Thanks to an ongoing conversation with Peter Gow (much of it conducted in
public, for example http://edtechtalk.com/21cl_90) even I, of the radical
notions, have no disagreement with what you write below. However, what you
describe are elements of school that are completely compatible with a
radically different pedagogy. In other words, we could rip the existing
curriculum-driven teacher-centric pedagogy out of our schools and replace it
with a student-interest-driven project-based pedagogy without losing any of
the vital functions of schools you articulate.
Science Leadership Academy and High Tech High are clear and compelling
examples of schools that combine a high-tech project-based pedagogy and
provide (in spades) a warm, supportive, socializing and cultivating learning
environment. In fact, I would argue that by paying greater attention to the
interests of their students, and reforming their institutions to those
interests rather than requiring students to reform themselves to the
requirements of the insititution, they do a better job of creating the
social environment you describe than many schools using traditional
pedagogy.
The main question posed by my original "music cd' post was not, "Do we need
schools?" It was a call to explore the question that perhaps information
technology is going to increasingly make it clear to students that there are
lots of alternatives to that required collection of songs -so to speak- that
make up the official school curriculum. In other industries, when users have
discovered that they have more choices, they usually start to take advantage
of them.
Fred
- Hide quoted text -
On Sun, Apr 4, 2010 at 8:21 AM, Bassett, Patrick <bassett@nais.org> wrote:
> It's interesting that even the radical notions of the web replacing
> place-based schooling default to a conversation about where students will
> access content, when content is only the raw material and means, not the
> essence of schooling, which for kids, especially, is largely a socializing
> and cultivating process that must happen, at least partly, in the context of
> caring and inspiring adults and pro-social peers, not to mention the place
> where students learn how to team and lead most conveniently, before they'll
> do that remotely in the future.
>
> Cheers.
>
> PFB
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