Sunday 10 January 2010

We are the ones we've been waiting for ...




We Are The People Weve Been Waiting For is a full-length feature film on education which was inspired and guided by Oscar-winning producer Lord Puttnam.

The film is supported by various sponsors including independent education foundation, Edge. The film follows the experiences of five Swindon-based teenagers. What unfolds during the course of the film is a very inconvenient truth about education.

It concludes that, while there are signs of spring, a transformation of the education system is vital if the UK is to continue to compete effectively in an era of globalization the world has changed enormously but our education system has not kept pace. We need to recognise that there are many paths to success for young people and provide the right support and opportunities for them to develop their individual talents.

PS
There is a web site for the film where comments can be left and more details can be found. Visit it here.

A free copy of the full length film was available in the Guardian on Saturday 28th November 2009

This is not a 2 minute or a 7 minute fix … you need to listen/watch it all … Here are a few of the things that caught my attention as I listened for the first time:

‘I want to do amazing things with my life’
Does school help you find your passion?
I’d like to be … flexible … happy
What if you have no goal … what if your prospects have been closed down?
People are different - education has insisted that they are the same
She has grown into herself … a fantastic young lady
I’d like to be … like … a lucky one
We need people who can question … schools have ‘over-served’ them
We programme children to be compliant We are not tapping into creativity we are producing little foot-soldiers
The preoccupation with reading and writing masks so many other things
Why have so many ’successful’ people failed in school?
They focus on what you can’t do not on what you can Policy makers focus on the curriculum and assessment
We use education as a way of disqualifying children
Education is about drawing out of children what is in them
Mental truancy … there - but not there
Anyone who doesn’t think that education is about the economy is not thinking
There is no long term strategy for education in the UK Education is being used as a political football
It is not a question of doing what we have always done but better … we need to do something radically different
There are people doing fantastic work … we need to share it We need to re-address basics … productivity needs to be tied to creativity
You are special High quality education …. designing new systems without building a legacy system first
Creative and proactive thinkers
Paint your picture … its yours
Masters and mistresses of practicalities
The debate about the curriculum is locked into either practical or academic
The connect between school and the ‘real world’ …
We need to revisit what school education is about
All the high performing systems recognise that they have to invest in teachers
There is no school on earth that is better than the teachers
Shouldn’t we be allowing students the luxury of learning from their mistakes
We can be more efficient by using technology
Technology can never replace the teacher but it can empower
We provide the student with the opportunities to learn in their way
Technology can provide the core to move away from
The curriculum will become student-centric … it will be mass-customised
It may be too late for today’s students but not so for their children
I want to make my family proud and I want to be proud of myself
… following something that will make him happy
We owe it to ourselves to plan for change .. to plan for transformation
If we don’t act then the world’s problems will exceed our capacity to deal with them

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