Learning with pleasure

“Every child can learn.?Just not on the same day or in the same way.” - George Evans

Many countries, have experienced a ‘perfect storm’ as the education paradigm has been forced to change from examinations to on-line and the trusting of student evidence of learning and teacher predictions of grades as a result of the COViD pandemic. Grades still however dominate life decisions.

The time has never been better in creating learning environments that motivate by providing learners with a sense of control over their learning and sparking interest and curiosity where learning is aligned with their interests and long-term aspirations.

?A focus on learning rather than performance, providing learners with the ability to monitor the progress they are making – for they own their learning!

Experiential learning including school partnerships with the business sector and other non-education bodies provide young learners with practical, real-world experience and problem solving.

A real assessment of the young learners’ ability to use their knowledge, should be the learners’ ability to apply what they have learned to real-life situations. Hence, the ideal assessment should be creative, integrative, practical, and collaborative.

Every area of learning should be designed to contribute to a young learner’s broad education by developing area of learning knowledge and understandings, skills in applying knowledge, as well as relevant personal attributes.?

There is discontent amongst the youth of in many education systems as they fall behind in training for the 21st Century and find the curriculum not relevant to their life styles.

Today’s young learners are living in a period of rapid, ongoing change and growing social fragmentation. Through the media, including social media, they are exposed directly to the details of global terrorism and violence. They are witnessing increasing public cynicism about traditional institutions, including religious and political institutions and their leaders; the erosion of traditional values; growing questioning of ‘truth’; and the emergence of ‘fake news’.

Many are concerned about environmental sustainability, social inequalities and the future, and large numbers of today’s young learners are exposed to the realities of substance abuse, easy access to age-inappropriate online content, and cyber-bullying.

Parental anxiety and the addictive nature of technology have led many young people to become more isolated, more anxious, and less social.?

These rapid societal changes create the need to reform educational systems in terms of improved conditions for school life, modern ways of learning, new school subjects, upgraded infrastructure and a revised curriculum.

A greater local decision-making process in relation to the school curriculum with teachers and schools being able to decide what they teach and when they teach it improves relevance and motivation as well as learner performance focusing curriculum on creativity and entrepreneurialism. ?For example, in China the central government now provides an overall vision and framework within which local governments and schools develop more detailed implementation plans, including locally developed courses tailored to young learner needs.?They are driving ahead in innovation.

Teachers are trained in education. ?It would not take long to change the from a teacher-centred content driven curriculum to a learner-centred personalised approach ensuring every young learner makes ongoing progress through self, peer, and teacher assessment, providing guiding the learner to the next steps they need to take on their learning journey and uncapping their innate learning style and giftedness.

Within a clear framework of expectations, it is time that teachers are given inclusive flexibility to decide what to teach, when and how to teach it, and how much time to spend teaching it.

Self-assessments encourage young learners’ sense of autonomy and control over their own learning and provide opportunities for metacognitive behaviours such as goal setting and monitoring learning progress, including the ability to reflect on long-term improvements.

Learning is successful when learning goals are clear and achievable on relatively short timelines; when these goals are at an appropriate level of challenge and young learners are given regular feedback on what they need to do next; when young learners have positive self-belief of their ability to learn, encouraged by evidence of the long-term progress they are making.

Initial teacher education programs overlooked by the Teacher Training schools could be delegated to the professionals who are trained to inspire learners, who can provide targeted teaching that challenges and extends, that ignites passion.

Perhaps the perfect storm is the time to allow the professionals to lead the learning and the new generation?