Learning is “brave” in the 21st Century
Pearson and CoSN published a video on YouTube and elsewhere: “Learning to Change/Changing to Learn,” all about 21st Century learning and reimaging what education is. I always have my suspicions about any commercial entity (especially one as HUGE as Pearson) publishing such a a video — and the inevitable product launch likely to follow). I have to say, however, that I love the words Stephen Heppel of the UK uses to describe students who use the tools of collaboration, synthesis, problem-solving, validation, etc. to LEARN, not memorize or capture a stream of facts. He calls them “ingenious, collaborative, gregarious, brave children”[my emphasis].
When I think about the willingness to accept uncertainty, to manipulate information that slips through the fingers like glycerin, to be wrong and keep on going, to proffer shared ownership in ideas, all of these ARE brave characteristics. Perhaps the new character education is about being learning-brave. This would make all the adults who “figure stuff out” using the web as much brave students as the younger ones who do so in a formal setting or at home at night when “school” is over. What we need as more “brave” learners and more hero-worship of that bravery instead of building fortifications of certainty and standards.
True learning IS brave. So eat your intellectual wheaties and build some bravery. This “land of the brave” is world-wide and moving fast. I know I need to keep up my strength, too, but I am very excited to see where we go — in even another year.
