The other day, I asked whether your reaction to the following question was to feel shocked or liberated: "Would it matter if we did away with compulsory schools and schooling?"
Interesting then to read in today's Times, an opinion piece by Mary Ulicsak of FutureLab "Schools must adopt fresh approaches to learning". (Catch it now before Rupert Murdoch introduces the fee for reading the Times online.)
Basing her argument for change in the cost of education and the example of ICT (neither of which is important to the fundamental truth of her case), she says:
"The boundaries within our lives are likely to continue to become more porous, with an erosion in the distinctions between places where you learn, work and play, as well as a blurring between what have been very different stages in people’s lives — education, work, retirement."
I quite like the image, don't you, of "boundaries" becoming more "porous". Put that way, the Vision for Paces Campus embedded conductive education in a local community centre where the boundaries between activities were expected to be "porous". Mary Ulicsak continues:
"This implies that we need to make a significant shift away from the traditional idea of learning through educational institutions that were established in the 19th century. Institutions such as museums, colleges and universities, community buildings, workplaces and home may become equally important formal and informal learning environments."
"A curriculum for networked learning offering opportunities for people to learn and work in networks outside their school is required."
In 2007, I was fortunate enough, thanks to a Winston Churchill Travel Fellowship", to arrive at United Cerebral Palsy in Washington (where we were made memorably welcome by CEO Stephen Bennett) just after they had taken delivery of the 'BIG SKY' map from the Institute for the Future. The BIG SKY map "includes six headline stories— the big news for the coming decade. These stories provide focal points for the way people will think about disabilities. They give the future its broad outlines and suggest how future social and technological innovations could better support those with disabilities. They set the context for strategy and policy." (The six stories are: People, Places, Ecologies, Markets, Practices, Tools; not self-evident but I mention them here to give you a flavour). BIG SKY was, in UCP's own words, "a national effort to create a new vision of the future for people with disabilities. The project is designed to raise public awareness about the serious challenges that remain for people with disabilities in our society and develop strategies, initiatives, and public policy to address them." It's an inspirational document, even breathtaking in its perspectives on the next decade. It's not mere soothsaying, something to be proved wrong as the years unfold but rather the future "seen through the lens of possibility".
I like that too, don't you, "the lens of possibility"? I find it liberating. Even confronted by the coming "Age of Austerity" it is possible to prepare ourselves for the future through "the lens of possibility". There are always things that can be done, if we are bold enough.
I shall leave the train of thought there for a moment. Sarah is away for the weekend and Dru and I are off to Yankees for a burger and fries.
If there were no schools, where and how would you deliver conductive education?
