This summer, one of my focuses is reading more education blogs to gain new ideas and philosophies for the upcoming school year that might be beneficial to my students. Today in the blog, Fool Hardie, a Teacher's Learning Journey, written by my Australian friend Philippa Clymo, she wrote about visiting Intellectual Ventures in Washington state, and quoted one of the inventors at the company.
Children should learn to question not “what does it do?”, but instead ask “what can I make this do?”
He is speaking from the perspective of inventor, businessman, and company rep, and perhaps is a bit biased toward what he does and its importance. But, as I think of Twenty First Century Learning, and its implications for my classroom, I have to put my own personal prejudices aside ("What does he know? He's not a teacher!") and think about what I can learn, not who said what and what their credentials are.
And that may very well be an important leap in my own education journey right there, even more important than the ideas from the quote that I was originally planning to reflect upon.
At the Machine Again
11 hours ago
