I visited one of my favourite schools yesterday. I love going there, as it’s a great example of a Learning Commons. A real democratic learning culture, and a restless one at that: one of this year’s innovations is to introduce Yr 7 students to Carol Dweck’s work, so they can get a sense of how they can shift their self-perception. Everyone at this school is a learning researcher, staff and students, and it’s uplifting just to be there.
So, the session I was sitting in on, was a ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ project. Students were tracing their family roots. Many of the students are of Asian origin, so some really rich personal histories being uncovered – yes, I know the new UK history curriculum will probably mean they will have to start at the stone-age and work forwards, not backwards, but let’s not get depressed about that. Some of the students had impressively gone back 4 or more generations already – clearly this work had been pervasive enough to engage their families as well!
The students I was working with included one with the surname of Scrivener. So, I was explaining how names – if you go back far enough – were often associated with occupations, so there was a good chance of there being a writer in the family. He also had Irish roots, and I was explaining the mass emigration caused by the famine. Since there were laptops liberally sprinkled around the place I suggested that they might want to check out ukcensusonline as a great tool to help construct family trees. So, the students excitedly Googled and found the site….. only to have all their searches blocked by the local authority firewall.
What on earth is considered unsuitable for students, in a service of this sort? Teachers, students (and myself) were all frustrated at being denied access to this fantastic history detective kit.
And I thought back to the Tedx London event last Saturday. Many delegates there got very excited at some of the educational apps being demonstrated (including the excellent History Pin). But herein lies the disconnect, and just one of the fields on which the learning revolution has to be fought. Many of the teachers in the room were probably thinking the same thing as me: interesting apps, but over 80% of schools are prevented from using this kind of software, so we need to tear down the preventative walls to learning first, then we can start getting excited about learning apps.. All over the world, well-intentioned administrators working in IT and education departments, are preventing students from accessing phenomenal learning tools. In the name of ‘protection’, we’re preventing learning from happening.
Now, TED has a campaign happening to massively reduce the amount of email we send each other, but wouldn’t a global campaign for a more enlightened, less-paranoid, approach to social media and educational software in schools be a more worthy goal?
In most cases, this is something that schools themselves really need to take ownership of. Wherever a school gets their broadband from (and it’s usually one of the big regional consortium providers), pretty much all providers offer the choice of a one-size-fits-all filtering option (which sucks), or an ‘advanced’ option that allows schools to take their filtering in-house.Coupled with the increased autonomy from Local Authorities that schools are now seeing (especially in the case of Academies etc), this is certainly something that’s doable for most schools.The question is, how do we give schools permission to feel okay about doing this? How do we negate the perceived risk? An OFSTED report that advocated relaxed filtering hasn’t done it, and OFSTED seem to be one of the most credible sources that advice like this could come from. One hope is that as more and more students have access to YouTube and the full internet in their pockets, schools will begin to see just how futile and counterproductive this paranoid approach is – but I wouldn’t bank on it, considering the ‘NO MOBILES’ posters plastered on the walls of schools around the country.There are lots of other things that schools have the power to change, but don’t – like the relentless and senseless use of National Curriculum levels, the use of mobile devices in the classroom, and in the case of Academies, the curriculum itself – but we’re not seeing that happening on a wide scale either…
James,A really thoughtful response, and thanks for your informed comments. I refrained from naming the school, because I wasn’t sure if they had autonomy – I got the impression that the local authority blocked sites fairly comprehensively and schools have to request exemptions. They’re certainly not an academy. Let’s hope that when your book is published (and I hope it’s not marketed as a music-specific book) schools will gain a little more autonomy.I agree wholeheartedly with your comments on academies and the national curriculum – it amazes me how few of them take advantage of the freedom from the constraints of a curriculum that they’re often complaining about!
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