Sir Ken Robinson - Bring on the Learning Revolution

In 2006 Sir Ken Robinson shook the educational world with his talk at the TED conference which outlined 'how schools can kill creativity'. In this poignant, funny follow-up to his fabled 2006 talk, Sir Ken makes the case for a radical shift from standardized schools to personalized learning -- creating conditions where kids' natural talents can flourish.

Using a large amount of humour, a series of poignant quotes and references, Sir Ken delivers another powerful session which challenges the process of current education reform. His reference to the general idea that 'successful' educational system is all about getting to 'university' resonates for NZ. His challenge is understanding the way that education feeds and promotes our human community.

Watch out for the bit about about Kindergarten.....

Interesting stuff

I follow the class blogs quite closely and always enjoy the presentations that the teachers and children make to share the things that they are doing at school. Kirsten Berry and Room 22 has been doing some great stuff lately and by visiting their class blog you can see the extension that the children have involved in as they enter the last term of the year. I found the Dangle experience a stunning piece of work and their logging of their new Innovation unit really exciting. Clearly the kids are engaged, finding things enjoyable and being the best that they can be. Barbara has been recording our new entrants first days at school in slideshows. This is a nice record for all the families can enjoy. Starting school can be a daunting experience for a 5 year old but when you see them in the blogs then you can see the kids are pretty happy to be at Muritai.

Wednesday's in the classroom

During the holidays I attended the New Zealand Principal's conference. Keynote speaker Malachai Pancost urged us to set aside a day a week to work with the children and the teachers during the process of learning. This term I have been out and about on Wednesdays. Today I enjoyed my time in the junior school. A neat thing that I saw was buddy classes - room 4 and room 11, split in half and were doing some buddy maths together. This was because of Maths week and gave an an excellent opportunity for the older children to explain the maths and for the younger children to understand the maths. Check out Karen's and Hayley's blogs to get closer to the action on these splits. I was also involved in working with groups, creating paper planes, conferencing writing, listening to reading and developing questions with children. I had a great time and felt really useful. I'm really impressed with the teaching and learning going on in the classrooms. Very proud to be Principal of this school.