 02/18/2008 - 17:22 -- adminGet rid of that machine model of the brain. It’s wrong! The brain is a biological system, not a machine. Currently we’re putting children with biologically shaped brains into machine-oriented schools. The two just don’t mix. We bog the school down in a curriculum that is not biologically feasible.
    
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    Not only is the system upside-down, but by failing to recognize the significance of informal learnin-John AbbottMon, 02/18/2008 - 16:53 -- adminNot only is the system upside-down, but by failing to recognize the significance of informal learning outside of school, it is inside-out as well.
    
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    I, like many others, tired myself out working to place the new findings about learning within the pr-John AbbottMon, 02/18/2008 - 16:52 -- adminI, like many others, tired myself out working to place the new findings about learning within the present system. They don't just not fit; they collide head on.
    
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    Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory SchoolingMon, 02/04/2008 - 14:46 -- adminThirty years of award-winning teaching in New York City’s public schools led John Gatto to the sad conclusion that compulsory governmental schooling does little but teach young people to follow orders as cogs in the industrial machine.
    
    
    
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    A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the FutureMon, 02/04/2008 - 13:27 -- adminLawyers. Accountants. Radiologists. Software engineers. That’s what our parents encouraged us to become when we grew up. But Mom and Dad were wrong. That’s the argument at the center of this provocative and original book, which uses the two sides of our brains as a metaphor for understanding the contours of our times.
    
    
    
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    Failing Our Kids: How We Are Ruining Our Public SchoolsMon, 02/04/2008 - 12:05 -- adminOur public schools are in danger of collapse, and if they do, we will all pay the price.
    
    Healthy public schools are essential for a healthy economy and creating informed citizens. But we are neglecting our schools in a perversely malicious way: making impossible demands on them, strangling them financially, creating trivial changes for the sake of ideology, avoiding necessary changes, and just plain ignoring them.
    
    
    
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    John Abbott on Educating for SustainabilityThu, 01/31/2008 - 13:09 -- admin
    John Abbott discusses the need for education to address the pressing issue of sustainability.
    
    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.
    
    
    
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    John Abbott and Heather MacTaggart Discuss Why Children Concern Us AllThu, 01/31/2008 - 12:58 -- admin
    John Abbott and Heather MacTaggart discuss why the education of children is a concern of the whole society. 
    Featured in this video:
    John Abbott is the President of the [[http://www.21learn.org/|21st Century Learning Initiative]], an initiative to to facilitate the emergence of new approaches to learning in the United Kingdom. Heather MacTaggart is the Executive Director of [[http://classroomconnections.ca/|Classroom Connections]], a Canadian non-profit educational organization dedicated to optimizing student learning.
    
    
    
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    Learning About Learning: A Conversation with John Abbott and Heather MacTaggartThu, 01/31/2008 - 12:49 -- admin
    John Abbott and Heather MacTaggart discuss the need for people to take the time to examine the current research about learning in order to envision and create the best possible system of education.
    
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    John Abbott on Biological Adaptation vs. Cultural ChangeThu, 01/31/2008 - 12:31 -- admin
    John Abbott speaks on the ways that biological adaptation interacts with human culture.
    
    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.
    
    
    
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    Heather MacTaggart Asks: Why Act Now?Mon, 01/28/2008 - 18:32 -- admin
    Heather McTaggart speaks about the roles that community and home must play in our system of education, particularly in the context of a rapidly changing world.
    
    Featured on this video:
    Heather MacTaggart is the Executive Director of [[http://classroomconnections.ca/|Classroom Connections]], a Canadian non-profit educational organization dedicated to optimizing student learning.
    
    
    
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    Heather MacTaggart on Educating for Today and TomorrowMon, 01/28/2008 - 18:24 -- admin
    Heather McTaggart discusses the need for schools to educate students for the realities of today and the possibilities of tomorrow.
    
    Featured in this video:
    Heather MacTaggart is the Executive Director of [[http://classroomconnections.ca/|Classroom Connections]], a Canadian non-profit educational organization dedicated to optimizing student learning.
    
    
    
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    A Factory Model of Education: Heather MacTaggart SpeaksMon, 01/28/2008 - 18:12 -- admin
    Heather McTaggart discusses the fact that a factory-production model of education still exists, although we are now well into a knowledge-based economy era.
    
    Featured in this video:
    Heather MacTaggart is the Executive Director of [[http://classroomconnections.ca/|Classroom Connections]], a Canadian non-profit educational organization dedicated to optimizing student learning.
    
    
    
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    John Abbott Challenges Faulty Assumptions About KidsMon, 01/28/2008 - 17:02 -- admin
    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.
    
    
    
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    -Charles UngerleiderFri, 01/18/2008 - 12:03 -- adminWe should not try to prepare the next generation for a specific set of circumstances, since we are unable to predict even with modest accuracy what the future will hold.
    
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    …(in 1926) educational philosopher William H. Ki-Charles UngerleiderFri, 01/18/2008 - 11:48 -- admin…(in 1926) educational philosopher William H. Kilpatrick produced one of the first works to suggest that social and economic changes require educational changes, education for a changing civilization.
    
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    A Policy Paper: The Strategic and Resource Implications of a New Model of LearningThis 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.
    
    
    
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    Learning with the Grain of the BrainIf young people are to be equipped effectively to meet the challenges of the 21st century it is surely prudent to seek out the very best understandings from current scientific research into the nature of how humans learn before considering further reform of the current system.
    
    This article by John Abbott and Terence Ryan appeared in the Spring, 1999 issue of Education Canada.
    
    
    
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    can the learning species fit into schools?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.)
    
    
    
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    expanding world view“I believe that current formal education still prepares students primarily for the world of the past, rather than for possible worlds of the future….[we have] not yet figured out how to prepare youngsters so that they can survive and thrive in a world different from one ever known or even imagined before.” Howard Gardner
    
    
    
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    shifts in societyOur society has undergone radical shifts in everything from family structure to demographics to where and how families and children spend the majority of their time. Canadian schools, first developed in the context of the family farm and small town, have struggled to respond to the massive shifts that have taken place in how children are living their lives outside of the classroom walls.
    
    
    
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    the rise of technologyToday’s students are the first generation to grow up in the midst of digital technology and these very different experiences have changed the way they think, behave and, quite possibly, the physical structure of their brain. These students require radically different methods to engage them in the learning process and maximize the potential of new technologies that surround them.
    
    
    
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    changing economy“The work place is demanding more innovation and creativity…That’s a fundamental shift from just five years ago when the focus was on simply re-engineering and efficiency.” Terry Ryan
    
    
    
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    No Time for Complacency: 2007 Annual Report on the State of Learning in CanadaThis report by the Canadian Council on Learning examines many of the factors that contribute to successful lifelong learning—from early childhood, through the school years and into adulthood. It also takes a special look at the link between health and learning, and at the learning challenges faced by Aboriginal Peoples in Canada.
    (NB: published in both English and French)
    
    
    
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    2007 Survey of Canadian Attitudes Towards LearningThe annual Survey of Canadian Attitudes toward Learning (SCAL) provides a unique opportunity to gauge the opinions, perceptions, and beliefs of Canadians about various aspects of learning in Canada. Now in its second year, the survey was designed by the Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) in consultation with Statistics Canada, which administered the survey on behalf of CCL.
    
    
    
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    Report: Public Education in Canada -- Facts, Trends and AttitudesWith this report, the Canadian Education Association provides a context for rethinking schools to drive dialogue and critical thinking about the challenges we face in educating all students to take their place in a world of dynamic social, technological and economic change.
    
    
    
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    signs of troubleCanada has a strong history of investment (both philosophical and financial) in public education.
    
    
    
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    Youth Speak: Life as Student in the 21st CenturyMon, 01/07/2008 - 13:30 -- admin
    This short video summarizes some of the most important characteristics of students today – how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime. Created by Michael Wesch in collaboration with 200 students at Kansas State University.
    (Runtime 04:44)
    
    
    
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    Education is Inside Out, Upside Down: John Abbott SpeaksWed, 12/19/2007 - 18:33 -- admin
    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.
    
    
    
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    education for today and tomorrowThere’s no question that the world is a very different place than it was when public schooling became a common practice in North America. In fact, the rate of change itself has accelerated dramatically during this time frame.
    
    
    
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    what's the problem?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.
    
    
    
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