Page 151 - Microsoft Word - The Future of Learning April 2017.docx

Our understanding of our dominance of planet Earth is now affecting the very purpose of education. It is no longer sufficient for each member of this planet to simply contribute to the community that they will live in. Setting far bolder and aspirational goals, underlies the very purpose of global education. Education is no longer simply about being at school for 12–13 years and then venturing into society. We keep making the statement that we need to develop ‘independent, lifelong learners’, but in practice, schools have historically been telling young people what they need to know and later recall that in a test of some form. Unfortunately, this does not prepare young learners with the capability to be ‘independent lifelong learners’.
By now you are probably wondering what those four key reasons are for why we dominate planet Earth are:168
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1. Humans work collaboratively, with trust, in the tens of thousands.169 No other species does this thoughtfully and in such large numbers.
2. We have developed complex language which allows us to talk to our self and others very precisely, using a range of different languages and codex’s (brail, signing, words etc.).
3. Cooking our food allows us the luxury of only having to eat for 40–80 minutes/day, while other species spend most of their day hunting and consuming food. This additional time allows us to build, plan and create, beyond our immediate life sustaining needs.
4. Only humans have all four+1 learning systems, enabling us to form ideas and concepts ‘on the fly’ and make predictions based on those concepts as well as to be creative, and apply that creativity innovatively and ingeniously.
These are currently the four reasons we dominate planet Earth but are these about to change as we shift from an era of scarcity to an era of abundance?...
We need global transformation in education at every level, in every nation, to support the new future economy that is emerging. Collaboration, globalisation, sustainability, technology, innovation, gamification - we need a new education model, from kindergarten to graduate schools ... times have changed, and education has not. So let's get this right.170 James Canton
A transformation in the depth of our understanding of learning is pivotal for every educator and learner within every school as well as our communities, but to achieve this we need to define the purpose of school more clearly. To make the necessary transformational changes in schooling, most educators within the school must desire the transformations that are identified by the school. While this set of changes must be driven by the staff in general, external and internal leadership is critical in ensuring the transformations have substance and are applied with consistency. Evidence must indicate that the changes are meeting the improved outcomes that each school has identified.
Implementing the Learning Process, based on how the brain learns, requires educators to modify how they view the concept of intelligence. Intelligence is no longer the ability to recall facts in an examination room on a specific day, but rather, we now require a far more holistic set of measures that underpin how we act intelligently. Being intelligent is how well we can apply the Learning Process to a wide range of contexts and know when to do that independently or collaboratively.
168 Treadwell, M. (2015) Why we dominate planet Earth—Part 1& 2. Retrieved from: https://mtreadwell.wordpress.com/2015/11/16/why- humans-dominate-planet-earth/ https://mtreadwell.wordpress.com/2015/11/21/why-humans-dominate-planet-earth-part-2/ 169Bloomberg: Interview With Yuval Noah Harari: Masters in Business (2017)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2017-03-17/interview-with-yuval-noah-harari-masters-in-business-audio
170 Canton, J. (2013). e-nnovation (2013) - James Canton || The Extreme Future. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBFKZVNgTXI