The Mind Creative
Our current education system
As a country, Australia spends more on education than most
others, $28.5 billion (2012/13) to be exact. We focus on student
aided learning, school administration and having smaller class
sizes. We spend a staggering amount of money to improve the
current system, but there is one big problem: it’s all going in
completely the wrong direction.
The education system as we know it today actually started in the
early 1900's because of the Industrial Revolution. Schools provided
skilled labourers to the factories by standardising literacy rates,
and numerical skills. Schools were modelled off factories, providing
the same basic skills to every student. Even the school bell was
modelled off factory sounds. Students were treated like an
assembly line; they were separated by age, taught the same
content at a fixed time every day and upon completion, awarded
a certificate.
Sound familiar?
That’s because our schooling system has not changed much since
then. We still apply the ‘one size fits all’ approach, teaching our
children that they should all be compared and ranked according
to a standardised curriculum.
Even though technology, attitudes and opportunities have changed
since the early 1900's, the mandatory schooling system that we
rely on to create a new generation of workers continues to employ
the ‘assembly line’ model: a mundane and repetitive learning
environment. It is no wonder that school drop out rates are 11%
for students (ABS, 2009).
Creativity in human beings
According to Sir Ken Robinson (author and international advisor
on education), there are three aspects of human life that we know
without fail: we are all diverse creatures, we are all natural
learners and we are fundamentally creative. So then why must
our education system force teachers to have a process worker
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