Education Futures » philosophy

Bulgarian students dream about future schools

John Moravec — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 18:39:18 +0000

As we shared earlier, Project Dream School started with a simple question: If you could build a dream school, what would you do?

This morning, I received some inspiring ideas. Elena Stateva writes,

Dear Dr. Moravec,

I would like to share with the you the Dream Schools of my students. They worked on them as a project for their Philosophy in English class (grades 8-11). We are from Bulgaria, and we are part of a summer school program.

And these dreams are inspiring: Robot teachers? No tests? Creativity and the development of individual identity?! Read on:

PROJECT: “JUST A DREAM”
Creators: Radoslav Asparuhov (16), Daniel Rashin (18)

Just a Dream is a school made of technologies, but not only about technology. It places a very high value on the potential of technology to transform the ways we see education. As full-fledged citizens of our dynamic modernity, students at Just a Dream are extensively trained how to use technology in the most innovative and effective way. For example, sculptures and other three-dimensional figures are created on computers, thus enabling students to develop their spatial and analytical intelligences. Top-notch technological innovations render the school one of the pioneers of knowmadic thinking.

Furthermore, Just a Dream gives students the crucial opportunity to have a practical go at their field. Relevant internships at successful companies are provided to each student, through a wide a range of sponsors. The sponsorship by highly acclaimed names in the business makes it possible for the students to go to school and use their modern facilities practically for free. In fact, these companies often recruit graduates from Just a Dream as the most prepared professionals.

In addition, Just a Dream is a school which recognizes extracurricular activities, within and outside the professional field, as essential to students’ academic and personal growth. Therefore, school trips are regularly organized, featuring exciting destinations in the country and abroad.

PROJECT: “MY DREAM SCHOOL”
Creators: Victoria Ivanova (17), Magdalena Kostadinova (15), Blagovest Pilarski (16)

My Dream School is a unique institution, notable for its out-of-the-box, ground-breaking philosophy. Using a student-centered approach, which values what really is best for the student (and not for the administration, for example), My Dream School incorporates a wide range of fundamental practices. Combining the arts and technologies, students experience a comprehensive headstart to their professional careers. All subjects are taught in a way, which does not stifle student’s ideas, but on the contrary – encourages students to have their own opinion. Thus, My Dream School stimulates its student body to be active citizens, able to think critically about the world around them, instead of following blindly the leaders of today.

Moreover, My Dream School defines the term “revolutionary”, with its grade-less system and robotized teacher collective. Originating from the notion of boosting motivation internally (as opposed to externally, which is often the case), My Dream School has removed assessment completely, allowing its scholars to pursue knowledge itself, and not just good grades. The replacement of teachers by robots has further contributed to the establishment of an objective, knowledge- and skill-oriented classroom, free of discrimination and favoritism. Thus, students can learn in a safe, conflict-free and thought- provoking environment.

In addition, My Dream School puts great emphasis on the connection between learning and nature. During the weekends, students can enjoy environmental activities, such as hiking in the mountains, which build up mind and body together. The beautiful parks surrounding the school are themselves a source of relaxation, inspiration and energy.

PROJECT: “ART SCHOOL”
Creators: Elena Kehayova (15), Dafina Nedeva (15)

The name of this school – Art School – already speaks a lot about its fundamental values. And yet, the Art School is much more than a school about art. It is a school where students go not only to grow in the direction of their talent, but where they actually find their talent and grow as a whole person. At Art School only the core subjects are obligatory – Literature, Math, Foreign Languages. The other subjects are a matter of preference: each student has the right to choose every part of their education. This freedom allows the students to explore their interests, inclinations and talents, to strengthen them or create them. Creativity – this is the key word which this school emanates through all its elements – from its facilities, to its curriculum, and of course – its teachers. The teaching collective is distinguished with its sharp eye to talent, broad mind for creativity and liberal view on individuality.

In addition to its exceptional creativity, Art School prides itself with a policy which preserves equality and prevents discrimination. Everybody at Art School is regarded equally, as an equal member of the school community.

Want more? Have a dream to share? Project Dream School invites you to submit your dreams online at http://projectdreamschool.org/

Timeline

John Moravec — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 20:32:47 +0000

The Education Futures timeline of education

1657 – 2045

By John Moravec (Updated May 30, 2010)

This timeline of the history of modern education provides not only a glimpse into the past and present, but plots out a plausible future history for human capital development. The future history presented is intended to be edgy, but also as a conversation starter on futures for education and future thinking in human capital development.

Although this timeline is largely U.S.-centric, the trends impacting it are global, especially as we look to the future. Please consult the glossary, below, for additional information regarding many of the themes presented. As always, we invite your feedback and suggestions for further development!

Glossary

Augmented Reality: “Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery – creating a mixed reality. The augmentation is conventionally in real-time and in semantic context with environmental elements, such as sports scores on TV during a match. With the help of advanced AR technology (e.g. adding computer vision and object recognition) the information about the surrounding real world of the user becomes interactive and digitally usable. Artificial information about the environment and the objects in it can be stored and retrieved as an information layer on top of the real world view.” (Wikipedia)

Dark Ages of Modern Education: A period, marked by a retreat of educational progressivism toward standardized testing regimes, where innovative thought, action and outcomes in the education sector was stultified. During this period, the education industry relies on external creative inputs to drive transformations, but is incapable of transforming itself or providing meaningful external outputs.

Manhattan Project: A secret project conducted by the United States (and allies) to develop the first atomic bomb. Developed at great expense, the outcomes of the project forever changed human culture society. In regard to education, this timeline calls for a Manhattan Project-like initiative to reform education, and thus transform the world.

No Child Left Behind Act: “NCLB is the latest federal legislation that enacts the theories of standards-based education reform, which is based on the belief that setting high standards and establishing measurable goals can improve individual outcomes in education. The Act requires states to develop assessments in basic skills to be given to all students in certain grades, if those states are to receive federal funding for schools. The Act does not assert a national achievement standard; standards are set by each individual state.” (Wikipedia) A primary criticism of NCLB is that it forces schools to “teach to the test,” eliminating creativity and critical thinking development from curricula. (See also EF post “10 ways U.S. education is failing to produce creatives.”)

Progressive Education: “Educational progressivism is the belief that education must be based on the principle that humans are social animals who learn best in real-life activities with other people. Progressivists claimed to rely on the best available scientific theories of learning. Most progressive educators believe that children learn as if they were scientists [...] More recently, it has been viewed as an alternative to the test-oriented instruction legislated by the No Child Left Behind educational funding act.” (Wikipedia)

Technological Singularity: “…refers to the idea that technological progress would reach such an infinite (or at least extremely high) value at a point in the (near) future. This idea is inspired by the observation of accelerating change in the development of wealth, technology, and in particular our capability for information processing. Extrapolating these capabilities to the future has led a number of thinkers to envisage the short-term emergence of a self-improving artificial intelligence or superintelligence[1] that is so much beyond our present capabilities that it becomes impossible to understand it with our present conceptions. Thus, the technological singularity can be seen as an metasystem transition or transcendence to a wholly new regime of mind, society and technology.” (Wikipedia)

Transhumanism: “…is an international intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of science and technology to improve human mental and physical characteristics and capacities. The movement regards aspects of the human condition, such as disability, suffering, disease, aging, and involuntary death as unnecessary and undesirable. Transhumanists look to biotechnologies and other emerging technologies for these purposes. [...] Transhumanist thinkers predict that human beings may eventually be able to transform themselves into beings with such greatly expanded abilities as to merit the label “posthuman.” (Wikipedia)

Turing Test: “…a proposal for a test of a machine’s ability to demonstrate intelligence. It proceeds as follows: a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with one human and one machine, each of which tries to appear human. All participants are placed in isolated locations. If the judge cannot reliably tell the machine from the human, the machine is said to have passed the test. In order to test the machine’s intelligence rather than its ability to render words into audio, the conversation is limited to a text-only channel such as a computer keyboard and screen.” (Wikipedia)

Recommended Further Reading

Allee, V. (2003). The future of knowledge: Increasing prosperity through value networks. Amsterdam ; Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota.
Bell, J. J. (2003). Exploring the “singularity”. The futurist, 37(3), 18-24.
Christensen, C. M., Horn, M. B., & Johnson, C. W. (2008). Disrupting class: How disruptive innovation will change the way the world learns. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Cobo, C., & Pardo Kuklinski, H. (2007). Planeta Web 2.0: Inteligencia colectiva o medios fast food Retrieved from http://planetaweb2.net
Cornish, E. (2004). Futuring: The exploration of the future. Bethesda, Md.: World Future Society.
De Grey, A. & Rae, M. (2007). Ending aging: The rejuvenation breakthroughs that could reverse human aging in our lifetime (1st ed.). New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Delanty, G. (2004). Does the university have a future? In J. K. Odin & P. T. Manicas (Eds.), Globalization and higher education (pp. 241-258). Honolulu: University of Hawai’i.
Doyle, R. (2003). Wetwares: Experiments in postvital living. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
European Technology Assessment Group. (2006). Technology assessment on converging technologies. Brussels: European Parliament.
Florida, R. L. (2004). The rise of the creative class: And how it’s transforming work, leisure, community and everyday life. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Fukuyama, F. (2002). Our posthuman future: Consequences of the biotechnology revolution. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Hakken, D. (2003). The knowledge landscapes of cyberspace. New York: Routledge.
Harkins, A. M. (2002). The futures of career and technical cducation in a continuous innovation society. Journal of Vocational Education Research, 27(1).
Harkins, A. M., & Kubik, G. H. (2004). Anticipating the “Singularity”: Innovation-focused knowledge production via archetypal campuses (working paper). University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
IBM. (2008). A mandate for change is a mandate for smart, from http://www.ibm.com/
Kurzweil, R. (2005). The Singularity is near: When humans transcend biology. New York: Viking.
Lenarcic, J., & Mousset, E. C. (2004). The open source singularity: A postmodernist view. Paper presented at the Computing and Philosophy Conference, Canberra.
Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2008). Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business Press.
Minsky, M. (1988). The society of mind. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Moravec, H. P. (1999). Robot: Mere machine to transcendent mind. New York: Oxford University Press.
Moravec, J. W. (2008, November 20). Knowmads in Society 3.0. Retrieved from http://www.educationfutures.com/
Moravec, J. W. (2006). Chaordic knowledge production: A systems-based response to critical education. Teorie vedy / Theory of Science, XV / XXVIII / 2006(3), 149-162.
Moravec, J. W. (2008). A new paradigm of knowledge production in higher education. On the Horizon, 16(3), 123-136. doi: 10.1108/10748120810901422
Paul, G. S., & Cox, E. (1996). Beyond humanity: Cyberevolution and future minds. Rockland, Mass.: Charles River Media, Inc.
Pink, D. H. (2006). A whole new mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future . New York: Riverhead.
Polanyi, M. (1968). Personal knowledge: Towards a post-critical philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Ramaley, J. A. (2005). Educational challenges and their implications for K-16 collaborations in STEM education. Winona State University.
Vinge, V. (1993). The Technological Singularity Retrieved March 10, 2008, from http://www.kurzweilai.net/
Youso, K. (2009, February 21). Approaching ‘Singularity’, StarTribune, pp. E1:E3. Retrieved from http://www.startribune.com

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Jean Piaget on creativity and innovation in education

John Moravec — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:45:02 +0000

Piaget: “We can classify education into two main categories: passive education relying primarily on memory, and active education relying on intelligent understanding and discovery. Our real problem is what is the goal of education? Are we forming children who are only capable of learning what is already known? Or should we try to develop creative and innovative minds capable of discovery from the preschool age on through life?”

Call for papers: Global Leapfrog Education

John Moravec — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 23:50:55 +0000

Call for papers

Global Leapfrog Education

Volume 2, Number 1 – March 2006

(Submissions are due November 30, 2006)

Global Leapfrog Education (GLE), a new, open access journal, is devoted to exploring how, through education and human capital development, communities can transcend current problems and challenges by empowering themselves with the tools to invent their own futures. GLE publishes articles spanning a wide range of interests related to leapfrog education (viz. change, technologies, knowledge production and innovation, global youth leadership, and futures-oriented philosophies and theories of education).

GLE offers its authors:

Timely peer review and publication
Free online publication
Web-based platform for comments and discussion
Online manuscript submission and tracking
International editorial review board

Scholars of all fields are invited to submit articles and reviews on topics in the following areas:

Accelerating change and related technologies
Knowledge production and innovation
Global youth development and leadership
Futures-oriented philosophies and theories of education

Articles considered for publication are normally between 8 and 25 pages in length. Detailed information regarding author guidelines and the submission process are available online at: http://www.leapfroginstitute.org/journal/index.php/gle/information/authors

Journal Web page: http://www.leapfroginstitute.org/journal

Editorial contacts:

Arthur Harkins, University of Minnesota, harki001@umn.edu
John Moravec, University of Minnesota, moravec@umn.edu