FutureSchool

How Schools Around the World are Applying Learning Design Principles For a New Era

Valerie Hannon, Julie Temperley

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000584639
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Didattica
• Categoria: Politiche educative

What will the schools of the future look like? What will guide their design, and what is happening now to create them? As we enter the age of disruption and hyperchange, it has become increasingly clear that our education systems are not adequate to the task of enabling young people to thrive in a very different future.

FutureSchool offers system leaders, principals, and teachers research-based design principles upon which the evolution of schools might be based. Shaped by an awareness of changing economies, technology, and the climate emergency, it suggests specific ways that leaders can address the challenges of moving forward, grasping the opportunities presented by the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. Presenting six 'archetypes for the future' – key missions that are central to the future of humanity – it offers inspiring examples of practice that are not just theoretical but well-advanced in schools across the world, practice that is grounded in principles that are central to a new learning paradigm.

This book offers an answer and presents a vision that is engaging, inspiring, and intent on enabling success for all learners. This book will provide inspiration and practical guidance for leaders, teachers, and parents who want to see schools rapidly evolve to become the institutions we really need.

1 Six schools for the future?

DOI: 10.4324/9781003244172-1

What images come to mind when you are asked to imagine a school of the future?

Perhaps shiny ‘futuristic’ buildings full of technology, children with cool headsets or implants; screens, virtual reality kit, augmented reality, digital simulations, AI-driven individualised programs …

That vision may well become part of the reality. In this book we argue that the technological possibilities are but one part of the picture. However, more important by far than the application of those technologies is the job we need and want schools to do: how they are to play a part in constructing a future in which humans can truly thrive. Already across the world, educators have started to prototype such schools. In this chapter, we are going to explore that work. In doing so, we will also be building a case that schools are desperately needed to address the profound challenges (as well as the opportunities) we face – but only if they are fundamentally redesigned.

Schools redesigned 1: Green School, Bali

In 2016 Ruby Bourke left her home in Australia to attend the Green School in Bali. She was 15. She and her parents wanted an empowering educational experience for her that equipped her to engage effectively with perhaps the most important issue facing our future: the climate emergency.

I came to Green School because I aligned with the ‘bigger picture’ solution the school strives to achieve: progressive, sustainability-oriented. Basically, I joined a community of learners – teachers, parents, global changemakers, students all contributing equally to each other’s growth and expansion of knowledge. I felt heard and acknowledged as a unique learner. At Green School, youth voice matters in conversations about our learning and about the future.

Green School opened in 2009, on a mission. Parents, teachers, leaders and students share a single clear and explicit purpose; to grow a generation of global green leaders and citizens committed to taking better care of our planet. New campuses have recently opened in New Zealand and Mexico, with some delays to expansion plans because of COVID-19. The school educates for sustainability, through community-integrated, entrepreneurial learning. They believe that future generations need a wider set of tools to equip learners for an unknown new world and provide them with an understanding of sustainable living practices.

John and Cynthia Hardy are the founders. John had a Canadian childhood spent struggling through his own education with undiagnosed dyslexia: so the last thing he expected to ever do was open a school. With his wife he opened a jewellery business in Bali, a place they came to love.

The determination to create Green School grew out of watching Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, the film Hardy says that “ruined my life”. Like millions of others, he was profoundly moved and challenged by what he learned about the climate emergency and its existential threat to humanity. Unlike millions of others, he decided to act.

It is impossible to overstate the significance of the physical features of the school in understanding its purpose and ethos. Built almost entirely from fast growing and therefore sustainable bamboo the school seems to grow out of the surrounding gardens, which themselves emerge from the forest where the bamboo continues to grow.

There are no walls, internal or external, creating flexible spaces for learning, which open out onto views across the gardens and into the forest, making the natural world a very real and vital presence in the learning environment. Green School is now proudly self-sufficient in solar and hydro energy, a result of a partnership with a green power company. Water is drawn from an underground source and plant-based meals are cooked on sawdust-fired ovens by local families from ingredients largely grown in the school’s gardens by the staff and students.

The school serves c.520 early years, middle and high school students aged 3 to 18.

Although it is an international school, Green School is unequivocally also Balinese; it is of its place. One fifth of students are Balinese and pay no fees. Almost 100% of students proceed to college. All students learn about Indonesian history and culture and practice traditional crafts with local artisans; it is a part of the local ecosystem.

The curriculum integrates subjects and skills to more accurately reflect how things work in the real world, and is taught in six-week modules that introduce all students to an expansive range of ideas and learning opportunities. Students learn English and Maths in discrete lessons characterised by high quality teaching.

There is a structure to the day: the first two hours are given over to “discovering the world with all your senses” when students work in the garden or take part in creative and cultural activities. This is based on the premise that you do not fight for what you do not love. At lunchtime the whole school community eats together and there is a mindfulness pause before learning resumes.

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in early 2020, staff at Green School pivoted swiftly to deal with its consequences, creating the Green School Everywhere learning portal to enable learning and teaching to continue, to stay connected, to recruit parents as teachers (for all, not just their own) and learners as teachers too. The graduating capstone project presentations (The Greenstone for Gr 12 and The Quest for Gr 8) were recorded and broadcast to far greater numbers than could previously be present.

Sal Gordon, Principal of the school, feels that the crisis was seized as an opportunity to extend reach, and add a new set of pedagogic methods to the school’s repertoire, using digital tools for asynchronous learning. Still, for him, the relational dimension uniquely enabled by physical presence is irreplaceable:

Relationship building is so key: with each other and with the environment itself. That’s at the heart of how we build values here, and the confidence in our learners that they can be changemakers on behalf of the planet. But after the challenges of COVID-19 we will be going forward to school, not back to school¹.

Ruby Bourke, post-COVID, is to become a campaigner for a climate justice charity, based in Tasmania.

Schools redesigned 2: Liger Leadership Academy, Cambodia

Liger Leadership Academy (LLA) is based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It educates promising youth – in a historical context of profound trauma – to become socially conscious, entrepreneurial leaders of tomorrow. The school provides a residential scholarship program for economically disadvantaged students that combines a comprehensive, internationally competitive education with an innovative STEM and entrepreneurship curriculum.

Liger’s model is highly empowering: it has enabled young leaders to excel beyond traditional subjects. Liger students have become internationally published authors, app and digital currency developers, regionally recognised robotics engineers, and national award-winning filmmakers – all by the age of 15. Teachers are called facilitators because they work alongside students to identify a problem or opportunity and design solutions, ideas and products to address that problem.

LLA seeks to integrate learning. The program comprises explorations, essentials, expertise and advanced enrichment. EXPLORATIONS are Liger’s project-based learning experiences focused on finding solutions to real-world problems. ESSENTIALS are their core classes in English literacy, Khmer literacy, math and science. The EXPERTISE element comprises learning experiences available to LLA’s senior cohort that allow students to gain a deeper knowledge or expertise in areas of interest or excellence. ADVANCED ENRICHMENTS are learning experiences available to LLA’s junior cohort that help students to develop an understanding of the world around them and provide a frame of reference for future long-term projects.

EXPLORATIONS at LLA are project-based experiences where students work together in groups of 12 to explore a relevant, often complex question, problem or challenge. This project-based learning is almost always enhanced with intensive activities that involve student immersion in real-world experiences outside of the classroom.

Jeff Holte is the Director of Education for LLA. He is a passionate exponent of the power of purpose; and of creating a learning ecosystem:

We take very seriously our goals. What is a good leader? A combination of what we call leadership competencies: vision and influencing; networking and problem-solving; communication and joining the dots. But also their whole value system: integrity and honesty; do they care? This is the basis for our whole curriculum that we think will take them into the future and create a better country. For the first time in my career I have seen what it looks like when students are totally engaged in their learning.

Our real-world projects – for example, reviving the coastline of Cambodia – have forced us to ask: who is a teacher? When you realise that the whole world has opened up, and the world is a classroom, then the answer can be – everyone. Because teachers just can’t know everything.

Schools redesigned 3: Kosen Schools, Japan

The Kosen Schools in Japan have set out to find a meaningful way to prepare students not just for the digitally automated workplace, but also to develop the entrepreneurial and problem-solving competencies to shape the technologies of the future towards humanistic and planetary flourishing.

Today (and even more so in the future) to achieve excellence in future-focused technologies as an unconnected school is a near impossibility. As of 2021, there were 57 Kosen across Japan, including 51 National Institutes of Technology – with a small number of private and offshore Kosen being built both in Japan and countries like Thailand, Vietnam and Mongolia.

All Kosen (National Colleges of Technology) have Collaborative Technology Centres in order to enhance their educational and research functions and stimulate the regional economy. The centres deal with collaborative research with private companies, technical support and so on. Thus, the schools are powerfully networked; ecosystemic in their approach. There is very close cooperation with industry: a long-term internship (over a month) is required and engineers from industry complement the faculty.

Students can enrol in the five-year engineering programme at the age of 15. Upon successful completion, students graduate with the equivalent of an associate degree. Following this, students can choose to attend a two-year advanced course and graduate with the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree. Kosens provide a highly specialised and fast-tracked five-year curriculum to expedite the training process that would normally take at least seven years to achieve through ordinary senior high schools and bachelor’s degrees. In the unique labour market of Japan – with strong manufacturing and innovation sectors, on-the-job training tradition and preference for younger graduates – Kosen graduates continue to be attractive to companies.

Kosen organises inter-college competitions, such as the Robot Contest, Programming Contest, and Design Contests. Naturally, the possibilities and issues around artificial intelligence (AI) are a particular focus. Kosen students are encouraged to develop a broad outlook on engineering by blending the specialties of regular course graduates who have studied in different fields. The schools also foster a sense for business, since relevance is of the utmost importance.

In 2019, the Deep Learning Contest (Dcon) was introduced, where Kosen student teams presented business plans, centred around products and services they have developed, to the panel of Venture Capital executives. The winning team from Nagaoka Kosen – made up of two international students from Mongolia and a Japanese student – created METERAI, an AI-assisted system that monitors and analyses the information from numerous analog metres used in factories to improve energy efficiency and product consistency. Bourbon, a famous confectionary company based in the local area, had already trialled the system and saw a 30% reduction in their electricity usage².

The Kosen curriculum emphasises scientific experiments, workshop training and practical manufacturing skills. Kosen students will typically work for several years on developing and realising their big ideas. Toshiki Tomihira, a...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Six schools for the future?
• 2. The pandemic shock: Enter The Future
• 3. Design principles from futures thinking
• 4. Design principles in action: Values
• 5. Design principles in action: Operational philosophy
• 6. Design principles in action: Learner experience
• 7. Can schools save us? Emerging archetypes
• 8. The leadership challenge of a generation
• Appendix
• Index