Schools of the Future

As schools across Scotland break up for the long summer holiday, there will be some who look forward to next session with a sense of excitement and anticipation, thinking of the opportunities afforded by the new Curriculum for Excellence for innovation and creativity, some who are happy to put it out of their minds until it happens to them, and yet others who will see it as a threat to what is, for them, a comfortable status quo. In this thought-provoking TED talk about the future of schools and schooling, Charles Leadbeater examines how our formal education system and structures evolved and why they won’t be relevant for very much longer, challenges a few sacred cows, such as the belief in the superiority of the Finnish education system and attempts to replicate it elsewhere, and argues that radical innovation will come through deprivation and lack of resources rather than a wealth of riches. He also contends that real learning starts from questions, problems and projects rather than knowledge and curriculum. Sound familiar?