There’s a well known joke about a tourist in Ireland who asks one of the locals for directions to Dublin. The Irishman replies: ‘Well sir, if I were you, I wouldn’t start from here’. Being Irish, I can tell that joke with impunity! Indeed, like some others in this category, it’s hard to tell whether the joke is actually racist, since there is something of the ‘Wise Fool’ in the Irishman’s response. After all, if you want to get somewhere, then it’s better to start from a place where you have a good chance of reaching your goal. How does this relate to education? In precisely this way: if your goal is a new way of teaching, then it may be better to start afresh, rather than attempting to tweak a system you have inherited. As Ken Robinson puts it, educational ‘reform’ is simply tinkering with a broken model, when what is required is a revolution.
Tags: education, Simon Kidd
Simon Kidd 