Dr Darryl's Blog

Dr Stephen Covey wrote in his book "The 8th Habit" that "We live in a Knowledge Worker Age but operate our organisations in a controlling Industrial Age model that absolutely suppresses the release of human potential [bold type mine]" (Page 15). Just substitute the word "schools" for "organisations" and you have it.

Our schools were originally designed to put students in rows in order to learn to read and write so that they could move off the farms and into the factories for the Industrial era. Not much has changed really. Sad, but true.

We wonder why our adolescents are dis-engaged with school, why the truancy rate is high and why adolescent depression is at an all-time high.

In fact, the issue is so problematic that our enlightened bureaucrats and politicians have seen the need to legislate for children to stay longer at school. Really?  Ever thought about changing the system so that teens might actually enjoy the experience?

How? View the work of Salman Khan where he uses video to reinvent education -- see http://blog.ted.com/2011/03/09/lets-use-video-to-reinvent-education-salman-khan-on-ted-com/

Or perhaps you'd like to review the work of one of Australia's leading educators, Dr Tim Hawkes, the Headmaster of The King's School in Sydney -- see "The Failure of Schools to Educate" http://www.kings.edu.au/about/documents/The-failure-of-schools.pdf