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Rethinking Education

A group for anyone who wants to help us develop an NTW approach to education.

Members: 140
Latest Activity: Feb 1, 2022

Our Manifesto

To act as a catalyst in creating new networks to stimulate debate across arts, education and beyond

To provide a forum to discuss education in a language that encourages fresh and innovative ideas

To develop leaders and advocates from a range of backgrounds, working throughout the whole education system

To focus on creating long-term solutions to the problems of the formal education system

To encourage cross-curricular dialogue to promote the benefits of the arts at all stages of the educational experience

Come join us.

Discussion Forum

Creative Schools: what's happening out there? 2 Replies

The creative schools/ creative practitioners project has been running for about 2 school years now. I was so enthusiastic about its aims when launched at the Arts Council Wales event. I think the…Continue

Started by Bill Hamblett. Last reply by Martin Daws Apr 16, 2018.

Sharing - Rethinking Education for the 21st Century 1 Reply

http://shar.es/131gVNNesta posted this on twitter this morning. It is an article written by Naveen Jain called School's Out For Summer. It was originally posted…Continue

Started by Jain Boon. Last reply by 4elements1 May 31, 2015.

Going forward

What if there is a way to take any discussion group to impact the future, involve the group and conversation , by discussion, attitude, interaction be it voice visual impact, more engagement allows…Continue

Started by Gary Morris Feb 27, 2015.

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Comment by Sophie McKeand on October 19, 2014 at 22:36

I work as a self-employed/freelance poet and workshop facilitator as this provides the opportunity for me to be a creative individual and to really teach poetry and literature.

My daughter (aged 18) and step-son (aged 20) have both been through the schooling system and I’m more convinced than ever that school teaches students how to do as they’re told, now how to think for themselves. The current system creates great little robot-parts for The Machine, but is that really why we exist? I have the upmost respect for all teachers - they’re doing an impossible job.

I am often frustrated when I hear that The Arts are considered ‘soft subjects’. Nothing could be further from the truth. Creativity changes us and I believe it is an essential tool for growing the ‘self’ and communities.

Being creative isn’t easy - a person must learn to listen to others and their environment; emotional intelligence and empathy must be utilised in order to translate the person’s surroundings or experiences into a piece of art. A number of barriers need to be overcome such as embarrassment, fear of failure and low confidence or self-esteem, or the ego must be put aside in order to fully engage. None of this is simple. I believe the whole community benefits when people are fully aware of their creativity and encouraged to work with it from a very young age. Joseph Knecht, in Hesse’s Glass Bead Game, is an interesting study - he leaves working with ‘intellectually gifted’ people in favour of working with young children of all abilities. I think all intellectuals should be encouraged to share their work with children J  

Comment by Angharad Lee on October 19, 2014 at 4:28

Great debate. Time to empower parents and their responsibility to educate their kids outside of the classroom. It is not my daughters schools responsibility to soley educate my child. It is, fundamental, mine, absolutely. 

Comment by Guy O'Donnell on October 17, 2014 at 2:51

Interesting article by Frank Cottrell Boyce: schools are destroying the power of stories http://gu.com/p/42g8e/tw via @guardian

Comment by Bill Hamblett on October 17, 2014 at 0:35

Having been at the Arts Council of Wales conference I have been waiting to see what action may be taken. This seems a great opportunity to pursue the shaping of the future of education in Wales so surely we should reach out to some of the more inspiring educationists already working globally and in Wales inside and outside the system, Sue Lyle springs to mind. Maybe we should inflate this theatre bubble to more than the 37( as of now) in this group.

Comment by Christina Handke on October 15, 2014 at 1:54

And I also believe the only way to become a rounded, able, self-confident person is through art.



Since I don't want to sound like an idealistic hippy (although I don't think there is anything wrong with that and I definitely am one) I'm gonna back myself up with a few practitioners, who might be interesting for you to look into. I admire the work of  Dorothy Heathcote very, very much and also think Edward Bond and Paolo Freire are very interesting people to get to know.

There is also the National Association for the Teaching of Drama, who might be able to give you a good overview over the National Curriculums and the general happenings of DiE and TiE in Britain, if that's something you're interested in. I can also give you the email address of a few practitioners if you think that would be helpful, I'm sure you know a few yourself.



Sorry this is super long, I'm not sure why I talk so much, I think it's my parent's fault, they encouraged it.

Comment by Christina Handke on October 15, 2014 at 1:53



Okay, so I have been reading the comments on here and I haven't been able to stop thinking about David Foster Wallace's speech "This is water." There are two paragraphs that remind me of this topic very much and they are:



That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.


It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over: "This is water.This is water." It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true: your education really IS the job of a lifetime. And it commences: now

If you want to, you can find the whole speech here. 
I understand that these ideas are rather abstract and that they don't answer the "how" at all. But they do summarise in more beautiful and wise word than the ones I could ever use, what I believe about education. I believe that education should be about giving children the tools to live. The tools to acquire knowledge, to believe in yourself, to form and sustain relationships, to not only build a personal system of values and morals but to live it and to stand up for it. I think that way children will be able to grow into mündige (is the right English word here 'mature'? Or 'responsible'?) adults, who know who they are and want to be and what they can do.

Having worked in a school I see a system that treats children not as perfect children but as imperfect adults. A system that polishes them into whatever the curriculum and the people behind it consider as appropriate. It teaches them that there is a right and a wrong in this world and that it is universally true for everyone. It punishes them for making mistakes, rather then teaching them the value of it.
It doesn't teach them how to think, how to make decisions, how to believe in things, it rather needs the children to conform because only then the every day life and schedule of school works. It pushes them into a box until they all kind of behave the similarly and think similarly . It doesn't celebrate every child for who it is and the flawed adults it will become. 



I remember sitting in a lecture at University once and the lecturer asked a question and no one said anything and he just looked at us and said:" What happened to you? If I ask a question in primary school, all hands go up, everyone is so excited and here nothing. Somewhere along the line between primary school and now someone must have taught you that not participating at all is better than giving a wrong answer." I spend so much of my time unlearning what I had been taught in school. That's not to say that I don't appreciate all the things I learned there, it's just that I feel that they are not educating the whole child, the whole person, with all their abilities and I'll say it again" flaws" because I believe in flaws very much. 



Comment by David Evans on October 14, 2014 at 5:27

My education is one of the things that gives me my identity - it makes me interested in things.  I was lucky, up until I was 13 I was regarded as troublesome and stupid, then a teacher took a bit more interest in me and I flourished under that attention.   So much in education is about the teachers, yet teachers say they find the system so report and paper based that they are drowning under admin and loosing children.  

My limited knowledge of the system is that it is in a state of constant flux, just when a school gets to grips with one system the government changes the priorities and they have to restructure everything - how can children flourish and teachers teach under such circumstances?   

Education should be removed from political control, if educationists were to run education our children might stand a chance. 

Comment by Gavin Porter on October 14, 2014 at 5:21

Comment by Gavin Porter on October 14, 2014 at 5:13

http://chrisemdin.com/ 

You can also check #hiphoped on twitter - There is a twitter debate every Tuesday at 9PM EST

Comment by Gavin Porter on October 14, 2014 at 5:10
 

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