Monday, May 12, 2008

Neuroscience Providing Evidence in Favour of Autonomous Education

OK, the actual reported evidence for this in this Guardian article is scant to say the least, and the chances that the overall message will impact on schooling in any meaningful way is practically zilch in the current climate, so the good news probably really boils down to the fact that the head of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, Mick Waters is described as "an enthusiast for active learning" - in which case, he at least should see the sense of what a large majority of home educators get up to.

The OECD study summary.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great news! I must keep a copy of this...
D

Anonymous said...

I missed what's good about this.

It supports genetic determinism:
"children are born with a pre-wired ability to become numerate"

They encourage the practice of scanning children's brains in order to know what to teach them, would neutralise individual autonomy:

"In the future, it may be possible to use brain-imaging to map windows of opportunity, when people's brains are particularly receptive to different types of knowledge"

Yikes!