Tag: school

Imagine if education was changed to exploration

Posted on by philipdodson

What if we allowed children to explore rather than to be educated?

Currently, ‘education’ is about passing tests.

These tests were constructed by the system to prepare cogs for the industrialised machine to enable the owners of the machine to know that the cogs are of a certain ‘acceptable’ standard.

Testing roots out the thinkers, the crazies, the creative, the curious and shapes all for a lifetime of compliance. After all, who wants anyone to question anything, certainly not what school is for.

What if we scrapped the tests and allowed children to explore, to be curious, to be ‘crazy’, to find their meaning or purpose and then assist them to do that? Freedom to allow their imagination to roam, to day dream, to just try things and allow the magic to unfold.

Just an idea and surely better than keep producing cogs for somebody else’s machine.

Definition

Posted on by philipdodson

I often talk of my amazement that mainstream education does not provide any communication lessons, or listening lessons, yet these skills are unquantifiably more important than say maths, physics, geography for the preparation for life.

Most of us leave education ill-equipped to do the most important thing, to be able to listen and then effectively communicate with others.

Perhaps as part of the communication lessons that we so badly need to be implemented at school, we could include a lesson, or more, on why defining the meaning of words clearly before attempting to discuss them is so important.

Many words are discussed at work or in life, such as creativity, innovation, productivity, generosity, authenticity, kindness, tolerance and many more. Yet how often do we pause to come to an agreement on the definition? Or even know the definition or how the other person is defining it. 

Without definition, everything is a blur, with it we can understand.