Vladimir
Spivakovsky

XQ in America

That’s the reform of education! For the next 100 years.

Hardly had our information about the educational boom in America become known (15 000 reposts, «200 000» like «) … thanks to the contest for the best XQ super school, organized by Steve Jobs’s widow Lauren Jobs, who allocated $ 50 million for the super prize …, when the world heard even more fantastic news.

Finland, feeling that the superiority of its education system (the best in the world) can go up in smoke… did not give up, but announced its new epoch-making project: HundrED. The letters ED stand for education, and the word Hundred is 100 years.

Why 100 years? Because «HundrED» is the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Finland (when it separated from Russia in 1918!).
So, the Finns developed a project describing improvement of their national education system within 100 years.

… And while we are arguing here over how many years to study (11 or 12), whether we have time to print the certificates on time, what reports the teachers have to hand in, whether to close rural schools and where to take money for vocational schools, and call this reforms, the world rushes forward — to a completely new bewitching horizon.
A week ago the course of the current American contest was published, in which I`m participating personally as part of one of the teams that has already made it to the semifinal, being in the top 50 (there were 700 teams in total). And if you are interested, I will write reports about the participation in the contest and interesting details «from within». For example, here is what they are going to do there:
— interaction of teachers of different disciplines in real time, not just one teacher — one subject. For this purpose, a new specialty «coach» is introduced to the pedagogical colleges to conduct case studies and cross-disciplinary projects that integrate: math, language, reading, communication, IT, career guidance, business, art … Coaches will earn more. And children will rush to but not from these lessons.
— team competition, when the teacher`s monologue is replaced by a discussion between the teams of students (memorability and mastery increase many-fold).
— understanding that standard tests do not help students understand the practical application and usefulness of knowledge, but teach only the patterns which make everybody groan. Therefore, it is planned to shift to the estimation on a set of parameters (as in medicine).
— More frequent use of another indicator — feedback with the teacher: «works / does not work», instead of «correct / incorrect».
— vocational guidance not for the professions, but for «career clusters» — agrarian, construction, financial, technologies, computer, mixed … And also training not only for professions.
— at school any space is a place for learning / mastering knowledge, where everything is useful and nice. For this purpose, the chief coach of the school develops and implements a special design. And not only the color of the walls and smells, but also the schedule of classes so that you can choose them, the relationship between adults and children, free time, responsibilities …

And now, here’s the translation of what this pretty Scandinavian girl is talking about from the screen.

«HundrED is an advanced look at the future of K-12 education. In the last 100 years, the world has changed dramatically, but many spheres of education do not take this into account.
So we decided not to look 100 years back, but to look 100 years ahead so that education will keep pace with the times.

We are creating an extensive information base, which then will be given to the world for free. We hope that HundrED will give a powerful impetus to reforms in education. Therefore, anyone who wants, from South America to Australia, can participate with their ideas, thoughts and projects to inspire the new thing that can only be in education in the next 100 years. »

… As for Finland, it`s up to you, but I have sent them my project «7W» to participate in the competition, because many people there have already seen it, and felt that this is the trend of the future education.