Interesting article on Forbes asking whether Education will be the next industry to be killed by the internet.

Some valid points are highlighted on how things are changing with the likes of MIT and London School of Economics offering (or planning on offering) online content, education, discussions, certificates, etc and all free or at a much lower price as the more traditional/current/standard face to face education that costs a fortune.

Will education industry be killed? I don’t think so. What the article describes is the industry not being killed, but merely adapting and changing with the times. The music industry hasn’t been killed, it’s adapting.

Will the education industry feel pain? Probably yes, just like the publishing and music industry are.

Online stuff breaks down barriers, but face to face opportunities should not be forgotten about. Sure they can be reduced, but the value of meeting up face to face is immense.

I relate it to myself. I’m a self starter. Self learner. I work mostly virtually. I learn mostly virtually. But I still love and gain alot from going out to events, meeting people, coworking, etc.

The internetz and the people need each other.

We’re going on a long holiday soon.  Not quite sure how long it will last at this stage…however it does mean that we are ‘unschooling‘ our two wonderful boys – currently aged 5 & 6.

Aaron (our 6 year old) is starting to read and write.  Ben still has a way to go, he can write his own name on his own and is happy to write other words with help.

We were really keen to log our experiences of our travel and are very conscious that it is a family experience, so it only makes sense that everyone participates!  Of course, with kids we have to think about their capabilities.

Our Jolly Wicked website is named after a term our boys used to describe things as very cool.  We think our trip will be jolly wicked too.  And all the more wicked with our boys logging their view of the world.

We opted to use Tumblr because it is very user friendly and astonishingly easy for the kids to post content through an iPhone, this is because:

• there is a Tumblr iPhone app
• the iPhone takes pictures and videos
• the Tumblr iPhone app can easily use pictures and videos for sources of content
• nice graphics make it easy for the kids to understand what they are doing
• we have chosen a very visual template to encourage the use of photos and videos (at least initially) for the boys
• our kids say some nice and funny things sometimes, so Tumblr’s quote feature comes in handy and gives our boys the option to write something short

It is experimental.  It is educational.  And in years to come it will be a great resource to look back on.  We’ve all had a go at posting something and it has been successful so far.

In the future, when my boys turn 18, they can tell their future employer/university/clients that they have been blogging for 12/13 years

Many of us have Pi = 3.14159265… drummed into our heads.

There’s probably numerous other extremely other important things drummed into our heads.  I remember Pi and doing maths related around to it.  It wasn’t difficult at the time.

My sons were telling us what Pi was.  They’re too young to actually make sense of it, but they could tell us it was 3.14….  Which made me think – what does Pi really mean?  What’s the point of it?  I honestly couldn’t remember.

What does it mean now?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Unless of course I happen to need it for something in life.  If this did happen I can picture  a teacher sitting on my shoulder saying “see, I told you needed to know that”.  Of course, it’s all irrelevant.  If I did needed to know how to apply Pi to a situation, well I’d just go look it up.  Probably starting at Wikipedia.

At school, if you don’t know the answers you quite simply fail.

In real life, if you don’t know them you figure stuff out and apply them as necessary to real life.

It’s kind of obvious there’s a huge mismatch between school and life, which is disappointing. Sometimes I feel I am the only one who sees it.

And I’m not bigging up a different approach.  Through experience with my boys, I find that everyone is different.  Traditional school may be ok for many.  And that’s fine.  But even choosing private, small, child-led or homeschooling isn’t always the answer.

I look at my eldest and despite our efforts, he has been bored and unhappy.  He does well academically at school, but could be doing so much more and better. We could say tough, stick with it, that’s life, but our heart tells us something else.  When he is happy and engaged he turns into such a different boy.  We have found an entrepreneur in him.  He loves maths and is mostly motivated when it comes to money and figuring out how he can get some to get to his end goal – usually toys at this stage.

I’m pretty convinced that many kids could learn all they needed to know by doing stuff. Projects. Small businesses.  Think of all the skills involved in doing it.  Many of them never taught at school.

It’s never a one size fits all, but think it suits my son quite well.  The following video goes into further detail.

I think there may be an www.aaronsherry.com coming soon

I was chatting to a mum today about life as working mother.  What she use to do, what she’d like to do. What I do, which took a wee while to explain

She described what I do as similar to the child led education approach that our boys experience at Lewes New School.  Which is so true.

I follow my interests. Do projects according to my interests. Have the opportunity to decide how to do it. Educate myself as I go along.

What I’m doing now is completely different to what I was doing 10, 5, 3, 2 and 1 year ago.  But I am where I am because of my experience and desire to learn at every point.  But perhaps more importantly, the past 7 years or so I have been in control of what I want to learn and do. (ie. I don’t have a boss!)

It’s not all a success.  Some things work out better than others.  But the reason I believe I am loving what I am doing is because I get to choose what I want to do.  Once I’m bored I move on or change my approach.

People are no where nearly as effective  or inspiring when they are bored.  Boredom is a form of torture that no one should have to go through.

Of course, not everyone is the same as me.  But modern life appears to pin you down to your past. Getting a new career or changing industry is so difficult.  At every step of the way there are people questioning you and your ability – not trying to be helpful or encouraging change.

Lets see what I will be doing in a couple years time.

Ok, so my kids can lay their claim to fame.  Their lovely school put a lot of love, energy and hardwork into creating the Changes song by David Bowie.  It’s been made into a video and will very cooly be release on iTunes in mid September.

How cool is that?

You may be interested in checking out Lewes New School or their New School Thinking conference happening in October.

In 2007 just 44% of young people achieved what the govenment considers to be the baseline: five GCSE passes including English and maths…school is dramatically failing, event at this most basic of tasks. Any manufacturer who consistently produced over 50% of rejects would not stay in business for long – source What’s the Point of School?: Rediscovering the Heart of Education

Can someone please give me lots of money to address issues of education?

okthxbye

Home Education has always been on my list of options for my boys.  Although I opted for Lewes New School in the end (which is fab) it’s still on my list…just not now, got too much on my plate at the moment.

I’m not shy in saying that I think the educational system here mostly sucks.  Of course that is my opinion and I don’t mind if you disagree.

However, there’s a bit of an uproar at the moment.  A government report has come out stating that all families that home educate must register annually.  This report has been in the pipeline for a while and  originally stigmatised the home education community by saying it was to investigate how home education could be used as a cover up to child abuse.

Rather than explaining it, if you are interested there is an article on the topic with plenty of comments.  There’s also a Facebook group.

This article on the BBC has wound me up.

The government is urging graduates to consider a spell working abroad, whether in internships or volunteering, to avoid the worst of the recession.

The advice is backed by the National Union of Students and is being handed out on leaflets at universities over the next couple of weeks.

Just to be clear – I don’t see anything wrong with graduates (or anyone) going abroad to work or volunteer.

However, it just doesn’t make sense to say graduates should go abroad because of the recession.  If we wanted to be patriotic and support our own country then surely the UK would be better off if these graduates stayed in the UK and volunteered for UK based companies to help them get through the recession.

I know that I could do with a volunteer or two to help me with a project through schux. Any volunteers? Ho hum.