Gordon Neufeld Ph.D

• • What's Wrong in Education: A Student's ViewHere is an a snippet of 16-year-old Paul Hillsdon on the purpose of education: “Schools need to be facilitating the full development of young children to a young adult; raising people who are vocal enough to question the unquestionable, creative enough to imagine the unimaginable, resourceful enough to answer their own questions, and radical enough to believe they can change the world for the better.”
    
    
    
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    building the wrong skills?It’s no secret when we look at the [[http://changelearning.ca/get-informed/whats-problem/how-we-got-here|history of Western education]] that part of the purpose of secondary school was to make sure that adolescents learned the skills needed for the factory floor and the office desk – things like respecting authority, staying on task and an ability to follow instructions. Schools and learning activities were structured accordingly.
    
    
    
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    Deep down many children became deeply frustrated, -John Abbott, Terence RyanMon, 02/18/2008 - 17:12 -- adminDeep down many children became deeply frustrated, with so much of their latent predispositions just untapped by the daily routine of instruction. The daily challenge of making sense of their environment had been replaced by a dull recognition of waiting to be told what to do and how to do it.
    
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    We must ask deeper questions about the very instit-John Abbott, Terence RyanMon, 02/18/2008 - 17:11 -- adminWe must ask deeper questions about the very institutions of schooling than have so far been raised in the school reform movement with its short-term panaceas of more accountability, site-based management, standardized tests, prescribed curricula, and longer hours for teachers and students. We have to be much smarter than this and accept that we are dealing with a deep systemic crisis.
    
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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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    The Unfinished Revolution: Learning, Human Behavior, Community and Political ParadoxMon, 02/04/2008 - 15:29 -- admin
    
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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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    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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    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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    Typical Education Reform Isn't the Answer: John Abbott on Transforming EducationThu, 01/31/2008 - 12:36 -- admin
    John Abbott speaks on the shortcomings and inadequacy of typical ‘back to basics’ educational reform.
    
    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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    Supporting or Breaking-in Our Youth? : John Abbott Looks at SchoolsWed, 01/30/2008 - 19:17 -- admin
    John Abbott explores the difference between an education that supports students or one that tries to make them fit the system.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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    Battery Hens or Free-range Chickens?: John Abbott on the Goals of EducationWed, 01/30/2008 - 19:11 -- admin
    John Abbott asks what kind of people our education system is aiming to produce.
    
    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 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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    -Alfie KohnFri, 01/18/2008 - 13:08 -- adminBad teaching doesn’t just happen. It’s practically demanded by systemic factors.
    
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    The principle reason high schools now enroll nearl-Thomas HineFri, 01/18/2008 - 13:08 -- adminThe principle reason high schools now enroll nearly all teenagers is that we can’t imagine what else to do with them.
    
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    -Time Magazine (2006)Fri, 01/18/2008 - 13:07 -- adminKids spend much of the day as their great-grandparents once did: sitting in rows, listening to teachers lecture, scribbling notes by hand, reading from textbooks that are out of date by the time they are printed.
    
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    -Alfie KohnFri, 01/18/2008 - 13:06 -- adminEvery time we judge a school on the basis of standardized test score—indeed, every time we permit our children to participate in these mass testing programs—we unwittingly help to make our schools just a little bit worse.
    
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    -Alfie KohnFri, 01/18/2008 - 13:05 -- adminMuch of the discussion about education today is arrested at the level of “Test scores are low; make them go up.” All the limits of, and problems with, such testing amount to a serious indictment of the version of school reform that relies on these tests.
    
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    -Parent and TrusteeFri, 01/18/2008 - 13:05 -- adminGiven what we now know about human learning and child/adolescent development, it is morally irresponsible for us to continue with the education system we have.
    
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    -Bill AyersFri, 01/18/2008 - 13:04 -- adminI was trying to find the most efficient way of giving students the knowledge and skils that I had, I was treating them as interchangeable receptacles.
    
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    It may have been acceptable for schools to see the-Charles UngerleiderFri, 01/18/2008 - 13:03 -- adminIt may have been acceptable for schools to see themselves primarily as gatekeepers or sorting mechanisms when Canada had less need for well-education citizens, but that time has long past. Canada cannot afford to waste its human resources.
    
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    Many existing standards documents do not encourage-Linda Darling-HammondFri, 01/18/2008 - 13:02 -- adminMany existing standards documents do not encourage teaching for understanding… they outline hundreds of bits of information for students to acquire at various grades in each subject area, creating expectations for content coverage that render impossible the in-depth study students need to understand and apply ideas.
    
    • read moreabout many existing standards documents do not encourage-linda darling-hammond
    
    -Deborah MeierFri, 01/18/2008 - 13:02 -- adminA passion for learning isn’t something you have to inspire in kids; it’s something you have to keep from extinguishing.
    
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    -Larry CubanFri, 01/18/2008 - 13:01 -- adminBasic ways of schooling children have been remarkably durable over the last hundred years.
    
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    Measurable outcomes may be the least significant r-Linda McNeilFri, 01/18/2008 - 13:00 -- adminMeasurable outcomes may be the least significant results of learning.
    
    • read moreabout measurable outcomes may be the least significant r-linda mcneil
    
    When asked what a set of national standards should-Harold Howe IIFri, 01/18/2008 - 12:59 -- adminWhen asked what a set of national standards should be like if you had to adopt them, former US Commissioner of Education Harold Howe II replied – "they should be as vague as possible".
    
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    Most innovation is about maintaining the logic of -Richard ElmoreFri, 01/18/2008 - 12:59 -- adminMost innovation is about maintaining the logic of confidence between the public and the schools, not about changing the conditions of teaching and learning for actual teachers and students.
    
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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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    Crazy By Design: Adolescence, a Critical Evolutionary AdaptationThe 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.
    
    
    
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    battery hens or free-range chickens: what kind of education for what kind of world?There is more material now about the nature of human learning than at any previous time in history. Why, therefore, do we have a “crisis” in education? John Abbott, discusses what is known about how humans learn and develop from birth through adulthood and how our education systems have it “inside out and upside down”.
    
    
    
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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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    Report: how to Increase Parent Participation in SchoolsThis project provided help to ten project schools in engaging parents in school improvement planning. From data collected in the project schools, the research team built models of parent involvement and tested them to assess their impact. 
    — Kenneth Leithwood, Charryn McElheron-Hopkins (OISE/UT) (2004)
    (Source: Canadian Education Association )
    
    
    
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    why hasn't anything changed?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.
    
    
    
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    Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents MatterMon, 01/07/2008 - 14:17 -- adminDr. Neufeld has dubbed this phenomenon peer orientation, which refers to the tendency of children and youth to look to their peers for direction: for a sense of right and wrong, for values, identity and codes of behaviour. But peer orientation undermines family cohesion, poisons the school atmosphere, and fosters an aggressively hostile and sexualized youth culture.
    
    
    
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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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    educational reseachers promote whole child approach to learningHow do we equip today’s students with 21st century skills necessary for success? The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) proposes a new whole child approach, supported by research, to provide the foundation for success in school, the workplace, the community, and life. ASCDalso proposes a broader definition of achievement and accountability that promotes the development of children who are healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.
    
    
    
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    Do Grades Really Matter?: Mounting Evidence Suggests Grades Don't Predict SuccessA growing body of evidence suggests that grades don’t predict success. It turns out that C+ students are the ones who end up running the world. This article challenges the idea that grades tell us who we are or what we are capable of.
    
    Read the full text of this article on the Macleans magazine website: [[http://www.macleans.ca/education/postsecondary/article.jsp?content=20070910_109139_109139| Do Grades Really Matter?]]
    
    
    
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    Curriculum Development Group Urges Focus Shift to Whole ChildThe definition of a successful student has to change from one whose achievement is measured solely on the basis of test scores to one who is healthy, emotionally and physically inspired, engaged in the arts, and prepared for employment in a global economy.
    
    
    
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    Do Schools Kill Creativity?: Ken Robinson speaksThu, 12/20/2007 - 19:28 -- admin
    Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it. With ample anecdotes and witty asides, Robinson points out the many ways our schools fail to recognize — much less cultivate — the talents of many brilliant people. “We are educating people out of their creativity,” Robinson says. The universality of his message is evidenced by its rampant popularity online. Watch it now. 
    (Description from ted.com)
    (Runtime: 19:29)
    
    
    
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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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    Many existing standards documents do not encourage-Linda Darling-HammondTue, 12/18/2007 - 12:41 -- adminMany existing standards documents do not encourage teaching for understanding… they outline hundreds of bits of information for students to acquire at various grades in each subject area, creating expectations for content coverage that render impossible the in-depth study students need to understand and apply ideas.
    
    • read moreabout many existing standards documents do not encourage-linda darling-hammond
    
    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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