What is “pull” education and why does it matter?
Compulsory curriculum teaching (“push”) works for those who don’t need to be pushed very hard: for the remaining billions on the planet, it’s often just too expensive to push
Although the presenter does a highly creditable job of drawing our attention to the problems, his coverage of the solutions leaves you seriously wanting more detail. But it’s still an important video to watch.
His argument for the future of education being based upon attraction rather than compulsion is a convincing one, ultimately because his examples of poverty-induced push-based educational hopelessness are all too credible, yet merely identifying instances of successful pull-based solutions is no substitute for giving us memorable examples of them in action.
Here is some biographical detail about Charles Leadbeater from his Wikipedia page:
He is a British author and former advisor to Tony Blair.
He first came to widespread notice in the 1980s as a regular contributor to the magazineMarxism Today. Later he was Industrial Editor and Tokyo Bureau Chief at the Financial Times.
While working at The Independent in the 1990s, he devised Bridget Jones’s Diary(originally a column) with Helen Fielding. He worked on social entrepreneurship, publishing The Rise of the Social Entrepreneur in 1997.
He advised the British government on matters of the Internet and the knowledge-driven economy. His most recent book, We-think, explores the new phenomenon of mass creativity exemplified by web sites such as YouTube, Wikipedia and MySpace.
The book, which in a preliminary version is open to public criticism and revision, argues that participation, rather than consumption or production, will be the key organizing idea of future society.
Here are some details about TED (taken from their website):
TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to ‘Ideas Worth Spreading’.
Started as a four-day conference in California 25 years ago, TED has grown to support those world-changing ideas with multiple initiatives.
At TED, the world’s leading thinkers and doers are asked to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Talks are then made available, free, at TED.com.
TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Al Gore, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Benoit Mandelbrot, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Isabel Allende and former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Two major TED events are held each year: The TED Conference takes place every spring inLong Beach, California (along with the simulcast conference, TEDActive, in Palm Springs), and TEDGlobal is held each summer in Oxford, UK.
TED’s media initiatives include TED.com, where new TEDTalks videos are posted daily, and the Open Translation Project, which allows any TEDTalk to be translated into any language by volunteers worldwide.
TED has also established the annual TED Prize, where exceptional individuals win “one wish to change the world”; TEDx, which supports individuals and groups in hosting local, self-organized TED-style events around the world; and the TED Fellows program, helping world-changing innovators from around the globe to become part of the TED community and amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities.
That’s one interesting vid to watch. Although, Charles Leadbeater doesn’t give a satisfying answer to the question – how to attract people from poor countries to education?
His example of this young guy from Rio’s favala is spot on – drugs give him money and power, something that school won’t give him in such short term. Only other option for young people there is becoming a sportsman, mainly football player in Brasil. This is their way of getting out of favala and not being poor. Unfortunately, education is not, at least not yet. We can only hope this will change, and kids from all parts of the world will have equal chance for education in their lives, no matter where they were born. But it has to attract them in some way, because counter options are still too attractive for youngsters in developing countries.
I agree that schools should encourage questioning and thinking, rather than just copy and memorize, but this is what the fixed school curriculum offers.
As I looked online for some innovative teaching concepts, I found this one http://www.todaysteacher.com/ but this one is for elementary grades.
But it offers some good tips to parents and resources for teachers.
‘Parents Place’ at http://www.todaysteacher.com/ParentsPlace.htm is good to start with.
It helps them solve homework dilemmas at http://www.todaysteacher.com/HomeworkDelimma.htm
I wonder if there are more resources offering other innovative methods of teaching.
Quick look online says there are lots of innovative methods of teching. The question is – can they be successfully implemented in developing countries, would they change children attitude towards eductaion, would they attract young people?
It would also be wise to remember one thing, stated by E. F. Penrose, back in 1934 (!):
“It would seem that when a community has gained the knowledge and acquired the habits necessary to reduce the death rate it will sooner or later gain the knowledge and acquire the habits necessary to reduce the birth rate. There may be time lag between the two processes, but both of them, in a large share are the outcome of education.”
It may sound harsh, but that is how our world works. This is one of the ways education can help to cope with poverty – parental education in developing countries.
That’s a really interesting quote.
And I agree that parental education leads them to try to get better education for their kids.
Actually Malini, what I had in mind is this parental education helping people to make responsible decisions and have a number of children they can take care of and raise properly. Plus parental education = less HIV positive. I know it is not that simple, but paints the picture for what I had in mind. On the other hand, in some strange way, it may result in better education – fewer kids means easier for parents to educate them or pay for children’s education, have to agree with you on that Malini.
Yes, parental education also helps them in planning their family, and working towards providing them a better future.
If you look online, lots of education programs for developing countries exist. But I can’t help a feeling that their efforts are somehow fragmented, not using the force behind these programs to full potential.
More cooperation between foundations? They are after same goal in the end, aren’t they? Need to look for an example of education programs cooperating together for better future in developing parts of our planet.
Here is an example of informal kind of school, which works on ‘self-teaching methods’.
http://www.unicef.org/india/education_3624.htm
“In both the classrooms, the class teachers stand in a corner observing student activity, and later after the children complete their own explorations, facilitate their learning by demonstrating and concluding the essence of each exercise.”
I could not even think that such a system could have been possible.
That’s a nice find Malini, thanks for sharing. Hope other’s can make an example of it and follow this kind of school teaching methods, look promising.
As I was thinking if technology could help kids being attracted to schools, I found this one about UNICEF bringing modern technology to schools in poor rural areas of China to improve access to high quality education.:
http://mis-asia.com/news/articles/unicef-brings-modern-technology-to-rural-china
“this project will bring 21st century technology to disadvantaged schools, enabling thousands of students and their teachers to share high quality educational resources and to develop new skills. This will help to raise the overall quality of education in rural schools, giving more children a better start in life”