27/08/2012
It's taken a while but I finally. FINALLY have some idea of what's up with the state of formal education in Europe.
It kind of started in 2010 when I participated in an event around learning Freedom and the Web hosted by Mozilla and co-organised by their community of volunteers (thank you Nathaniel James ). It was generative on many levels. I met some lovely people, and got the push I needed to explore some of my own interests to do with learning. More than anything I started to understand the importance of developing a personal frame of enquiry and a personal frame of enquiry. Last year I did several talks and workshops at events ranging from massive general audience ones like Learning without Frontiers organised by Graham Brown-Martin and smaller more specialised ones like the Free Culture Incubator organised by Ela Kagel.
Older generations, the private sector, government institutions and parents have contributed to society’s encouraging young people focus their energies, and put their eggs into the basket of being good at school (and penalising those who were not). And Education is big business with many stakeholders involved. What with youth unemployment hitting the roof there is a lot of debate around learning and many people are discussing the need for reforms in formal education systems in Europe (and beyond). They range all the way from snake-oil salesmen trying to sell gadgets and proprietary software as the end all solution to our educational woes to angry headteachers wanting minister's hide for unfairly changing the rules on kids in mid-game. There is a lot at stake.
But how did we get here and where does it make sense to push for change?
I think it's true for a lot of what we want to achieve that it is hard to get an overview of what's going on, what forces are pulling in which directions. This was part of the aim of getting the researchers help in contextualising the experiences we have been sharing and mapping out the territory. For me personally this is a much more important contribution because it helps us go ok- so this is what we are facing and then direct our energies pragmatically.
I read the research report that Piotr Mikiewicz and Pruden GE produced about Learning commissioned by Edgeryders. It was pretty interesting and a lot of things fell into place for me about how formal education works in Europe. So I spent the weekend summarising it for you, me and everyone we know.
We can do much much better that the state of contemporary political tennis matches- just cheap shots and no creative solutions. . It's oue future and we all own a stake in it. Come check it out, poke holes in it and add the questions you want to have answered. It's a good primer for those who want to understand how changes in other areas can affect the issues we especially care about. And upgrading the BS detectors never hurt :)
“school is a hostile, limiting force, essentially extraneous in preparation for adult life; where acquired knowledge is not always welcomed either useful for life, even not related with society around them” (Edgeryders Research Papers, 2012, Learning, Gutierres and Mikiewicz)
