Mindshift – Creating the Library of Tomorrow

The Journal – Library as a Digital Learning Space

In schools, I believe that the changed focus in learning, away from teacher-centric teaching that is wedded to a paradigm where what is to be learned is to be ‘inserted’ in to students means that libraries will play a far bigger role. A library, especially one that offers combinations of digital and paper-based resources, can provide the ownership and independence in learning that is needed for highly motivated learner-driven learning. I believe that in the future it will be vitally important that within schools we provide the support, gradually in age appropriate manner, to ensure that students have digital literacy, online safety awareness and media literacy that enables them to be critical users of data and information from a variety of sources in a discerning manner with appropriate judgement on efficacy, appropriacy and rigour.

ASCD Blog post – Persida Himmele – Being Good at Maths

It poses a serious challenge to anyone who has ever declared “I’m no good at maths”, especially if they said it in the presence of a child. The fact is that Maths, entails a series of logical, sequential steps. Do each step in the right order, with enough care and attention to accuracy then you get the right answer. Practice hones the skills of applying the right skill at the right moment, acquiring accuracy and over time being able to carry out the processes at speed. In many ways

I would make an analogy with driving a car. Ironically, when most people get behind the wheel of a car they have a high level of motivation to acquire the skills, to believe that all the skills are within their scope and you rarely hear someone declare “I’m bad at driving”.In fact, more’s the shame, too often there are people who should be acknowledging that their driving requires more applied practice of the requisite skills, but instead they over estimate their skill levels (confession = men are the worst culprits at this!!)

I don’t believe I have any maths gene. I recall that in school I achieved a bit above average in Maths, without excelling, largely because I shared this mythical belief in innate maths ability – in other words, where I was going to score and achieve was pre-ordained. I believe this became self-fulfilling with me motivated to put in just about the level of focus and practice that ensured that my performance was always around the level that I expected.

To me this is another of those areas in which I believe greater focus on the ‘how’ of learning, discussed overtly with students can be enormously worthwhile. It is only in this way – when we actually make sure we spend time on ‘process’ that we can bring to the surface faulty, limiting beliefs that children are carrying, confront them and help them to be more informed so that they can replace them with far more positive, healthy and enriching beliefs about their abilities.

New York Times Editorial – Thomas L Friedman

The global forces that are highlighted in the piece throw up many fascinating questions;

1. Whose responsibility is it to ensure that all citizens have the skills necessary to be economically productive?
2. To what extent do the 99% have the right to complain that the 1% are enjoying ‘too much of the pie?
3. How do education systems need to respond to the changing needs to ensure that young people grow up to be able to excel in this ‘new world order’?
4. Keeping in mind that china has stolen a march to become the manufacturing powerhouse of the world (and whatever debatable costs), how can India ensure productive meaningful work and upliftment for its 1.2 billion population?
5. Are people willing to invest their own time productively to ensure that, personally, they are always staying well ahead of the ‘average’?

Here’s a thoughtful article that looks at a number of factors in shaping or designing classrooms in the new digital age, whether as new designs or reconfiguring existing classrooms:

The Journal Article – Designing the 21st century classroom

Mindshift Editorial on the iBook2 launch

New York Times Article – Autism

It stems from the first review in 17years of the DSM – the diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – considered to be the definitive word on what does or does not qualify as a mental disorder. This has implications outside as well as in the US, as it has been the tendency to look to DSM as a guide in many countries.

The biggest reason this matters is when it impacts upon welfare benefits and/ or entitlement to services. It’s going to be interesting to see how the debate is resolved.

ADMISSION GUIDELINES FOR

PRAVESH VATIKA (NURSERY) 2012-13

AGE CRITIERIA – 1^st October, 2007 and 30^th September, 2008

NDTV Video

Psychology Today Article – Creativity

After reading this piece, I felt firmer in my agreement with Dr Edward de Bono that creativity skills and habits can be ‘taught’ and should be built in to curriculum as a matter of course as a set of skills to be acquired, practiced and refined. As point 2 makes clear, being creative is serious work – not some airy-fairy floating around waiting for creative ideas to ‘descend’.

This Wall Street journal puts the case that the Act has got it right and is a ‘worthy first step’. The gist of the argument appears to be – when we’re starting from such a sorry low base, it would be unrealistic to set out any desirable outcomes;

Wall Street Journal – India Real Time Article

Whilst I agree with the assessment of woeful basic amenities in the vast majority of schools in the country, I don’t agree that this justified an ‘inputs only’ piece of legislation. To suggest that this will result in a magical speedy solution of the one problem, that will miraculously cause the other problem to disappear is untenable. Even if you suggest that the government would focus exclusively on inputs for a time, then following up with measures to address ‘outcomes’ is to expect way too much of government.

That the scale of the challenges is vast has been further highlighted with this week’s news of the results of the recent experiment to include two states (Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu) in the OECD PISA tests, used by OECD countries to benchmark their public education systems. These two states are deemed to be amongst the more advanced with regard to standards of public education. Nevertheless, the results were awful with the country barely managing to score above just one other included country – Kyrgyzstan:

The Hindu – Report on PISA Results

Times of India – Report on PISA Results

Sadly, I fear that there is a very simple reason why the Act was all about inputs only – because Goal Number Two of the Millenium Development Goals under United Nations declaration of Human Rights also happens to be couched only in terms of inputs. The cynic in me fears that the Act was driven more by a need to fulfil this international obligation than a genuine desire to bring a paradigm shift in the quality of educational experience for the nation’s children.

One person quoted in the WSJ article condemns focus on ‘outputs’ out of hand because we shouldn’t be focusing unduly on testing students. This is terribly simplistic. There is ample evidence from other countries that testing students with summative assessments is by no means the only way to measure/ monitor or guide educational outputs. If the desired outputs (in skill development terms rather than bodies of facts learned) had been given equal emphasis in the legislation it might be true that many schools would not have been able to aspire too high on quality factors until they had addressed more fundamental issues of provision. Nevertheless, all educators would have had a road map for where the country was aiming for. The Act could have been accompanied with templates that could be used on a local basis to address both issues of provision and outputs. The ‘quantity’ and ‘quality’ facets are not sequential, they are contemporaneous and should have been treated as such.