This document summarizes a presentation given by Dr. Alan Bruce at the EDEN Open Classroom Conference in Athens. In 3 sentences:
Dr. Bruce discusses the challenges facing education including outdated school models, economic crisis, and ensuring education remains relevant. He argues that reform is needed to re-examine assumptions about education, challenge power structures, and take advantage of technological potential. Dr. Bruce advocates for innovation, creativity, and transforming education systems through collaborative leadership focused on excellence.
3. Contours of crisis
Schooling at the crossroads: the
obsolete template and the 21st century
Economic meltdown: globalization and
neo-liberal ascendancy
Seeking vision: significance, relevance,
meaning
Technological Tantalus: ICT,
communications and potential
Innovation imperatives
4. Method and rationale
Need to:
re-visit key questions on purpose and
reason for education and schooling
question assumptions and
presuppositions underlying knowledge
transmission systems
investigate power, access and control
challenge strategic policy directions
assert transformative potential of ICT
5. Gauguin’s question: 1
Psychoanalytic: Erikson in Childhood and
Society
Philosophy: purpose, value and social
utility
History: the development of institutions and
the politics of control
Sociology: Rousseau to Illich and the
shaping of systems
Pedagogical: learning to learn and
exponential change
6. Gauguin’s question: 2
Autonomous learner or social being
Critical thinker or passive recipient
Empowered or victim
Production, autonomy and control
Citizenship, economy and rights
Emancipatory dialectic or return to
barbarism (Kargartlitsky)
7. Gauguin’s questions: 3
Proclaiming excellence in chaos
Setting strategic goals in times of
uncertainty
Purpose and meaning in the learning
matrix
Creating and sustaining value
Shaping potential and defining hope
The courage to challenge
8. The impact of change
The old world is dying.
The new world struggles to be born.
Now is the time of monsters. Antonio Gramsci
9. Change dynamics
Sustained and systemic
Accelerating
Multidimensional and simultaneous
Structural incapacity to incorporate
required modifications and adjustments
Deep uncertainty in terms of future
options
Unprecedented levels of challenge
10. Globalization as norm
Flexible structures and modalities
Ever-increasing emphasis on
competitiveness
Ruthless focus on profitability
Ruptured communities and helpless
individuals
Structural imbalances
Limitless opportunities
11. Globalized work
End of job norms – flexible multitasking
to meet market transformation
Shifting production patterns
Outsourcing and permanent migration
Knowledge economy and lifelong
learning
Adaptability and creativity
Concentrated wealth, access and power
12. Globalization: the threats
Persistence and increase in inequality
Permanent hopelessness of excluded
Embedded violence
Internal underclass
External invisibility
13. Globalization: the opportunities
Time warp of nation state
Integration and participation
Learning without borders
Global communication and
dissemination of knowledge
‘Collective effort not collective
answers’ (Therborn)
14. Impact of crisis
End of certainties
Explosive social tensions
Systemic policy paralysis
Spiraling indebtedness
Rupture with past assumptions on linear
progress
Inadequacy of traditional learning and
schooling systems to meet new needs
16. The future is now…
Potential provision of universal
schooling is now realized
Internationalization is the norm
Technology is pervasive but unevenly
accessible or applied
‘Flexibility’: weapon or tool?
Entrepreneur: leader or false god?
Policy: shaping or copying?
18. Leadbetter’s insights
Critical issue of motivation (extrinsic and
intrinsic)
Centrality of innovation
Instilling purpose:
education + technology = hope
19. Defining directions
Excellence
Innovation
Leadership
System change
Reform
„The chemistry of widespread
improvement‟ (Michael Fullan)
20. Comparative analysis
(McKinsey 2010) – 20 countries
Key interventions:
1. Revise curriculum and standards
2. Set appropriate pay for teachers/principals
3. Enhance technical skills for teachers
4. Improve student assessment systems
5. Quality data systems
6. Improve policy and laws
21. Evidence of improvement
Pattern of improvement is independent
of geography, times or culture
Interventions are mutually reinforcing
Collaborative practice works best
There must be an architecture of
leadership
22. Michael Fullan 2010
The power of collective capacity is that it
enables ordinary people to accomplish
extraordinary things – for two reasons.
One is that knowledge about effective
practice becomes more widely available
and accessible on a daily basis. The
second reason is more powerful still –
working together generates commitment.
23. Developing school
leadership
OECD 2008:
Support, evaluate and develop teacher
quality
Goal setting, assessment and
accountability
Strategic financial and HR management
Collaboration with other schools
24. Reactions to crisis
Effort to establish status quo ante
Denial and paralysis
Rage and frustration
Cut, cut and cut: the marketization of
thought
Copy ‘success’ stories
Opportunity to learn: the innovation
imperative
Creativity unbound
25. From crisis to renewal
“School systems that have successfully
ignited reforms and sustained their
momentum have all relied on at least one of
three events to get them started:
they have either taken advantage of a
political or economic crisis,
or commissioned a high-profile report
critical of the system‟s performance,
or have appointed a new, energetic and
visionary political or strategic leader.”
McKinsey 2010
26. Innovation
Holy Grail of crisis resolution
Imperative for future restructuring
Linked centrally to:
policy
knowledge production
information explosion
ownership
27. Constraining innovation
Commodification of knowledge
Institutional resistance
Reward, patents and ownership
Community resistance
Outcomes and results
Incremental and disruptive dimensions
Planning for innovation?
28. Creativity and ICEAC Study
(IPTS 2011)
Form of knowledge creation
Product or process that demonstrates
balance of originality and value
A thinking skill
Ability to make unforeseen connections
Based on learner empowerment
Innovative teaching supports creative
learning
29. Creativity and innovation:
finding evidence
Conceptualized in different ways even if
universally mentioned
Teachers: 91% agree ICT enhances creativity
Theory stronger than practice:
Only 46% of teachers use play
Only 41% use multidisciplinary work
Only 50% believe creativity can be assessed
Only 58% had training in ICT classroom use
Only 25% claim ICT quality in their schools is
excellent
30. Creativity: stakeholder evidence
Expert perceptions of rigidity and
inflexibility on curricula and assessment
Institutional resistance to change: ethos
of control, discipline and hierarchy
Innovation only exists in pockets – not
generalized
Mindset shift critical
ICT quality use suggests partnership
with students, not authoritarian control
31. Creativity: conclusions
Curricula: holistic, supported and
exploratory
Pedagogic practices: not rigid and inflexible
Assessment: impact of central exams
Teacher training: need for CPD, guidance,
vision, exchanges
Culture: leadership, tolerance and diversity
Technology: vast potential
32. The Creanova project (2008-11)
Key findings: school and work
Collaborative learning
Experimental design
Innovation as policy
Discovering Vision 2010
33. Embedding creativity
Organic, reflective evaluative follow-up
Analysis and modification
Lasting partnerships between research
units and schools
Labor market transformation impact
Organic link to work and community
Professional passion - out of the strait-
jacket
35. Mapping vision
Re-appropriate a sense of human values and
personal worth
Re-envisage purpose and intention of learning
Accept the full impact of globalized society
Multidimensional futures
Stratification has an impact
Learning is not simply learning: it is
communication
Instilling awareness that change is possible,
alternatives are viable
37. Shared challenges
Demographic changes: ageing and life
expectancy
Women and labor market participation
Immigration
Cultural and religious difference
Conflict and stress
Hyper-urbanization
38. Shared opportunities
Increased application of new knowledge
Open and distance learning
technologies facilitating learners and
staff competence
Transformation of traditional teaching
role to mentoring, guiding and facilitation
Development of network of innovative
best practice at European level
39. Solutions are possible
Regeneration and renewal
Restructuring based on quality,
meritocracy, equal opportunities
Processes that trigger innovation,
creativity, initiative
Diamatopolou 2011
40. From science to wisdom
The strangeness of reality consistently exceeds
the expectations of science, and the
assumptions of science, however tried and
rational, are very inclined to encourage false
expectations. It is a tribute to the brilliance of
science that we can know such things. And it
is also an illustration of the fact that science
does not foreclose possibility, including
discoveries that overturn very fundamental
assumptions, and that it is not a final
statement about reality but a highly fruitful
mode of inquiry into it.
Marilynne Robinson, Absence of Mind (2010)
41. Charting vision
Courage and leadership
Collaborative engagement
Imagining the impossible
Asserting rights
Access and inclusion
Redefined roles – end of the factory
school
Community and transformation
43. Directions
Innovation based on questions, not
answers: avoiding mantras and clichés
The poetry of open discovery and delight
Constructing schools as critical spaces
Connecting science and discovery through
technologies of emancipatory practice
Rediscovering community in a fractured
continent