Question: What if high school wasn’t preparation for real life, instead it was real life?
When we allow kids to see themselves as authentic agents...
When we dare them to ask questions...
Seek out answers...
And build things that matter...
Then...
High school doesn’t suck anymore
When we do all that
we get kids who are encouraged
not just to be workers
but to be citizens empowered to change the world.
Hear more in Chris Lehmann’s TED Talk.
So glad that people are finally questioning why schools focus on children's weaknesses instead of their gifts and interests! Also, hurray for making educational meaningful! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteSounds like a great school he heads up and I'm glad for the very few kids who get to attend. He hits on many of the reasons that high school sucks, but alas, is pretty lean on suggestions that go beyond 'Create a school like ours that is a good place for kids'.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the solution is trying to create better schools, schools like his which don't suck. The solution to encouraging active engaged learners does not lie in fixing "school". We've been trying that with very poor success for a very long time now. Instead, we have to look at Lisa's consistent themes, like passion-driven learning, open access to using 21st C tools, etc. We need to transition from the Age of Schooling to the Age of Learning. We have the tools, we can do this! Let learning go viral. Stop trying to contain it in the petri dishes we call schools, no matter how great the petri dish seems to be.