Liberating Learning - Tapa blanda

"Given the scale and density of socially-concentrated educational failure in the UK, the weakness of educational culture in many demographic groups, and the pervasiveness of low expectations the need for action on grounds both of moral urgency and economic utility is overwhelming. " In this compact collection of 13 short essays, UK academics, teachers, and administrators plumb the reasons behind the achievement gap in education, which is blamed on standardized testing and teaching to the test at the expense of student interest. Drawing on background in philosophy and history as well as real-life experiences in innovative programs, secondary schools, and post-secondary institutions, the contributors recommend giving teachers more freedom to create their own curricula to engage students. Some specific areas addressed include science education, curriculum development, mentoring, and the relationship between social exclusion and underachievement.

Throughout the history of our civilisation, education has been seen by philosophers, national leaders and educators as essential for social cohesion and for economic development. A good experience of education greatly enhances the quality of life of students not only during periods of formal education but throughout their lives. There is, however, inevitably a certain tension between the (proper) interest of governments in ensuring that education will prepare all young people to be good and effective citizens and the desire of educators to ensure that each student's experience is as rich and personally developmental as possible. It is, of course, important to have comparable standards within a single country and as far as possible between countries. However, this does not apply, we would argue, when it comes to issues of curriculum, where standardisation leads all too swiftly to constraint and over-regulation. The liberal tradition in education places great emphasis on individual freedom, moving well beyond 'freedom from...' and rather positioning and promoting education as 'freedom to...'. It is this commitment to education's emancipatory potential that underpins all the essays in this book. We focus on three key areas: the curriculum; pedagogy; and the role of secondary education in widening participation in higher education. We invite authoritative thinkers and practitioners to address these issues from different perspectives in order to generate a debate around how we can translate our shared vision of education as authentically enabling and emancipatory into a reality for all young people. The world of schools and universities is changing rapidly as globalisation expands all possibilities of communication and mobility. New and emerging technologies are changing the ways that teaching and learning occur, especially as social networking technologies evolve, the public and the private blur and merge, learning and socialising become closer and intertwined and hierarchies mutate and dissolve as students learn better to interrogate and to research and assume a role in the creation and management of knowledge. Exciting work is happening across the UK, as is evidenced from the essays in this volume. This book presents a variety of pioneering initiatives with a series of commentaries on where education is and where it is going. We hope the often challenging insights of our distinguished contributors will serve as sign-posts to an educational landscape of greater diversity and greater autonomy for learners and teachers alike. In a climate of increasing awareness of the need to share ideas and exchange good practice not only among the secondary schools sector but also between the schools sector and the university and FE sector and between educators and policy-makers, we hope also they will serve as catalysts for further debate on how we can work and think together truly to liberate learning and widen participation.