School is for learning how to live
In their Did You Know?/Shift Happens presentation, Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod write that schools today face the challenge of “preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technologies that haven’t been invented, in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.”
If we recognize the truth of this assertion, we are called upon to organize schools around a different set of principles than E.D. Hirsch had in mind when he wrote his list of things “every second grader needs to know.” Rather than pushing children toward one “right answer,” how can we develop curiosity, creativity, and the wonder of learning? How do we organize environments to support empathy and agency? What would school look like if we start with a strong image of all children as competent, capable, and full of gifts the world needs now?
In this talk, delivered at TEDx West Vancouver ED, Susan Harris MacKay shares how teacher-researchers at Opal School are investigating these questions — and how children are living them. Susan is Director of Teaching and Learning at Portland Children’s Museum, which includes Opal School and the Museum Center for Learning.
In the presentation, Susan encourages all educators to join her in inquiry: How can a pedagogy of play open doors to unimagined possibilities? How can schools be spaces where adults and children learn how to live?
Opal School — a member of the Ashoka Changemaker School Network — has as its mission to strengthen education through provoking fresh ideas concerning conditions where creativity, curiosity, and the wonder of learning thrive. Opal School hopes to be a resource to you and your school as you seek third doors to greater possibilities for learning.
Bio: Matt Karlsen is Administrator of the Museum Center for Learning, which connects the research of Opal School to hungry audiences around the world. Learn more about Opal School and the Center at http://www.portlandcm.org/teaching-and-learning and http://opalschoolblog.typepad.com.
