This photo is from my class in 1994. 38 year 5 and 6 students. One teacher.
We were learning logo, a coding language. Forward 3, Right 90, Back 5. The turtle was the cursor on the screen that you could programme to move. Seymour Papert designed a real robot turtle that responded to the programme, but they were scarce. If you look closely there is a crayon taped to the end of the ruler. That was our turtle and our feet were what moved backwards and forwards.
I would have done anything for a turtle or a sphero. They weren't invented in 1994.
Here is the thing, underpinning the cute Spheros, fancy robots, and bee bots of 2018, is the same thinking that we used without them in the 1990's. My learners brains still got a workout. New is not necessarily better. The thinking is the same. Our kids have never known life without computers. Has the system by which we teach learning changed or is it still the same?
A Paradigm shift is a time when the usual and accepted way of doing or thinking about something changes completely.
I listened as Ali Carr-Chellman shared parts of her Ted Talk at the Energise conference last week. I totally admire her disruptive ideas, in fact agree with her. The problem I see is she is trying to make change within a system that is very traditional. A system that hasn't changed for centuries in America. So while she does amazing work and while others like her disrupt education, the system stays the same.
What we need is a complete system change.
What should we do?
Stop doing some things we have always done just because we've always done them.
Lets face it, if it doesn't work, or hasn't worked then why would we think by some miracle it might work now? Is it because the people who hold power, are the ones that it works for? With the rapid development of technology, I don't think it will work for much longer. Can we begin to think of others, those diverse, marginalised, culturally diverse? Can we not appreciate, value and see success through their eyes? Can we see ourselves not as individuals but as a collective, a community, intricately connected? If we work together, collaboratively, society can change.
I have been reflecting on the learning through play facebook page and the reason I started it. At the time, 2.5 years a go I had begun play based learning but I knew no other primary school using this. I wanted to trial this idea of learning by using play. I felt like an adventurer sometimes courageous, but also scared of what people might think, of failing the children and parents. I didn't know if it would work.... but I had a leader who listened. A leader who believed in my idea, supported, resourced, released me to give play in the primary classroom a go. The facebook page became the fuel to keep me going. It was a timely, practical way of gaining encouragement, support and ideas to keep going. It was a innovative thinking tool. I am forever grateful for this online community and committed to keeping it going for others.
Often times, leaders are scared of new things. Sometimes, new things are dressed up as new but really old. That is the funny thing.... the back to the future thing.... play has been around forever. Watch a baby learn to walk (no learning objective, WALT or lesson plan). Read Peter Grey's "free to learn" The idea of play is not new, however, why and how we use play in education needs to change. It can be leveraged to support innovation.
Innovation, the introduction of something new. Innovation a driver of change.
What will we do with the Spheros? Will they lead to new opportunities for Ākonga to learn in different ways, individual specific and engaged? Or will they be applied with a narrow range of outcomes? Will we focus on ideas, thinking, and innovation in education? Will we back our ideas with a budget? Will we allow teachers to learn through mistakes, to adapt, pivot, and change?
Collaboration, a driver of change. Will we actually use it? Will we be patient while our teams go through the dip of new learning?
Will we trust our learners? Will we let them innovate on their online world? Will we let them develop at different rates, supporting diversification.
Seymour Papert had this to say about education “Nothing bothers me more than when people criticize my criticism of school by telling me that schools are not just places to learn maths and spelling, they are places where children learn a vaguely defined thing called socialization. I know. I think schools generally do an effective and terribly damaging job of teaching children to be infantile, dependent, intellectually dishonest, passive and disrespectful to their own developmental capacities.”
― Seymour Papert
For me play represents a paradigm shift in education.
It looks so disorganised, disruptive, and pointless, so opposite to what most people think learning should be with neat books, lines of pencil-written words, spelling words copied ten times over, children in neat lines walking like clockwork, teachers speaking endless words. But Play. Play is innovation. Play is the very essence of learning. It is the very meaning of change. It could change a system!
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