Episode 2. Lines of Desire.

Rose Luckin hit the nail on the head this week in the second part of our debate on the sustainability of the classroom and school in our modern world. The episode is available as a podcast here.

Rose talked of Lines of Desire, an architectural term describing the way people will find a way to navigate themselves to a certain position if they want to get there. Rose likened this to the holy grail of education, that there are many avenues to reach it, and they alter as we develop and mature. But what if our sense of direction is maimed by the education system we grow up in. Listen to the debate as it widens out, with Ian Cunningham, Fred Garnett, Rose Luckin and the host Phil Viner.

The Learning Agreement

In the first episode of All the World's a Classroom, Professor Ian Cunningham talks a little about his practice of creating a learning agreement with his students. I was curious about this so asked him to elaborate and produced this short 6-minute podcast. The idea is to ally the student and teacher/facilitator in a common quest and to build not only a short term agenda, but a long term strategy for learning. The basis for this are key questions - Where have you been? (what past experiences have built up the student's world view) Where are you now? Where do you want to go? (what are the students thoughts about their life and career).
Then once this has been discussed the final 2 questions really jumped out at me as entirely missed by most educational models: How do we push this forward in your entire life and How will this make you happy and fulfilled? This belief in learning being fun and joyful is such a breath of fresh air in a world where results and league tables seem all important and all powerful, and empowers both the student and teacher to grasp the nettle of learning and make it all about today - not about merely preparation for the future. Listen to Ian's thoughts on the podcast, I think that while he uses this approach with students that are outside of the school environment, it could and should be used with all students to give them a sense of ownership around their learning.

All the World's a Classroom

Well, after two trial posts I can finally announce that All the World's a Classroom, the Oneword radio education debate show is here! Hosted and produced by Phil Viner, developer of the SmartPass Education system, the first episode premieres on Friday November 2nd at 9am. You can catch it on freeview, cable or satellite TV, digital radio or on the internet. The show is also being podcast so you can download them all and hear them any time.

The series kicks off with a debate featuring Rose Luckin, Professor of learner centred design at the London knowledge lab (part of the Institute of Education), Fred Garnett, an expert in community learning and social inclusion and Professor Ian Cunningham, founder of the South Downs Learning Centre.

The intention of this blog is to build on the ideas and thoughts raised in the show and to contribute to future episodes -so please leave your thoughts and comments here and I will respond to them and include them later in the series.