We are on the edge of a radical and important transformation but one that may be lost unless we are very careful...
More than ever we need schools to connect more powerfully with young people, their families and the communities they serve. The research suggests that a great school can achieve great things but it's impact on a child's life only amounts to around 12-15% of the child's success. A great family and a great mum has a massively more important and influential role accounting for up to 30% of a child's success. And surprisingly a great community, an aspirational community, also matters hugely to a child's success. Sadly, while it helps, going to a great school is not the only answer to the problems we face and we must recognise that the answers to the real challenges we all face in raising standards and achieving world class outcomes for our children lie in tackling poverty, deprivation and poor parenting and in building equality and equity at the heart of everything we do.
Happy to discuss.
Chris
1 comment:
My eldest daughter came home from school last week with something like 10kg of university prospectuses. She spent much of the week-end browsing the frightening range of courses available.
And it got me thinking about whether the compulsory education that she has experienced so far, all 13 years of it, have really provided her with an excellent platform for wealth and fulfillment in her adult life. And the result of my pondering was:
1. As a premise I believe that education is at its best when it socialises people into the obligations and freedoms of active citizenship, and immunises them against imprisonment by the gilded cages of consumerism. So why does so much (enterprise) education appear to be about the development of the next generation of employer fodder/entrepreneurs/snake oil sellers?
2. Is this because we are failing to teach the real meaning of ’social enterprise’ now that it has become embedded in what Todd Hannula describes as ‘agency led mush’?
3. Have we ever properly taught the notion of social enterprise? Is it really more the the pursuit of ‘enlightened self interest’ in the marketplace?
4. To release prodigious human energies and good will we must learn how to help people find powerful narratives that give meaning and direction to their lives.
5. We must help them to learn about themselves at least as much as we should help them learn about the world outside of them.
6. We must encourage them to explore what they love and who they can become in pursuit of their potential.
7. We must educate them to properly understand their own self interest and how this fits with the self interest of others in a mutually sustainable and progressive community.
8. We must help them to become experts in using power in pursuit of mutual self interest.
9. We must help them to build their power in creating the kind of future that they want to see for themselves and for the diverse communities that live on spaceship earth.
Perhaps consideration of these statements might just help us to realise ‘the end of (enterprise) education’.
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