2014

I just watched the video below and thought it was a great clip to start my year off with. This 13-year-old was taken out of the traditional school system to be home schooled. He encourages schools to 'hack' education, take short cuts, opportunities and risks so that students are prepared to make a life not a living. He talks about the importance of being happy and how we can incorporate eight practices of happiness at school. His final analogy of education being like a mountain really resonated with me - he says that if a powder covered mountain was a school, everyone would take a single line to ski down it, all covering the same path. Whereas, in fact, there are millions of possibilities and people will want to go different ways depending on their skills, interests, creativity and abilities. On the back of this, I am going to try to allow my students more freedom and opportunity for expression in class, opportunities for creativity and higher order thinking which allows them to be actively engaged in more insightful ways.

Bring on 2014!