The planet as we know it is changing at an incredible rate with technology, climate, population, learning, health and social changes presenting some complex challenges. Teaching students how to read and write was once sufficient but not now. Young minds need to know how to think in critical and creative ways in order to deal with the juggernaut of social, moral and ethical change across the globe. Our young people need to be self-directed learners so that they can take their place successfully in the world without the support of parents, schools and teachers.
Educators know that new goals are needed for our very survival. Our education system is not really designed to promote self- directed learners yet it remains the number one goal in education. Some of these goals as identified by Costa and Kallick in their book ‘Assessment Strategies for Self-Directed Learning’ are:
- The capacity for lifelong learning
- Knowing how to behave when answers to problems are not apparent
- Cooperativeness and team building
- Precise communication in a variety of modes
- Appreciation of disparate value systems
- Development of critical and creative thinking
- Enjoyment of resolving paradoxical situations
- Knowing how to interpret and organize the overabundance of technological information
- Pride and craftsmanship in self and product
- Knowing and accepting oneself
- Personal commitment to something other than self
Todays’ students need cognitive training and a passion for creative thinking. Individual intuition is sometimes frowned upon in classrooms but its encouragement is absolutely essential if we are to have any chance of developing life-long learners who have the ability to think for themselves and operate with autonomy. The more control people have over others the more susceptible they are to the stresses of modern life.We are all born natural, self-directed learners who are creative, curious and playful. Our personal concepts shape our identity and it’s in our infant years that the brain downloads information about relationships, environments and our capacity to learn. Schools, and in particular teachers, are the great hope in disseminating this message to parents in the community. Providing our children with an enriched learning environment as infants which is then supported with a school experience that is enriched is ideal but still doesn’t guarantee success.
Elite minds are self-directed. They have control over their inner self. Compliance, governance and external controls do not develop elite minds. Daniel Pink in his book ‘Drive’, says that ‘the secret to performance and satisfaction at work, at school and in life is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things and to do better by ourselves and our world.’
John Hattie states that feedback is the number one element for effective learning success. He places cognitive training second. Neuroscience over that past decade has made a valuable contribution to the learning process with insights into neuroplasticity and neurogenesis. The human brain can, and does, reconstruct itself from experience so if a learner is prepared to persist with learning processes that are productive and meaningful then neural pathways will be reinforced. The down side to neural development is that bad learning habits will be cemented if practiced. Environment, relationships (mentors, teachers, parents), processes, time and readiness are all virtual aspects of successful learning.
