We talk about what teaching and learning ought to look like, without ever really being clear about what we want an education to do. Pictures have different purposes. Their intent may be to record an event, evoke an emotion, preserve a memory, provide documentation, honor an individual, or just please the eye. A great work of art might do all of those things, but it is unrealistic to expect all art to accomplish all of them. Knowing more about the subject of the work, the mind of the artists, the goals of the person who commissioned the work, and cultural setting in which the work was produced my help us understand more about how to view a work of art.
So what exactly is it that we are looking for in public education? Do we value symmetry over emphasis? Are we looking for accuracy or imagination? Should education inspire or indoctrinate? Do we want an education that gives us answers or asks us questions?
There are a lot of people critiquing the “art” of educating our children. Is the picture of public education all wrong? Or is it that we don’t always know how to look, or where to stand, or what to look for once we’ve got to where we need to be? I don’t know the answers, but it seems to me that the questions are worth asking.
Nigel Coutts on 15 May 16Ask any teacher what they wish they had more of and the most common answer is likely to be time. Schools are inherently busy places and there is always much to be done. We all want to meet the needs of every student, add value to their education with breadth and depth, ensure adequate coverage of the curriculum and include aspects of play and discovery. Add up all that is done in a day over and above face-to-face teaching and you can only wonder at how we manage to fit it all into the time we have. So is there an answer to this dilemma, is there a secret method to finding more time in our schedules to achieve all that we want to?
