The+Future+of+Schools


 * __The Future of Schools or Schools of the Future? __**

__**My thoughts on The Future of Primary Schools**__

The Thailand Knowledge Park does not seem to compare to the small village school in which I work at all at first glances - more like a sterile airport where customers wait for their travelling to commence, looking for entertainment. It appears neither useful, co-operative or personal. It is, though, superbly resourced, impeachably clean and probably every child's dream. My school has light room overlooking the open countryside, we stop to listen to the rain, to watch a fire engine screaming through the valley, to view the sensory garden that we have made. It is a working space, we TRY to keep it clean, but paint splatters and dust collects. Children's work is proudly put on the walls but is also starting to be published on the learning platform where all can see an image from home. The children see moving up from one class to another as a sign of their growing up. As carers and teachers we know who is where, who looks tired, upset, who needs first aid. In the Bagkok park I cannot understand how children are being given support emotionally, how they get a sense of belonging, progress, a "feel-good" factor about themselves. I can understand though that they would be excited by the technology.

So why would we want to deny them that? Probably because of the percieved threat that your child will become a recluse, unable to socialise, imagine for themselves or be able to operate in the world in which they belong. Reports say that almost every working person spends hours daily in front of a screen of one form or another, so perhaps these children will not HAVE to co-exist as we have. As a mother I feel a contradiction of emotions regarding technology - I don't want my son to be glued to a screen every waking hour. Left to his own devices he will play but not create. He speaks to friends from his bedroom while they play a game - talking, laughing, getting excited, planning, co-operating - that's all fantastic as we live in a remote part of the Dorset countryside where he has limited entertainment. Conversely, I do want him to be able to use and apply technology.

However, I believe that MY most creative moments have come from, not having a wealth of resources to freely download, but actually the inverse - a dearth of resources where I have had to really use my imagination to create something that could be valued, for little money, that shows that I care. I have used skills that have been passed on to me by teachers, teaching assistants, relatives and friends. I know that I value things that have been thoughtfully personalised for me, not similar in many ways to something that every other child in the class has made. I value home made, hand made, craftsmanship. Perhaps eventually schools will offer a parental choice - the Forest School philosophy leading to schools of excellence in craft, art with real hands-on knowledge of materials, environment, teamwork embedded in nature versus the high-tech primary school where children share their day through a screen with their parents and friends from all over the world. I sincerely hope that somehow a compromise can be maintained between what is a paradigm shift from one way of life and another. I suspect I speak for many parents, so how could that be made possible? I will continue my professional development in ICT - I am as intrigued as everybody else in the potential use for ICT but only to promote what we are already doing. I believe that the national curriculum generally offers children a well rounded base on which to build their future lives - an overview of human life on earth. The trend towards cross-curricular approaches, like using Google earth for geography, literacy, maths, art, history, etc will of course be a fantastic resource on which teachers can draw upon, SO much more stimulating than old out-of-date atlasses. For ICT to become truly successful in schools there will have to be an **enormous** amount of money ploughed into training, to provide equipment and technicians to keep all the equipment compatible. It will have to be continuous and not an incentive and drive that stops after two years.