Christian Long over at Think:Lab is going to be talking to Daniel Pink, author of “A Whole New Mind” about School Design. Christian has asked his readers for question suggestions. I might be late on coming up with my questions, but lets hope note. Here is Christian’s post. So here are my questions.
What physical form and function to you see a school having in the future when today people (who aren’t students) can work from anywhere? And as this trend of being able to work from anywhere continues in the future, how should we educate today’s students on still having people skills and being able to communicate just not through the internet?
How can we design a school to be a place where people are open to the world through the internet but still learn by talking to the people around them?
How can we design high schools and colleges so that students can learn through playing and being creative. (Play, being one of the senses in your book) And seeing that today older students don’t play and create as much as younger students did.
How can the design of our future education system tell a story to the students? A story that contains facts that our just taught to us today in their raw format?
How can the design of a school balance the teaching of facts and the teaching of skills we are taught for right brain thinking?
More on these questions to come soon.
Ethan — Outstanding questions, my friend. You can count on my sharing several of them with Daniel tomorrow when we discuss the rise of the conceptual age and its potential impact on school design (and the future of learning). Thank you for taking time to do this. You more than made it on time, too! Cheers, Christian
Ethan,
I’m sharing your questions with my campus’ Vision committee which is discussing the book, Whole New Mind currently, and also considering how to plan for a school of the future.
Your questions raise so many excellent issues.
Thanks for sharing.
Ethan,
You came up with excellent questions for Christian to ask Dan Pink. I have a request for you based upon your interest in helping Christian.
I am running for school committee in my town and am gathering together a group of high school students as a focus group. We have a great deal to learn from students and my sense is that no one ever asks students about their opinion. Can you think of any specific questions that I should ask them? I have several questions already but I thought I would tap into your ideas as well.
Thank you for any help that you can give me. The focus group is scheduled for Sunday. This is truly the power of connections through Web 2.0.
Karen
Thanks everyone for commenting.
@Carolyn: It is great to hear that your school is discussing the book.
@Karen: Also, great to hear that you are putting together a committee. I will email you soon.