Our future is with flexible education practices
October 30 12:00 AM
AUTHOR: Robin Gunston
In my day to day work I see the results of failed education policies in our country's prisons and courts. Today we heard that many of those who fail in mainstream education are dropped into the Correspondence School- that is unfair to both parties!
We all learn in completely different ways and strange though it may seem to most policy developers we also learn better at different times of day. The 18th century school week we practice is not the construct for the 21st century style of working where many of us hold down multiple pieces of work in differing locations.
So what would be wrong in those "dropping out" blobbing in to a vast range of alternative "schools", held in shopping malls, playgrounds, gyms, workshops, "Men's Sheds" etc where a more pragmatic, kinesthetic style of learning could be used?
In one of our prisons thay are experimenting with embedded learning- when a guy works out in a gym he gets the maths stuff alongside it- work out your energy used, average speed etc- it then means something to him.
Maybe it would not be silly to send the whole of the Ministry of Education policy team to a prison for several weeks- there is space!!