What gets your attention?

What was the most formative experience of your school life?

Was it a result on a test?

Or was it something you experienced with a teacher (good or bad)?

Our school system places a lot of faith in testing and scores as a measure of learning success,  but does all the testing and measuring capture the essence of education? Chances are that the answer most of you gave to the question I asked earlier was thatnit was an experience with a particular teacher, or even a particular lesson. A result on a exam or test doesn't seem to capture the essence of education in quite the same way. You have to wonder then whether school in its presesnt form is 'working', whether it really prepares our children for a future that we can't even imagine. Does a test score build passion, creativity, problem solving ability, team work, tenacity or any of the other skills which are being discovered to  play an important part in success, not just at a school but also in life-after-school, that much larger slice of life?

I have been reading a fascinating book called 'Now You See It' (by Cathy Davidson ) which looks at the science of attention. In it she argues that the narrowness of focus that both our school system and culture value is contributing to the decline in scores that is of concern to educators. Our gifted children are not exempt, although lack of engagement may play an additional role in their apparent failure to perform to their potential in many cases. Our school system is well designed to prepare students for the sort of working life that they were likely to experience in the past but many of those jobs no longer exist as readily as they did. Our children tend to be effective learners in the interconnected world of technology but most are without the opportunity to continue to build or refine these skills in their school based learning. Those whose skills do not lie in the subjects or methods taught in staught are likely to grow up believing they are 'not good at learning', despite many having great strengths in learnig via techology.

The things which command our attention and inspire us might hold the clues to developing an education that will engage and inspire our children to learn and believe they have the skills to cope in a rapidly changing world. Tapping into the new way of learning that they are pioneering and continually evolving will also make a difference.

If you are interested to read about some innovations in learning, including a school where learning opprtunities are designed based on gaming principles, have a dip into Now You See It. And if you fancy some further reading to understand the changing world look for a copy of Dan Pink's book A Whole New Mind and also Guy Claxton's book called What's the Point of School . They are sure to leave you thinking.