The brilliant educational thinker, John Dewey, argued that “the purpose of education is to bring meaning to experience,” but discovering and embedding that meaning is not always straightforward. All too often, our ‘learning’ experiences are superficial and temporary: we learning something for a specific purpose, it’s “just in time” and then forgotten. Learning becomes a […]
Tag Archives: Knowledge
What is school for?
I was party to a fascinating discussion with colleagues from the RSA yesterday about the nature of education: asking the basic question – what’s the point of school? Catalysed by the change in UK government, there seems to be a battle between the idea of school being a place for ‘transferring a body of knowledge’ […]
Knowledge is power to do more…
A few months ago I wrote of the growing belief among young people that Google removes the need to know anything. However, it seems that the pursuit of knowledge seems to be on the rise in two very different quarters. Micheal Gove, the UK Education Secretary, in his recently announced review of the National Curriculum, […]
Google Brain
I recently saw this on Facebook: Written by Matthew, an 11 year old boy. He’s not being ironic. It’s an attitude that is permeating society, particularly among the young. In a sense I think Matthew is right. We’ve never had access to such large amounts of information before so the majority of school activity suddenly […]