Quickthink

This is a new concept for me. In the old days, “an entanglement” was a negative thing. One got entangled in disputes, for example. But consider this from FC

According to the mysterious and beautiful properties of Quantum Entanglement, if you take any two objects and entangle them, you create an inseparable relationship between them. If you were to separate two entangled electrons, even sequester them at opposite sides of the universe, measuring one electron will instantaneously affect the other.

This opens up the idea that certain types of entanglements are good - like entangling design thinking and education.  The FC article gives a glimpse of how that type of entangling might revolutionize thinking about what education should and can do. That is a big idea. Once again from the article

We all recognize a need for massive change in American education, but is our ultimate goal to outrank other countries in assessment tests and to beat the Chinese in math scores? We need to look at the world around us and consider what global problems modern society will need our children to solve.

Right. That means entangling education curricula with a better definition of the goals of education. Helping the next generation address the problems that they inherit from us seems like an admirable goal. And is the current education curriculum designed to help them do that? Well, that is a very good question.

FOLLOW - Ken Robinson argues that current curricula are not designed to do anything in particular - except to turn those who are successful at school into university professors.

2d FOLLOW - Starting education from goals is an old idea. For example, the Greek philosophers from Socrates on saw their work as practical rather than theoretical. They were addressing a real world goal - how to live a good life. Questions that did not relate to living a good life did not concern them. In the renaissance, the education at the Court at Urbino had the practical goal of refining the behavior of young aristocrats so that they could better relate to each other over time. I link to Kenneth Clark’s wonderful episode of his Civilisation series on the renaissance. And in England? We have all heard about what the playing fields of Eton were for.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 12th, 2012 at 3:24 pm and is filed under Advocacy, Eucation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.