Learning and Passion
I titled the category for these recent posts “Teaching,” but I could just as easily titled it “Learning,” as how we teach is greatly shaped by how we believe people learn. In recent years, significant research has demonstrated that we do our best learning when our deepest passion and sense of calling is engages. Among other things, this research argues against employing a model of education shaped by standardized testing – which has little to nothing to do with unique gifts and interests – toward a more personalized, student-centered approach to learning.
Of course, attention to the question of how we learn is not the only thing that shapes how we teach or, for that matter, the kind of educational system we create. Seth Godin and Ken Robinson, in particular, have argued that the educational system adopted in the U.S. was largely shaped by the need to supply assembly lines and factories with workers. But that system is now floundering, in some measure because the kinds of employees and citizens we need has changed. As the challenges facing us – as individuals, communities, and even as a species – grow more complex, we increasingly need an educational system that trains us to be remarkably more creative than our present system of education promotes.
In this TEDTalk, Ken Robinson ties these two ideas together – 1) what we are learn should shape how we teach and 2) our need for a new paradigm in education – with his characteristic insight and good humor.
If you like his work (which I do), you should also pick up John SeelyBrown and Douglas Thomas’ book “A new culture of learning.” I’ve been trying to get us to read it at school, so far to no avail.
I went to order it on Amazon and discovered I already bought it! (I thought that cover looked familiar!) Now I just need to read it. 🙂 Thanks for the encouragement to do so, Mary!