It has been a welcome challenge to continue to work with New Metrics Research Partners to bring new learning ambitions for a contemporary education paradigm to the fore. 'Times are a changing' and the shift in capturing a 360 degree view of students is well and truly in Beta phase in our University of Melbourne partnership 'first-mover' schools.
New Metrics Partner Schools
Author co-presenting during Parter School Offerings
In a recent seminar where all 37 schools came together, my thinking was challenged by a well-respected colleague. He mentioned that whilst we have subject matter experts in our secondary settings, there are no 'experts' with the General Capabilities. I chose to disagree. When we think about how students come to us in Pre-Kindergarten, our students already possess good stores of complex competencies such as those in our College's image below, or as outlined in V9 of ACARA's General Capabilities:
Contemporary educators, alongside the first-mover partner schools, already recognise that the ATAR, of which only 10% of students actually need, is due to soon expire. The need for a Learner Profile which hosts students' credentials, portfolio of projects and coursework, and a substantial overview of complex competencies (aka 21st Century Skills, dispositions, or general capabilities), has generated a sense of urgency.
As the race to prepare our school graduates with the skills they will need to flourish in their post-school lives, I suggest that we start to recognise and nurture the same competencies that are already present in Kindergarten. This should be our focus as we begin to reimagine a more authentic, relevant, and contemporary education experience for our students. We already know that the current educational paradigm erodes these skills and competencies as students progress through the current model of 'schooling'. For instance, we see questioning in Kindergarten which challenges the status quo, such as 'Why doesn't anyone visit the moon anymore?', to questions in Stages 5 and 6 that concentrate on logistics, like, 'When is this due? What's the word count? How many slides?"
Imagine if we could nurture these innate competencies early, rather than scrambling at the end to (re)develop them...