Last week I was at an international education meeting (51 countries) hosted by Arthur Andersen. A lot of work presented seemed to focus on special schools where the youngsters enjoyed self-directed learning, where the motivation was high and where the principal and teachers exceptional. The key question is whether these models of excellence are capable of being generalised. They can exist as models to show that new approaches are possible and are powerful. But how many schools can take them up? The next question is whether such models can be taken up piecemeal or whether they only work if the whole scene is adopted - just as you cannot be a little bit pregnant.
While admiring such models I believe that more practical progress can be made in schools all over the world, and at all levels, by the simple introduction of basic thinking tools ( such as CoRT, DATT, Six Hats etc). There is no need for major change but as a result of using such tools the attitudes come to change. Seeking to change attitudes directly is largely ineffective.
In my preference methods should be:
simple
usable
effective
robust
gereralisable
Educators have the terrible habit of believeing that if coffee, beer and coca-cola are each very nice, then mixing them all together must be three times as nice! So they want to take a bit from here and a bit from there etc. The result is ineffective confusion.
There is so much that needs to be done in education. There is so much that can be done. So why does it take so long?
Edward de Bono
19th April 1998
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