Explained in an interview on Cultural Brilliance Radio! The Human Side of Changing Education with Julie Wilson
Moving away from the industrial model of education….
Rowley: When you say “industrial model of education,” what exactly does that mean?
Julie: I think of the industrial model of Education as a one-size-fits-all model of education that is systematically designed to put kids into grade levels according to age, not according to their developmental stage.
Examples:
Old Model: Students are passive recipients of content.
Potential New Model: Students are more self-directed and entrepreneurial learners.
As we know in this day and age the world is moving at a really fast pace, and for too many kids, their schools haven’t changed or kept up. The only logical answer, in my opinion, is that the teachers’ role changes from a deliverer of content to a designer and facilitator of immersive learning environments, shifting from time-based learning to competency-based learning.
Understanding the resistance toward change….
Julie: Whenever it comes to trying to implement changes into a school, too often we’re looking for a guaranteed result.
What is really needed are healthy appetites for failure risk.
When it comes to learning, we always want it to be right, we want it to be perfect the first time, and there isn’t space or time or resources available to really take risks. Risk and failure are critical components to success.
Rowley: So, then, what are the steps that can be taken toward progress in implementing the necessary changes in schools?
Julie: I think there’s a great opportunity here for parents to step in and say, “Look the model that we have, the system that we have, it’s not flexible enough and it wasn’t designed to support kids in 2018. Therefore, as a school community we’re going to start piloting some new things, and we need your support as we start to work through this.”
Rowley: Of all the schools you visited, did any of them exemplify a lot of the models of change you write about in your book?
Julie: There was one school that really impressed me by having such an interrelated operating system. Lunch, for example,
the kids were in charge of growing the vegetables, cooking the lunch and even cleaning up the lunchroom.
This type of model helped these kids gain a sense of community and respect for their environment by learning the value of team-building skills in a unique, interconnected way.
Key Questions:
What’s worth learning?
How is it best learned?
How can we get it taught that way?
How do we know it has been learned?
To listen to the podcast and full interview with Claudette Rowley and Julie Wilson visit: Cultural Brilliance Radio on Transformation Talk Radio!
