Reinventing Education

A school's driving value will inform everything it does. Security is a key value often found in "traditional" education. Schools in this traditional mindset may highly value duty, lineage and self discipline. Today we consider the type of people who may become headteacher in this type of school. We inquire into how they might approach education and how they may evaluate their staff. Join us for this deep dive into the "Security" mindset!

One of the foundational values of education is "Security". A school operating from this mindset may highly value duty, self-discipline, responsibility to the group and authority. In this episode we follow up on our visit to a virtual "traditional" minded school. Here we reflect on the Pros & Cons (or "babies" & "bathwater") of such a school in 2019.

It is helpful to think about schools by looking at the different core values they uphold. Much of "traditional" public education has been rooted in the security value.

In pt3 we take one final look at how the security value informs the beliefs, culture, practices and environment within a school. We do this by visiting a fictitious school where security calls all of the shots... and everyone is alignment with it.

Join us as we delve further into the world of the "traditional" school. As we try to answer the question of what the healthiest version of a school that prides itself on self discipline and duty might look like. What can we learn from a place where adherence to authority and tradition are top dog?

Season Four! In this episode, we pay a virtual visit to a "traditional" school. We look at how a school community that operates with ideas of tradition, common sense and hierarchy of trust at its core might operate in its ideal context.  

How do we know if our school community is healthy? In this episode, we argue that school health comes through aligning the key aspects of community culture, individual beliefs, resources & systems with our values.

We have talked many times on the show about our "values". But what do we mean by that? On today's episode we dig into what a value is and how the values that we hold determine much of what we perceive, how we think and the actions we take. Important stuff! Enjoy!

What does it mean to say someone is healthy?
According to the World Health Organisation it no longer merely means that they aren’t sick or impaired.

Health is more about one’s ability to handle and adapt to different challenges.

What does it mean to say that a community is healthy?
Well, this has more to do with it having the resources it needs to meet its needs and wants.

And….why are we discussing health on this education podcast?

Moving forward we will discuss how each of the values driving educational communities (security, achievement, inclusion and integration) has healthy aspects that we wish to keep and unhealthy aspects we wish to consciously set aside.

We’ve built a map. A map that points out the territory that anyone or anything in education finds itself a part of. The map highlights why education looks different depending on what you value.

The 4 values we see impacting what education looks like are security, achievement, inclusion and integration.

Imagine 4 people and that each holds one of the 4 values.If you asked them about what education should look like in the following quadrants:

Activities & Resources; Environment & Systems; Community & Culture; Beliefs & Reactions

...each person would provide different answers. We look into how acknowledging these aims, values and perspectives allows us to get the conversation moving in the right direction for us.

Sports Day (Or Track & Field day for you North Americans) is a tradition in schools worldwide.

These events come in a wide range of forms from the competitive Canadian events, to the egg and spoon races of the Brits and the highly stylised dance troupes found in Japanese elementary schools.

In this special episode, we dig into the idea that a Sports Day holds up a mirror to the values of the school community.

In particular we look at the role of rewards in these kind of events and discuss a school that has moved away from medals & certificates entirely.