Tuesday, March 12, 2013

A bit of a rant! Assessment, factory vs agricultural model


 “A thing cannot be weighed in a scale
scale incapable of containing it.” –Thomas B. Aldrich

This quote is weighing heavily on my mind; is my mind able to contain it? Human potential cannot be accurately predicted by even the most ‘advanced’ techniques. Intelligence is not finite or stationary; this moment’s assessment is valid only for this moment.

I have summarized some comments from Sir Ken Robinson; I agree with his sentiments; “We must change the metaphor of education. Eliminate the manufacturing or industrial or factory model that promotes linearity/conforming/batching of people. We must change to an agricultural model. Human flourishing is not a mechanical process; it is organic. “You cannot predict the outcome of human development, all you can do, like a farmer, is create the conditions under which they will begin to flourish.” Reform and transform education by customizing it to your circumstances. Personalize education to the people you are actually teaching, create a movement in education in which people develop their own solutions with external help based on a personalized curriculum.”

I read the latest educational research and attend the conferences and hear the rhetoric and statistics supporting the move away from the industrial model but, after more than three decades as an educator, I have seen miniscule movement in the right direction that actually reaches the children. Why? When we know the truth, why won’t we let it set us free?








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