From the difficult to believe file is a report from the Guardian that primary schools in the U.K. could be teaching students how to use Wikipedia and Twitter.
According to the Guardian,
“The proposed curriculum, which would mark the biggest change to primary schooling in a decade, strips away hundreds of specifications about the scientific, geographical and historical knowledge pupils must accumulate before they are 11 to allow schools greater flexibility in what they teach.”
Call me skeptical, especially with April Fool’s Day around the corner, but it seems strange even for a digital animal like myself. It seems like a dramatic move in an entirely new direction.
The new curriculum plan is being created by Sir Jim Rose, the former Ofsted chief who was appointed by ministers to overhaul the primary school curriculum. His report is expected to be published next month.
In a preliminary report published last December, Rose suggested that primary school students should have extra time to learn through play. His over-arching goal is to instill “a love of learning for its own sake”.
Interesting to see if learning how to use Twitter is part of his learn through play approach.
3 Comments
Indeed it is a dramatic move in an entirely new direction – and I applaud Sir Jim Rose's awareness of the true power and value of learning through play. I also applaud his guts to manifest this into a new curriculum plan that includes teaching students to use twitter and Wikipedia. These are the media where students get and give their energy – live and breathe intense connections. And this kind of medium is the state in which to reach, guide and teach students, where they absorb the most because it is where they want to be and it is what they want to do. Call it child centred curriculum, or emerging curriculum, but it is ripe with possibility.
Translation: in 10 years, students will have grown to hate twitter and wikipedia, after having to use them as part of daily homework.
I agree it makes sense that educators embrace tools and services that students are using to access information – be it Twitter, blogs, YouTube, Wikipedia, et al