Education ... the key

There is no doubt, for most people, education is the key. But we do not have a collective intelligence about what education is or how best to go about getting one that is fit for purpose. And do we mean purpose now or purpose in the future about which we can guess so little. Did any of you watch the film 'Water World'? It was slammed by the critics but did open up the idea that things could happen which would change the concept of an education fit for purpose beyond anything that we could think of. And who should be the judges of this fit for purpose?

Over the last two days four interesting things have caught my eye in the educational arena. (Sort of like the Coliseum in ancient Rome ... a place where some come to watch others fight for their lives!)

Firstly there was the story of schools putting CCTV cameras in all of the classrooms and the headteacher who explained that it was a security issue about equipment not a tool to watch what was happening. Did the teachers protest about this? I know some of the students were bothered.Watch this here. When I searched for the story on the BBC web site I found that this was not isolated. There is an interesting bit on the CBBC site.

The second issue is a reason for celebration as it is about the use of computer games etc to improve learning. In typical form the BBC wheeled out the pro and con brigade. The con group (they seemed to swap them round) just didn't get the picture at all and managed to argue off the point most of the time .. typical back to basics and teachers should be making their subjects interesting (well of course they should) and the pro candidate Derek Robinson, from LTS, did an excellent job in saying what was really happening in the project he is involved with in Scotland at the Consolarium. Learning and Teaching Scotland's. You can read more about this on Ewan's blog here.

The third thing was the excellence of some of the young people who took part in the BBC's School Report initiative. Who says our young people are not highly motivated and highly talented.'Chapeau' to those teachers and students who had the sense and the purpose to take part in 'real world reporting'.

The final thing rests with the thorny subject of handwriting and what it has to do with literacy. Again its the BBC (Haven't they got better things to do?) who run an article on Technology and the death of handwriting . The article neatly slips from handwriting to learning and the state of everything:

...Meanwhile, one in five parents surveyed for My Child magazine's Write a Letter Week said they last penned a letter more than a year ago. If the figures are representative, this apparent demise of handwriting could have serious implications for educational achievement

These serious implications are based on the premise that we 'test'/'examine' our young people by getting them to write on paper. No thought that this might not be the best idea in a developing digital world.

Professor Rhona Stainthorp, who is conducting research into children's writing abilities, says there is growing evidence those who write faster and more legibly get better marks.

Is this a surprise to anyone ... but so what? My question is: 'Is handwriting going to be a key skill the the future of the children being educated in our schools today? Or isn't it time we began to see it just as a personally useful tool and that the vagaries of it don't matter?