Questions, questions

All friend of mine recently told me that his child's school has complained to him about his son. It seems his son has been asking too many questions, and it's interfering with the running of the class. The young lad keeps asking why he has to do certain tasks in the lessons. Teacher is getting sick of having to justify everything she is doing. Oh dear. How disruptive. What an unruly child...

Actually, that teacher probably needs a kick up the backside. What was she thinking? Why would any teacher want to stop children questioning? Why would any school discourage children from asking 'why'? Surely, questioning is a fundamental part of learning at any age. Asking questions is always more effective than receiving answers, because it opens up all the possibilities and allows the questioner to frame the world in their own unique, individual way. From questions come other questions. From those come learning. Children need a psychologically safe environment within which they can question, explore and make mistakes, with no negative repercussions. The moment teachers stifle a child's curiosity is the moment school ceases to be relevant, to that child, to the community, to society at large. If ever there was an ideal place for children to be encouraged to ask 'why?' it has to be the school. The problem with the current school system is that far too many demands are placed on teachers, and there is little time left to spend on exploration and discovery.

More time and space needs to be allocated during the school day for thinking and questioning. Children need to ask questions, because it's a natural part of their cognitive development. But when the school systems as it stands, serves to knock their curiosity out of them, something has to change. It's interesting to read Sir Ken Robinson's take on this issue. He suggests that as children grow older, their curiosity and their creativity tend to decline. This is not because they are 'growing up' he says, but rather because they have been 'educated'. Schooling has knocked the curiosity out of them. Alvin Toffler once said 'We don't need to reform the system, we need to replace the system'. He could easily have been talking about schooling.

I had six faithful serving men, who taught me all I knew. Their names are what and why and when, and where and how and who.

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Questions, questions by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

In the same boat

It is comforting and reassuring - but also somewhat disconcerting - to attend an international event on education, and discover that whatever problems you experience in your own system are also present in just about every other education system in the world. As we converse with delegates from other countries, it dawns on us that we are all in the same boat. And that is one very good reason why educators around the world need to continue their dialogue, whether face to face, or at a distance. Why we are all in the same boat is perhaps an indication of the power of governments around the world to 'sing from the same hymn sheet'. Each in its own way wants to measure and judge the effectiveness of education, but each does it in the wrong way - by relying exclusively on metrics that impose impossible pressures on teachers and students alike, and ultimately end up getting in the way of good learning outcomes. It's a universal challenge for teachers and change is definitely long overdue. But how do we send this message strongly enough that our respective governments will sit up and take notice?

The 8th International Seminar on Teacher Training: Reconsidering Teacher Roles (hosted by the Open University of Catalonia, in Barcelona) took on this challenge. The two day conference was well organised, and ideally located, attracting a worldwide audience, both through physical attendance and via streaming channels and Twitter. Teacher roles are changing, ran the theme, but exactly what do teachers need to learn to enable them to exploit the potential of new media and technology? The roles may change, but the institution often does not. What tensions are there and how are they fracturing the fabric of the teacher/institution relationship? How can we train teachers to hit the ground running when they enter the profession? These and other pertinent questions formed the basis of the dialogue that ensued.

One of the important points made during the conference was that content on the web is overwhelming, whilst context is vitally important. I suggested on Twitter in summary that content is a tyrant, and context is now king. Content floods our lives and it is difficult to filter, whilst context frames learning, and provides the grounding to apply it in real life situations. This theme was reiterated throughout the two day event in many ways, especially in an analysis of creative approaches to teaching and learning. Douglas Thomas (USA) argued that it only takes about 12 years to beat the wonderment and joy of learning out of children. It's sad but true, and it is often the death of divergent thinking - one of the key building blocks of the innovation that is often sadly lacking in the world of work.

Hanna Teras (Finland) convinced her audience that authentic learning can be promoted through the appropriate application of social media. She also emphasised the point that although the tools are available for all teachers to use, many cannot do so effectively without developing their own personal 21st century pedagogical skills. Peter Baptist (Germany) offered very similar recommendations, but used visual media and animations to liven up the teaching of numeracy and mathematics. An excellent session on Day 2 by PhD student Janak Bhimani (Japan) impressed the audience. He demonstrated how contextualisation of learning has been creatively realised in Japanese schools through the use of animated videos and finger puppet movie projects. Children script, perform, produce and direct - all with minimal supervision from their teachers. This form of narrative story telling in digital form enables young people to express their creativity and can transfer these skills to real world applications. Other schools are doing the same, providing exciting and challenging authentic learning activities for children.

Great closing day keynotes by Edem Adubra (UNESCO, France and Namibia) and Ferran Ruiz Tarrago (Spain) encapsulated the running theme of the conference - that a reconsideration of teacher roles is simply not enough for today's educational requirements. There needs to be reform, because education as a system is broken and cannot be repaired or patched up, said Terrago. A telling remark from Terrago was that teachers must be aware that they are required to be excellent in an outmoded system. He was scathing of the academic publishing system and the strangle hold it currently has over tenure and funding. Governments are complicit in perpetuating this ivory tower syndrome, he suggested, and that needs to be challenged at all levels. The conference has been summed up succinctly in blog posts by Hanna Teras and Ishmael de Pena Lopez.  


The final remark from conference co-chair Julia Minguillon (Spain) said it all - don't sit on this discussion and let it pass you by, he warned. By doing so, he suggested, you perpetuate the ivory tower syndrome - go out and make the changes that are needed to reform our education systems. We all need to row in the same direction.


Image by Adam Poselli


In the same boat by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.