To not want to send my DCs to a school where a teacher is a 'guide on the side' and minecraft on the curriculum from Y4?

[Citizen1000]

Children are at a forward thinking, all through school in the 'burbs and I went to talk yesterday that told us iPads will be used daily for the Y4s up and that an educational form of Minecraft will be part of the curriculum too. Pilot schemes have been very popular and we've been told bringing in much more technology earlier will promote IT skills and team work in young children. iPads can be used effectively in the classroom and support for more technology earlier in the classroom is really growing as I see it. I can see that introduced well and used widely it could be a powerful tool. Personally I feel that ideally it would come in when they were older.

We were also told that we should see our child's teacher as a 'guide on the side' and that any form of teaching that was old fashioned, didactic and 'Sage on the stage' was a bad thing. It was explained that the 21st Century is all about putting greater emphasis on cross curricular, interdisciplinary skills and there should be more project type work to promote skills and the various different aptitudes the children might possess. The teacher, we must realise, is there as a deliverer of the curriculum and the 'child is in the middle' who must be appealed to. So higher up the school this means posters in literacy etc. Knowledge apparently can be accessed via technology and rote learning is really an educational anachronism with no merit or value at all.

As I see it by acquiring knowledge in a traditional sense you are also training your mind to focus and concentrate, using your memory and, taught well, by a 'Sage on the stage' (now a very bad thing apparently) developing a capacity to analyse? An expert, a brilliant subject specialist in their field who can inspire in a tried-and-tested centuries old way is to be shunted out in favour of someone who can deliver the curriculum and be more fun for the children. A 'guide' who doesn't really need to be as specialised. There seems to be this total shift away from seeing education as knowledge acquired over time and valuing it for its own sake. It feels to me like there is this growing anti-intellectualism in the UK and in thinking about what might be practical in the 21st century we might be doing our children a disservice? Just curious to see how others feel and if I am being unreasonable and just need to get with the 21st Century accepting that children can just look up what they don't know on the internet? Speaking to others it seems that many who received a traditional classical education themselves often hated it and are seeking something much more fun for their children. Sometimes I wonder if they realise that it was precisely that traditional acquisition of knowledge and classical type of education, so hated, that has enabled them to be as successful as they often are?

[noblegiraffe]

I was told by an Ofsted inspector working as a consultant a couple of years ago that if I used textbooks regularly I should re-evaluate my teaching practice.

If I saw her now I would happily give her this report and tell her where to stick it suggest that she re-evaluate her prejudices.

[killerlego]

I think it sounds great! Times are changing. It's nice to want to live in the past but the fact is that children need to be prepared for a future in which jobs will be heavily technology based as will society. Even things like teaching them handwriting is in a way anachronistic because so few things will be written down in future, it will all be typed (imo). I can't remember the last time I had to use handwriting for something official. It's sad in a way but everything changes and moves on.

[BoyFromTheBigBadCity]

'Guide on the side' - so one of the teachers in your school is so dedicated to young people that they voluntarily give up their time to run activities for kids? What fresh hell is this?

[noblegiraffe]

Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that the talk in the OP also mentioned catering to students different learning styles?

It sounds like the sort of thing they might go for, despite being heavily discredited nonsense.

[Hakluyt]

Another interesting side line from this is our assumption that just because children are very good at using social media, for example, they are also very tech savvy. There was a survey recently in the States- I'll look for it in a minute- which showed that while kids can use technology, their actual understanding of it and their ability to do more than the basics wasn't very good at all. And they had no idea what to do if it went wrong.

[noblegiraffe]

Yes, Hakluyt, there has been a lot of talk lately about the digital native myth.

This article discusses the expectation that kids will learn when presented with technology news.tes.co.uk/b/opinion/2014/09/17/39-the-idea-that-young-people-are-digital-natives-is-a-myth-39.aspx

Also, I teach a lot of secondary kids who might be experts at using Facebook to post photos and videos, but haven't any idea about basics like privacy settings. Then you get the kids who moan that their computer is broken when they haven't even checked that the monitor is switched on.

[BoneyBackJefferson]

skylark2

"I did not become a teacher."

Given the rubbish that you posted this should be seen as a good thing.