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Monday, October 5, 2015

The last piece of the puzzle...from a large collection of puzzles!

My latest motivation at the gym has been to watch Ted Talks while pedaling madly on the exercycle. If you don't know about this resource yet, I strongly encourage you to check it out here. Today I watched a talk which hit close to home for me on a personal level. It was one of those, 'oh yeah, I get it! It all makes sense!' moments. This year has been filled with these moments in my professional life. My first post is a perfect example. It reminded me of putting all the pieces of a puzzle together; you can see a lot of the picture already but it's not until you stand back and look at the final finished puzzle you get to see the true picture. It's having a fair idea about something already and then having that moment when it all comes together.

Tomorrow I'm and traveling to Auckland with two colleagues for the 2015 U Learn conference. My hope is I will have lots of 'puzzles' coming together over the next three days. One of the workshops I have signed up for is title: 'Creativity in education is no longer an option, it's an absolute necessity'. I'm particularly keen for this workshop as it has been influenced by Sir Ken Robinson. Creativity is a key component of our learning model, 'learn, create, share'. One of the messages that has stood out for me from his talk  'changing education paradigms ' is that as teachers, we are preparing children for jobs that don't exist yet.



















So, why are we so focused on teaching literacy and numeracy? Don't get me wrong, until someone can convince me otherwise I want my students to leave our school literate and numerate but what other skills do they need for their future? What's is going to be important for them to be a successful member of society and to reach their full potential? We are so lucky in New Zealand that we have a curriculum that has a vision which matches this and that education is not just about the 8 learning areas.
Recently I watched another Ted Talk by Sir Ken Robinson called, 'Do schools kill creativity?' This talk spoke volumes to me and was another one of those 'of course...' moments. What struck me while I drank in his word, is that in the background I could see the year, 2006! How did I not know more about this before now? and why wasn't this seen as more important in our education system?! 


I will admit I have definitely had moments where I have worried about not giving enough focus on literacy and numeracy but over the past few years it has become clear to me that skills such as creativity are equally as important. This is one of the skills that will prepare our students for reaching their full potential.



1 comment:

  1. So this is what happens when you go to the gym Kate! I often do some of my best thinking while exercising also. You are right, we have a wonderful curriculum document and we are also very fortunate in this country that each school can design its own school curriculum. You have identified creativity as an extremely important attribute in the current global environment, I agree, and would also include thinking.
    I think we are on the right track at Hornby with our characteristics' focus of resilience, thinking, communication and participating. Perhaps we need to be providing more scope for creativity through our thinking focus?

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