Are Schools Asking the Right Question?

Deciding what every child should know in every grade, longer and harder tests, more data to judge our students, teachers and schools. I’m not at all convinced these reform measures are going to result in a better learning experience for our children or a better education responsive to the changing needs of our times.

I think we may have lost our way and wonder if it’s time to get back to answering the big essential questions of what we are all trying to achieve.

Connie Yowell of the MacArthur Foundation explores how centering the conversation around the learners first and foremost may lead to a richer, more powerful learning experience for our children:

“Education is fundamentally starting with the wrong questions.  The educational system now often  starts with a question of outcomes.”

“What do we want kids to learn?  What are the goals, and what is the content, the material, that they need to cover? And, then everything is defined by that.”

Our core question is: what’s the experience we want kids to have? So, the core question is around engagement, and as soon as you start with is the kid engaged, what is the learning experience we want the kid to have, then you have to pay attention to the kid.

“You have to start with the user, you have to start with the experience of the young person, of the learner.”