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TEDx Talks
Published: 2014-11-20
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMxqEkg3wQ0
I hated school the violence the bullying the data they put downs it is almost as much as I could take and that was from the stuff and I'm not joking about that it's my contention that secondary school at least only works for approximately a third of all students and I'm not from my mint suggesting that they maximizing their lending potential but they do learn to play
the game and as a result of that they generally have positive relationships we'd stop and they peers and they and they learn some skills and honestly they end up in Korea is and in courses that they're moderately happy with all happy with for the middle third dive it's a pretty average out come these kids don't get a lot out of their education but nor did I
put a lot in either the the chronically under invested and they worked out fairly quickly that skills that they have and not those that are valued by the school but for the final third it's a pretty disastrous outcome they are the console won't play the game and as a result of that their relationships with this stuff %HESITATION %HESITATION densely fairly terrible they often died develop the
skills that they need and I certainly don't find their passions walls there at school now my question to die is handed we let's learning get that bad something that in in their formative years was something that was exciting and you and we turned it into something that was so bad that we now have to measure attendance at school we can't even get them to come and
sit next to their friends and learn together much less get them to actively involve themselves in a class now part of that is actually the teacher's fault okay and I know take just try really hard and I'm not bagging the many why but the reality is that most teachers come from the top third a third for which school made sense by knew the rules and then
ended up in that Korea and that can be a problem because they don't really understand how the rest of us think and work and our experience of school for a lot of students going to school is like getting on a bus thirty students get on the teacher is James their rightful position at the front of the class they take the role and they set off and
they set off at a blinding speed and they can basically they're driving along they making great time a little history on the ride a little pie Sager is on the left but I'm sorry we can't stop because we've got a schedule to Cape to now the problem is some kid decides mob that they could jump out of the moving bus circle it several times and jump
back on for others there in fact I've missed some sort of into connecting stop several stops a guy and yet they the education system marches on temples now my question to you is what if we were to enable students to design and control their own education what if instead of doing education to students we are actually allowed them to use the stuff and the school and
the wider community to manage and design their own education now at temple state college latte say's it's become nine we're very proud to be a Victorian government public school we're very proud of that fact and we comprise at approximately six hundred young people I aged between the ages of twelve and I tame and approximately seventy staff and volunteers and that they say we encourage students Dr
their own landing and to manage their own education so what does that what does that actually look like will we have a saying that yes is the default so the first thing about that is if any stop student or parent has a suggestion or a request the answer has to be yes in less it would take too much time too much money or negatively impact on
somebody else and so I have a young boy called Josh and Josh's passion was physics but he was in year seven and he said I want to sit in the back of the year twelve physics class and we said well let's apply the taste it wasn't gonna take us any time it wasn't gonna take us any money could it negatively impact on somebody else well the
answer is yes because if Josh had actually done the intervening five years of science he might have the answers to the questions that he wanted to ask the teacher so we said just you can be in the class you just kind ask any questions you can do your own research on the internet we can get you a cheetah or you can ask your teacher after class
but you just can't ask any questions so a couple of weeks and I went and saw Josh and the rest of his class and I spoke to a few individuals and I said look what's it like having this it'll Feller in your class and they said well it's a bit we it and I said why is that and they said because he knows more than waiter
so the following year we enrolled just formally in year eleven but his time table lined up beta with that of you non so I just became a year right enrolled in you know I'm studying your eleven having done you twelve in you seven as you can say it was becoming a little confusing for all concerned particularly the photographers where do I go now as their students
have increasingly taken control of their own landing we've been forced to examine and remove a lot of those structural things that we associate with traditional education and a lot of them to be honest we going why are we doing that and a lot of them are just adding to the rigidity of the system now at teh say we want to be a supportive community empowering students
to manage their individualized learning and ten all their ideas into reality but what does that actually look like well first stop and students determine what Thailand so once they've established their basic literacy and numeracy which my students do within the first twelve months at the school they get to do it to select all the subjects one hundred percent of big coal slide they decide from more
than one hundred twenty electives and that's part of an individualized landing planned that each student has that they devise with the assistance of their parents and there is some support provided by the school but the bulk of that work in developing that foggy individualized learning plan is done by the student with the support of their parents a few years ago we actually ask their students if
you could study anything in the world what would it be anything what do you think the top response was and here it how you doing now if they wanted to designed computer games now that was smart enough to know who is a little bit more you know little bit less than cutting but I was smart enough to know that if they if they proposed playing computer
games that they wanted to land that that might not fly but designing them that might fly and so we started at the fist of L. computer gaming design classes we also have a working with animals selective and we have that right alpacas sheep goats snakes lizards fish birds and insects all of which students manage we have a subject Colgate studies it's probably an unusual audience I
think I would have to run more gigs studies classes here and this is a young fellow by the name of save yeah he is perhaps the next able scientist %HESITATION but we're trying to encourage him to use his talents for good here's a here's I designed the Tesla coil which you see him standing there with a big switch which is ready to throw it was originally
out Pat would buy beer bottle capacity is %HESITATION filled with salt water it'll generate a two million volt lightning strike we have to operate in a Faraday cage because it was playing havoc with enrollment numbers we have Aaron pen the cultic gotten we have a thing called coffee club in the young girl that you say they had I missed out she's a professional barista she is
done external training in this qualified she is employed by two can take that to have that coffee club manages %HESITATION Jason my Kyla and they employ a number of stuff during a lunch time usually around seven they're all paid employees by Mike a very main coffee and they provide takes one of the maven employees a busca student basket to add to the ambience of the at
the coffee club now I think the remarkable thing about this is that none of the men more than thirteen years of fight now if a student wants to learn something that we don't often have the opportunity of doing a pale pay a personalized landing project and the print they come up with a landing objective of a broad a plan with a leading man told the person
guiding them and they can complete that we also follow %HESITATION the the race H. in regards to height weight which basically we don't describe hi Mike to GNU students it's plenty of research to say that the students would in fact get more academic benefit from an extra hours sleep than putting them through the torture of timely instead we asked the students to do something called home
landing it's not a play on words students have to design and document ten hours of home leaning her weight but they get to decide what that's going to be so it could include finishing off some work that was done in class that critics include exploring a concept that was covered in class that they just didn't get but it could include leading an additional language that could
include are going to scouts or learning a musical instrument or an art project of building a science model well cooking a male for the family a number of their parents Abbas could include cooking all males for the family I did have to explain that no that sexual child slavery that is not timely what to a different thing we blurred the distinction between what is a staff
member in what is a student so we actually employee as students to act in reception we employ them to do some of them might nets tasks we employ them to take of the students and things like yoga muscle lots squash it Citra we employ some of their students to tutor other students so they actually say that there's an economic reality and a benefit to being a
typable in maths and English so we actually pay them to tutor other students and the race said to ram that says that it's just I needled mind only less effective than being cheated by a teacher and obviously found more cost effective now one of the issues that I have with Ted conferences addenda what's your favorite video but mine is sick can Robinson and one of the
issues that I have is that it's a cans been around for seven years his videos Ben watched seven million times a problem that I have is that Wallace will pump up it ties in here and go out ready to conquer the world unfortunately I'm not saying the change it's needed in our education system and if we sit back and wait for some sort of %HESITATION educational
messiah to come and solve all our problems it's really not going to happen and so my challenge for you to die is to go out there and be the change that you want to say and if you're a student you know it's it's called taste say is cold today say tight control it's called take control for a raisin because if you white to be offered it
you'll be waiting a long time so I encourage students to get involved with this student representative councils and really push the school to beat not any flits forget student voice we actually want students to take a control in their learning we actually have students on the selection panels that select stuff we actually have students on a curriculum committees die of the victims of the curriculum they
should have some input into it we also have students on a college counseling on at school ladyship tame the live there tame that actually make every decision in the school which I think it is it is a great thing if you're a parent don't sit back and complain about the education system and and there's no doubt really that it's broken okay I don't I don't get
many people guy no no it's good a the the reality is we all know it's broken get on your college counselor annual school board and push for change and support those those students and the stuff that actually want to make a difference if you're a teacher %HESITATION my question is why aren't you in school it's a Friday and but if you if you're a teacher you
have the opportunity to actually make a difference students in your care and trying to remember something it's not your education we've done it okay it's the kids education what what are we afraid of what what we give them control of what they want to land and if you're a principal I think that's any it's just the most privileged position to work with young people it's it's
an amazing experience it keeps me young I am a night in your old imprisoned in a forty seven year old body but if you are a principal attacked and guide those students that want to take control of their own education protects and shield those takes is from all the the things in the requirements that many women today now I can't say that it takes say we've
