Connect.ed or Once upon a time there was a boy...

Inspired by Stephen Collins post Connect.ed
Once upon a time there was a boy.....

He was the usual sort of boy - gregarious, funny, busy, heavily into constructing things and with a few weird and wonderful passions... e.g bouncing in a tiggerish fashion, assisting a family friend construct dry ice and plastic bombs for launch at remote campsites, snorkelling and collecting rocks...

He had a big heart and a big head and was fascinated by the world he lived in...
Then he went to school.

Kindy/Pre-Primary

Fun, fun, explore my world, get excited, move around, touch stuff, experiment - ooooo yes, education is FUN.

Year 1

Being into stuff that other people don't like is uncool. 
Small sparkly boy is date stamped and filed according to production date.
He protests that he was quite happy playing, but is assured that it's time to start 'real EJUCATION'.

Year 2

Sparkly boy hates drawing 'things', but loves drawing how things happen - he creates reams of complex mono-coloured action pictures.  Ask him what they are and he produces lengthy intricate stories. 

Unfortunately they do not make the classroom look like a warm inviting place to attract future business, oh and the portfolio looks ugly. The work is sent home without dignity. 

He loves to describe things, but unfortunately describing is not recognised as intelligence, and instead he must INVENT stories. The sparkle begins to fade.

Year 3

The wild imagination which creates such complex images, stories, songs and machines is becoming a problem.  If you can't fill in worksheets then you can't be intelligent.  As a result, the small sparkly boy  escapes to more interesting places in his imagination.

He is officially becoming a 'problem'.

Small aside - get a coffee or alcoholic beverage while the progress of EJUCATION is put on hold.

The boy's parents concerned with the loss of sparkle are told that "school is a sausage factory, you either learn to fit in or you fail". We have too many kids to look after to give individual treatment to those who won't fit in.

Small interplanetary war breaks out at home.....
Parents, who are accustomed to 'not fitting in' and who make very good livings out of precisely this problem decide to fight...

Testing occurs, and small, no-longer sparkly boy does extremely well, well enough to catch the eye of the school.

Year 4

Sparkly boy returns during school holidays. So Year 4 commences with hope.

Angry alien parents "INFORMED" that sparkly boy is eligible for gifted education - but there's a small problem..Disorganisation.  It is apparently impossible to be intelligent without being super organised, being able to multi-task, track multiple subject areas, and reference officially. 

Alien P's acknowledge fact that above guidelines define them as non-intelligent. With the gifted planet somewhere over there, it's back to the worksheets.

Coffee Break again - you will need caffeine for this next stage

The sparkle has gone. The not-quite-so-small boy is dusty and a bit dishevelled.  FINALLY planet education decides that the Alien P's should get once sparkly boy tested by an Educational Psychologist - which of course they do at vast expense as it is not covered by the school.

I'd like to summarise...

One small sparkly boy of above average intelligence
    Capable of producing a podcast, orchestrating a song in Garage Band, and fascinated by the solar         system as viewed on Google Earth, but driven insane by worksheets
        Intelligent, creative and exicted by the world

Turned into...

...a dusty dishevelled and demoralised little boy, convinced he is stupid - who is only kept sparkly by the intense efforts of his parents at weekends.

How many other small sparkly boys (and girls)are there with wonderful untapped intelligence and creativity - many of us have been inspired by speakers such as  Ken Robinson of the moves towards creative intelligence. 

Many of us are involved in this wonderful creative, innovative hyperconnectivity.  And yet, in many schools, time stands still.

How long will it be before we recognise that great teachers are not produced by academic study but by the love of subject they are passionate about, and great connected skills.

The Happy Ending

The sparkly boy is lucky enough to gain a space in a school which values connectivity, collaboration and innovation.

JOHN MARSDEN: The idea of engaging with intellectual and challenging topics and ideas and questions is good. If we start from those principles, then it becomes much easier to get a sense of how a school should function. You start to realise that there shouldn't be a kind of enmity between adults and young people, there should be a wonderful alliance, where we're all moving creatively towards understanding things in as profound a way as possible.

By learning to build bridges he is able to use his intelligence and skills to connect people.  The world is once again an intriguing and fascinating place. He has confidence in his ability to make a difference.  He feels his own place in the world and works collaboratively on issues which he feels are important to his world and himself.

His adventures and his risks are real, exciting and relate to the future he is constructing for himself.  He is too busy living to get involved in self destructive behaviour... he has a world to explore.

The Un-Happy Ending

The sparkly boy continues to hate school.  He is almost never sparkly any more.  He begins to believe that he IS a failure.  He becomes angry, bitter, disillusioned and bored.  He distrusts people, and as a result they distrust him.  He medicates with alcohol and perhaps some drugs now and again to revisit the magic he used to feel.  If he's lucky he meets someone who can show him other ways to live, but it's a long hard slog.

I agree with Stephen Collins, we have a voice AND a responsibility.  I can no longer sit back and trust that weak minded politicians and entrenched old school values will qualify people to create the world I want my kids to be part of.  What shall we do - and can we start it now?! Please.

Comments

[Stephen Collins]

Harriet, Connect.ed will be a reality soon as Brownwen and I get it off the ground. We have a lot of ideas and need sparkly troops to make it happen. Please come and play!

[KerryJ]

I have tears in my eyes over this.

I am frightened for my nephew who is due to start school in a few years. I am sick to death of testing being the only yardstick by which to measure achievement. And I'm disgusted that teachers get the brunt of it. They start off sparkly too and get squashed by the cynics.

My background isn't in education, it's communication. I don't have kids -- but I know that I want the young people I care about and the future leaders of my world to know how to think for themselves, not to learn how to suck up and fit in a mold to "get through the system".

And the sausage factory thing -- yuck. Another educator reportedly said that he was in the job of cranking out "test passers".

There's got to be a counter revolution that puts more value on re-structuring mindsets and systems than in boxes.

And to the "educator" that said schools are sausage factories - ask him/her what percentage of crap is allowed into the sausages his/her school cranks out?

[CW]

The sparkly boy is lucky to have parents who can see what the problem is!

[charlie]

Ah, one more through the industrial grist mill.

I was thinking of you this weekend and wondering how you would raze and rebuild an educational process that is no longer based on industrial training, but allows creativity and imagination (two critical skills in the post-industrial, creative-class age) to flourish.

I'm always alert to the indoctrination of my wee ones and (like you) see my intervention at home to be key in their proper education (making up for what the school doesn't teach). Key component at home is dialogue, mainly the sacrosanct teaching nature of a full family dinner.

Sigh. A luta continua!

[Rosemary]

Wow. I know a small boy who makes wonderful complex drawings about how things work that are not as easy to engage with as a human figure with a rainbow in the sky. These drawings require the intricate explanation. I hope the sparkle that is still apparent stays! Wishing you the best in finding an educational solution that you all feel excited and confident about the future again.

[zuzu]

I completley understand where you are coming from. I have a child with special needs (autism) and to the school and education department it is fine if he is 'meeting benchmark' but my kid is super smart and it isn't fine that he simply meets benchmark. He needs to be able to express all that he can think about and all the problems he can solve. He just doesn't fit the mold. So he is babysat at school as no one knows how to educate him. The funny thing is that this kid thinks worlds apart from where the teachers and the bureaucracy are coming from. This kid is an amazing thinker. He just doesn't have the support that he needs to get his ideas out of his head.

[Sue]

Wow.....this sounds like a replay of our son's primary school years. We went through hell....had every test done, special diet, we were told to medicate... and the list goes on. We were perhaps a little naive at the time and thought the teachers had it right! When we were told to Medicate him, that was the last straw, our fight had begun, as we were certainly not going to squash this boy's heart! My story is fairly lengthy so I won't go on...but all I can say is stand up for your boy and what you believe in. Our beautiful,witty,friendly boy is in Yr 9 now and flourishing in his youth. He still has difficulty concentrating on "boring" things, but if presented with something he finds interesting - he excels. He just doesn't fit the education mould! He has extremely supportive parents who were nearly railroaded by the "system" I really feel for those parents who could be put in that same situation.

[Harriet Wakelam]

Thanks everyone - some of your comments were so poignant, and I feel so much better knowing that we're not the only ones - actually, unfortunately this seems to be the norm rather than the exception. I for one am looking forward to doing something about it. Thank you for your thoughts, comments etc.

[Suz]

Ohhhh... this is so sad and scary... I have my own sparkly kids... they have all been lucky to have had some inspiring and open teachers - open to the fact that they are free to explore a range of web "stuff" at home, and free to bring these skills to school and share. I worry with my oldest starting high school, that the love of exploring may be bored out of him... but I will keep encouraging from home. I guess that's sad in a way as I am a secondary teacher... funny situation though as I just did a big survey of how the students at my school found technology, what they would like in a perfect world... As I was working through the responses one little year 7 boy's thoughts hit me as being very mature, and I wrote down his name so I could follow him up. I have had a few chats with him, and he is so excited about showing me what he can do, stuff way beyond my tech skills. Sadly when I mentioned his name to teachers who taught him.... ohhh he is such a naughty boy was the response... hmmmmmm.... naughty or bored out of his tree I wondered... I hope we can change some things, so these disengaged students become reengaged.

[Lyn]

This very frightening story is frustratingly true for all our sparkly children. Conformity is the first lesson to learn at school and conformity is what we take into the workplace. Conformity is rewarded. Non-conformity is punished.

Kindergarten seems to have it right. Lots of encouragement to explore, lots of support to try new things, lots of praise over tiny achievements.
What can we learn from this? What "kindergarten style learning experiences" can we use in other educational environments both formal and non-formal. It should be so simple.
What has happened to take us so far from the learning principles that we know work best? Where so we go from here? How can we make a difference?

[Sandra R]

I have two sons who this story was written about, one 29 and one 34. They haven't recovered. And my daughter has an extra chapter...she refused to attend a year 5 class cos the teacher threw a duster at a kid....I got called up to intervene and make her go back!!!

[David Talamelli]

I am sure this story hits home with a lot of people. I myself have 3 kids under 4 who will all in turn start school over the next few years.

I may be blissfully ignorant at this stage, but I look at all the opportunities for people out there and think that kids can grow up to be anything. The days of going to school to work one job and then retire are gone.

I know the school systems are hampered by funding constraints, I think being involved in a child's education as much as possible will help keep them from losing that sparkle. It won't guarantee success (what ever your definition of that is), but it may help them from tuning out.