Do Schools Work?
by Pat Thomson
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Overview
Pat Thomson invites school communities to pay more attention to what children really enjoy and will benefit from in terms of developing genuine expertise from their experience of school. The article, a conference paper from the Curriculum Corporation Conference in Canberra in 2002, asks school leaders to reconsider what they do with the school environment and curriculum, and how they go about these things. Thomson rather starkly says “unacceptably large numbers of children think that school mostly sucks on most days”.
Using particular examples and ‘wonderings’ Thomson criticises schools for ignoring what children really enjoy, and for focusing too much on what they will need after school, rather than making school a place where real and important learning takes place. This is done by holding up the apprentice working with a skilled expert or craftsperson as a model for teaching and learning. The stories provided are quite challenging for schools to think about, and there are a number of useful questions ('wonderings') provided that would generate provocative teacher professional learning sessions.
Overall, Thomson, like Graham Nuthall, asks us to take more account of how students actually experience their school environments. The ideas are equally challenging for primary and secondary school leaders.
Reflective questions
These reflective questions might guide you in your reading of this article:
- Thomson wonders about using students’ levels of real enjoyment and positive feelings about their daily experience of school as an accountability strategy. How do you measure how your students feel about their daily experiences of school? What ramifications might using such an accountability measure have for your school?
- As school leaders, what are we doing to ensure that the curriculum we teach is relevant and meaningful to the students in our classrooms? Think of some reflective questions on this topic that you could use as the basis for a staff discussion.
- Check the two ‘wonderings’ sections in the paper for further questions.
Further reading
Gilbert, J. (2003). Catching the knowledge wave? The knowledge society: What does it mean for education? In set: Research Information for Teacher, 3, 1–32.
McCrindle, M. Understanding Generation Y (PDF 127 KB. Scroll down to link for ‘Understanding Generation Y’.)
References
Thomson, P. (2002). Do Schools Work? Paper presented at the Curriculum Corporation Conference, Canberra.
Read the article online (select ‘Associate Professor Pat Thomson’)
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