The case for collaboration in schools

Frankly I couldn't have put it better than this:

Physicists just debunked one of the most promising candidates for dark matter


This is a collaboration of over 100 physicists. Who works alone today? Isn't it time we adapted not only work, but also senior assessment practices, to acknowledge this?

Producers, not consumers

It’s a funny old world this education thing, isn’t it. It’s easy to dart around chasing fads and trends like a school of fish. The challenges aren’t helped by the fact that as everyone has been to school we all tend to become self professed, albeit well meaning, experts.

The thing that matters most is that we remember the fundamental purpose of schools: to cause learning. Of course THE big question of the moment is to learn what? There seems to be general agreement that everyone needs basic literacy and numeracy. Beyond that, what? If we say science, which particular bit of science? If we say a language, which particular language? Maybe it doesn’t much matter. What we do seem to agree matters is that students develop good character (I’ve written on that before) and that they learn how to learn, unlearn and relearn, to be flexible, to stick with the job ( Art Costa’s Habits of Mind, those dispositions that characterise successful people in all walks of life).

Perhaps flexibility has become the watchword of the moment. I read a couple of weeks ago of the NZIER’s prediction that 46% of NZ jobs may disappear in the next ten to twenty years. Who knew when I was a student that we might not need tax accountants in twenty years time?

Have you looked at ‘Shapeways’ on the web? There on a web site is the future of small scale manufacturing with either small scale 3D printing on demand, or the delivery of 3D print files that allow anyone with a 3D printer to produce their own objects at home.

Who  even three years ago would have predicted the impact of Uber or AirBnB? More than ever before we are all faced with an absolutely fundamental choice about whether to be a consumer or a producer in life? And for this reason shifting school practice to encouraging students to be producers becomes ever more important. Producing that short film, that piece of code or that phone app, that art work or that short story, that 3D printed toy or that community campaign to get books into disadvantaged homes, these are all ‘producing something’.

I once read that the thing we fear more than being powerless is being powerful beyond measure. The ‘producer culture’, the ’maker culture’ is one way in which we can all exercise our power for the benefit of the community. Let’s put our collective effort into encouraging our students to do just that.