The Problem Solvers, open ideas forum by Charles Leadbeater, UK
26 May 2016
The Problem Solvers: The teachers, the students and the radically disruptive nuns who are leading a global learning movement by Charles Leadbeater. UK.
Charles Leadbeater's report, launched in the UK June 1 as part of an Open Ideas program by Pearson, argues that education modelled on "following instruction" ill serves young people facing a world in which they will have to be creative problem solvers, addressing challenges for which there is no manual.
The report, based on visiting and talking to a host of schools around the world, argues that we cannot teach problem solving in traditional ways, we have to give young people powerful experiences of what it involves. They have to learn by doing it.
Those experiences are what I call dynamic learning because they involve young people both acquiring and deploying knowledge, but also developing personal strengths, such as resilience; social capability, collaboration and the capacity to take action, to make, serve and create. A good education should develop all four of these ingredients, together and in combination. That is what you see in the dynamic schools profiled in the report, in activities design and activated by dynamic teachers.
Can this dynamic, action oriented, problem solving approach to learning spread and scale? It already is. My conclusion is that there is a growing global movement of students, teachers, employers, researchers, foundations and policy-makers exploring this space, to create experiences of learning which are both highly self-disciplined and yet highly creative.
Download The Problem Solvers report below.
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About the Author
Charles Leadbeater is a leading authority on innovation and creativity. He has advised companies, cities and governments around the world on innovation strategy and drew on that experience in writing his latest book We-think: the power of mass creativity, which charts the rise of mass, participative approaches to innovation from science and open source software, to computer games and political campaigning. Charles was a keynote speaker at "Connections – curriculum + space; learning + place” - A4LE's 2011 Regional Conference in Sydney.
