On the right track in Chicago. Chicago was once called the worst school district in the United States. Today, though, high school graduation rates there are rising, as are ACT scores, GPAs, and the number of students enrolled in AP courses. And gains in elementary test scores outpace national averages. I recently visited Chicago—and a high school that has gone from one of its worst to one of its best—to see what was behind the city’s turnaround. I heard many theories to explain Chicago’s progress, including teacher training, better accountability, a longer school day, and demographic changes. What impressed me most is how the city’s schools have worked together to use evidence-based research to measure and improve their performance.
Let me share an example of what I’m talking about. Back in the early 2000s, University of Chicago researchers discovered how critical the first year of high school is in a student’s academic career. But that’s not the end of the story. NCS connects a network of 17 high schools in Chicago. Opinion | Kids, Would You Please Start Fighting? Are Today's Youth Less Creative & Imaginative? It sounds like the complaint of a jaded adult: Kids these days are narrow-minded and just not as creative as they used to be. But researchers say they are finding exactly that. In a 2010 study of about 300,000 creativity tests going back to the 1970s, Kyung Hee Kim, a creativity researcher at the College of William and Mary, found creativity has decreased among American children in recent years. Since 1990, children have become less able to produce unique and unusual ideas. They are also less humorous, less imaginative and less able to elaborate on ideas, Kim said. Has modern society really extinguished the creative spark among our youth?
Experts say creativity is innate, so it can't really be lost. "It's not that creativity can necessarily disappear," said Ron Beghetto, an education psychologist at the University of Oregon. But the situation is not hopeless, Beghetto said. Experts agree changes can be made in the classroom to cultivate creativity. No child gets ahead Time to play. Everyone is born creative, but it is educated out of us at school | Media Network. Whenever I hear the phrase “creative industries” I’m always surprised. I ask myself, are there any uncreative industries? If so, how do they survive? Why aren’t they in a museum, next to the dodo? The world is changing at such a blistering pace that businesses without creativity at their core are doomed.
Innovate or die is not just a slogan, it’s a vital truth. We need to do two things to address this. We are not talking about high art, but empowering people to use their imagination. Young children fizz with ideas. We spend our childhoods being taught the artificial skill of passing exams. The sad truth is that schools were never designed to produce creativity. The system worked well for blue-collar workers – people who clocked in at factories and stood on production lines making things such as automobile engines.
One reason Silicon Valley is doing all the invention, I suspect, is because it’s populated by kids who slipped through the net. Why the Human-Machine Partnership Is Key to Understanding the Future of Work. Council Post: It's Time To Reskill The Marketing Workforce. The advent of new technologies in the digital age is rapidly changing the face of work, leaving some workers without a place in the job market. Many companies are beginning to realize that their current workforce lacks the skills necessary to sustain business through the next decade. In a recent report, the World Economic Forum claimed that 35% of the skills needed for jobs, regardless of the industry, will change by 2020.
That does not leave much time to reskill the workforce to meet the changing needs, worrying many CEOs. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) surveyed CEOs globally and found that 38% are extremely concerned about the availability of a workforce possessing these key skills and see it as a threat to the growth and sustainability of their business. From my perspective, in the world of marketing, innovations in data science and machine learning are changing the skill set required for marketers. What does this mean for companies and employees? What should companies do? 10 ways to foster kindness and empathy in kids. Growth of Public Montessori in the United States: 1975-2014 - National Center for Montessori in the Public Sector.
Public Montessori schools on the rise across South Carolina | News. Children And Anxiety: The Future of Education. Teachers need to be comfortable talking about feelings. This is part of teaching emotional literacy—a set of skills we can all develop, including the ability to read, understand and respond appropriately to one’s own emotions and the emotions of others - Daniel Goleman Children are experiencing more anxiety in the classroom than ever before. The New York Times reported that anxiety overtook depression as the number one reason college students sought counseling (October, 2017). The National Education Association (NEA) reported in March of this year (2018) that anxiety has reached epidemic levels in schools from kindergarten up to college across the United States. Article continues after advertisement Understanding Anxiety Anxiety is defined as “a feeling of worry, nervousness or unease about something with an uncertain outcome” per the Oxford Living Dictionaries.
Anxiety Reduction Strategies Story-telling: Sitting in Mrs. The Future of Education (c) Copyright by Maureen Healy, 2018. Empathy, failure, and the importance of play | Bridgeable. The Top 15 Kids' Dream Jobs. Children at risk of losing creative streaks without free play, expert claims. Opportunities for children to indulge their creativity are dwindling as a result of a lack of imaginative playtime, a leading social scientist has claimed. Mark Stevenson predicted children might find themselves unable to develop certain aspects of innovative thinking and creativity because of an absence of unscheduled playtime – otherwise known as "free play". Mr Stevenson was reacting to a study of 2,000 UK parents that found one in five children follow structured extra-curricular routines, leaving little time for imaginative play. We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. From 15p €0.18 $0.18 $0.27 a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras.
The research, commissioned by Petits Filous, also revealed eight in 10 parents recognise the benefits of imaginative play, with nearly half of children earmarking a simple cardboard box as their favourite playtime object. Mr Stevenson added: “This is about reclaiming one of the bedrocks of creativity and innovation – free play. Voice, Participation, and Agency - Childhood Studies. This subject area is broad and essentially encompasses three distinct elements: participation, voice, and agency; so books that give a complete overview are rare. Participation and voice are still contested concepts in some quarters, and new readers looking for balance need to choose texts that offer diverse outlooks, as well as general overview properties. Of those that are available, the most comprehensive is Percy-Smith and Thomas 2010 because of its global range and its eclectic mix of perspectives; but it does assume some prior knowledge and therefore not recommended as a starter text.
A good place to start is Lansdown 2001, which provides an excellent rationale for children’s participation in very accessible language suitable for both practitioners and academics. Or, for a methods base, start with Johnson, et al. 1998. James, et al. 2010 is essential reading for understanding the background leading up to the evolution of participation agendas. Year 2013 — Volume 7 — Issue 14 | JUAL. The Challenges and Benefits of Unschooling, According to 232 Families Who Have Chosen that Route Pages: 1-27 Abstract Unschooling families (families that don’t send their children to school and don’t school them at home) were invited to participate in a survey about their unschooling practices. Two hundred and thirty two self-identified unschooling families, with at least one child over five years old, completed and returned the questionnaire.
Qualitative analyses revealed considerable variability in the routes to unschooling and in the ways in which the parents saw themselves as involved in their children’s education. The biggest challenge expressed was that of overcoming feelings of criticism, or social pressure, that came from others who disapproved and from their own culturally-ingrained, habitual ways of thinking about education. v72141 Unschooling, Then and Now Pages: 28-71 v72142 The Case Against Learning In School With Evidence From Video Game Studies Pages: 72-91 v72143 v72144.
A Survey of Grown Unschoolers I: Overview of Findings. Source: article continues after advertisementIn a study that preceded the one to be described here, my colleague Gina Riley and I surveyed parents in unschooling families—that is, in families where the children did not go to school and were not homeschooled in any curriculum-based way, but instead were allowed to take charge of their own education. The call for participants for that study was posted, in September, 2011, on my blog (here) and on various other websites, and a total of 232 families who met our criteria for participation responded and filled out the questionnaire. Most respondents were mothers, only 9 were fathers. In that study we asked questions about their reasons for unschooling, the pathways by which they came to unschooling, and the major benefits and challenges of unschooling in their experience. The results of that survey led us to wonder how those who are unschooled, as opposed to their parents, feel about the unschooling experience.
“Unschooling is not schooling. Why Unschoolers Grow Up to Be Entrepreneurs. The Critical 21st Century Skills Every Student Needs and Why. Editor’s note: This is a slightly updated reprint of one of our most popular articles on the 21st-century skills students need for life beyond the classroom, and why they are important. Preparing a child for the world that doesn’t yet exist is not an easy task for any teacher. Step back and look at that picture from a broad perspective.
What are the critical 21st-century skills every student needs to survive and succeed in our world? What abilities and traits will serve them in a time that’s changing and developing so rapidly? They want to be challenged and inspired in their learning. How Are Educators Responding? The New Zealand Ministry of Education defines five key competencies for living and lifelong learning listed below: ThinkingUsing language, symbols, and textManaging selfRelating to othersParticipating and contributing The International Baccalaureate is a non-profit educational foundation created in 1968.
Problem solving Download the FREE Solution Fluency QuickStart Guide Creativity. Why homeschooling is the smartest way to teach kids today. What Is the Future of Homeschooling? REENVISIONED. 5 million jobs to be lost by 2020. We are seeing an era of unprecedented change in the way we work. Rapid advancements in the fields of technology, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, and in how we create things, such as robotics, nanotechnology, 3D printing and biotechnology, will dramatically change the characteristics of the global workforce.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is changing the workplace fast, and we will need to adapt our skills to be ready for it. What will happen to jobs? According to the Forum’s Future of Jobs report, some jobs will be wiped out, others will be in high demand, but all in all, around 5 million jobs will be lost. Already jobs exist now that had never been heard of five years ago: the role of data scientist, which is in huge demand, is one example. Other jobs will start to require skills not previously associated with them. Those working in sales or manufacturing, for instance, will need a better grasp of technology, thanks to the advent of the internet of things. Share.