Revolution in Education

Searching for the topic that relates to my research theme I encountered with Sir Ken Robinson’s talk on Ted.com. “Schools kill creativity” by Robinson made a great impression on me and I simply decided to listen to his talk “Bring on the learning revolution” whether it is pertinent to my research or not. What I like about Ken Robinson is the way of presenting a subject to the public. His manner of speech is discerning and always interesting. Mr. Robinson knows how to sustain the listener’s interest till the end of the speech.

Actually, “Bring on the learning revolution” does relate to my research of international exchange for foreign education is also an essential part of that revolution Ken talks about. In his talk Ken touches upon the problem of human resources, precisely the crisis of human resources. All people have inner talents, some of them succeed in revealing their talent to life, others, however, keep them deep inside mostly with no idea about them. Accordingly, people either enjoy what they do or endure. I remember my school teacher, who ‘begged’ me not to be a teacher at all. Actually, I didn’t feel I wanted to be a teacher, but I had a passion for English. And now 7 years later I feel no regret for being a teacher, because I am a teacher of English. On the contrary, I am grateful to the English language: I got my Bachelor Degree, I study at the most prestigious University of my country and I have a possibility to study abroad for my Master’s Degree.

However, Robinson’s speech made me think about my inner talents. I might be an architect, a sportswoman or somebody else, who knows?! It is true that “you cannot predict the outcome of human development; all you can do, like a farmer, is create the conditions under which they will begin to flourish.”  Ken encourages to customize to the circumstances, and personalize education to the people we’re actually teaching. To do it we need to pay our attention to the quality of education. It is the problem we try to solve today.  With all due deference to Kazakhstan, I admit that the quality of our education still leaves much to be desired. The opening of Nazarbayev University is a courageous step to make a revolution in our education. However, it is not enough, that’s why we should co-operate with our foreign partners. And here the importance of foreign education crops up. Deferring to foreign experience we can build our educational system. I am glad that Kazakhstan offers its students opportunities for foreign education. I am glad we have Bolashak, Muskie, Fulbright and other programs that conduce to get developed countries’ experience. I am glad we have many foreign professionals contributing to the development of our republic.

As a matter of fact, today we have close co-operation with American speakers: Marinka Franulovic, Harold Samuels, Ann from Cambridge University. The next semester we will have other quests as well. To my mind, such kind of co-operations are important for self-improvement. It makes a great sense to our lessons and I hope that the same will feel our students in future. Through native speakers we can raise their passion for the English language.

In conclusion, I want to say that if a person has a passion he will achieve everything he wishes. It is not a matter of what your parents say or your teachers advise, but what you are passionate for. Nobody knows you better as you yourself do. Bring on the learning revolution! Begin it from yourself! From your students!

 

The first movie night in the dorm

Summit is over and we are on our classes again. Yesterday we had our PDP classes and had a great deal of fun. We watched Ken Robinson’s speech on Ted.com and burst into laughing when he told about the way schools treat student’s creativity, he cooks egg in the kitchen, about man and woman relation. All the facts he presented made us laugh a lot. Sometimes we behave in such a way, but when someone talks about it, it is really funny. We, women, often criticize men for what they say. Here Ken remembers a T-shirt he saw with the inscription: ” If a man speaks his mind in a forest, and no woman hears him, is he still wrong?” It is only just the beginning. For instance, we can watch TV and fall asleep, but when a man turns on a football and we wake up at once and shout: ” I am watching!” Interesting woman nature! In a word, yesterday we had humor class rather than a PDP lesson.

Later we had a rehearsal for the upcoming photo session at the university. And tired so much went to the dorm. Still we had strength to watch a movie.For the first time we organized a movie night in the dorm yesterday. We planned the film organization a few days and found support from our Student Affairs Dean, who helped us with the projector. Another devices were supplied by a very convivial student, who first mentioned about the idea of movie night in the dorm. We watched a film “Remember me” starring Robert Pattinson and Emilie de Ravin. The film is about parent-children relationships. The plot develops between two families that have the same problems. The film describes brother’s affinity for his little sister, who lacks her business father’s attention. Caroline is her name, has a great talent in drawing. And when she is chanced to show her pictures in the exhibition, she is happy. She hopes her father come and see her works. However, father is too busy with his affairs and does not appear on the exhibition. Angered with sister’s disappointment Tyler (Robert Pattinson) rushes to his father’s office! A bit later father asks Tyler to meet with him in his office, but is late for he takes Caroline to school. Tyler enters his office and sees pictures of three of them on computer screen: Caroline, Michael(brother, who committed suicide) and little Caroline. It seems the better days of father and son relationships is coming. However, one awful event changes everything. It was September, 11, 2001. The building Tyler’s father’s office situated was World Trade Center. The place, where Tyler was waiting for his father! “The life is more unpredictable than fiction.”

Even though we (exactly, I) had a large problem while showing the film in the dorm, I am glad we watched the film yesterday. I wonder sometimes why people seek problems out of nothing. Especially, that very person in the dorm, who is on a shift during a night to control the discipline of the dorm. As Sunny, our fellow student, said before: “Even though her name is “pleasure”, she herself is rather far from it.” She called other employers of the dorm while we kept on the ground of watching movie further. As electrician of the dorm said: “It is ok, no damage!”  ” The rightness of my action is dependent on the time and culture in which it occurs”(F. Nietzsche). Nevertheless, all students were glad to have something to relax after an assiduous day spent in the university. Some of the students suggested to make a tradition out of it. It depends upon how long we will fight with that very person of our dorm.))

 

Ted.com and gapminder

Today the weather is much better, though yesterday it was stormy and frosty. A strong wind was blowing all the night as if he wanted to show the guests came for Summit how severe and astringent it can be. However, it seems to be only the beginning of asperity of capital city climate!)))Sitting in the library and looking at the window one cannot imagine -11 degree frost with the sun shining in the sky.

 As I have noticed most of my time at the university is spent in the library. If I am not in the library, I am in the cafeteria OR I am in our PDP classes (However, sometimes if I am at PDP classes I am in the library as well))). In addition, yesterday I planned to work in the library, unfortunately, it was closed earlier and a special guest visited me and was with me the whole evening. Boredom!(( I don’t like the state of abeyance. For a person used to do several things at a time it is…(I have no words)

By the way, I watched Ken Robinson’s speech on Ted.com and really got interested in the way he was stating the facts. Mainly Ken spoke about the education, he presented an arresting speech on the theme which seem to be dull at the  first sight. His manner of speech and informality is really absorbing, he can dwell on the problems and switch to the facts from the life to buttress the idea he is moving forward. He says schools kill creativity. At first, you wonder and try to think for yourself whether it is so or not. Immediately, I remembered Laura, my fellow student from NIS. She is leading research on the development of student’s imagination. If Laura, an experienced teacher, has chosen this theme, it is really problematic at school. But, killing their imagination, their creativity? NO! Not killing, rather ignoring! All the things Ken tells is true. Yes, there is a hierarchy in education, there is a demand for Bachelor, if you have no, for Master – if you have Bachelor and for Ph.D. – if you have Master. I can say nothing against. It is what we are talking every day! Lifelong education, that starts from childhood. Every child has a cornucopia of abilities, their fantasy does not know borders, they can sometimes say something to stumble even an adult. In his speech Ken mentions a story, rather interesting, about a girl, who liked drawing. During her usual classes she was drawing a picture, and when a teacher asked what was drawing. She responded “God”. To teacher’s remark that nobody knows how God looks like she says: “They will in a minute”. Pretend you are that teacher, what will you say further? I will nothing! What can I?

Creativity is a step to novelty. That’s why it is necessary to be developed. A teacher should not daunt a child for his wrong answer. Otherwise, he will be afraid the next time, frightened of giving a wrong answer. The answers they give may not answer your question, but it shows their flow of creativity. “The children should be developed into creativity, not out of it” Ken states. Moreover, we should not be afraid of mistakes. Mistakes help us to do the same better, to improve. “A great mistake is not to correct your previous mistakes.” (I do not remember the author). All in all, I liked the speech and I am eager to read the book Ken is working right now. “Epiphany”! People know everything about their idols, but not about themselves. Epiphany is a difficulty I faced while writing essays for a definite program. If you are not attentive to yourself, you will hardly realize what it is. I hope, Ted.com will show Ken’s speech on this book in future!

If you search in the internet you can find many useful things(useless as well)))). You are not making research, but you can see how other people succeed in it. For instance, let’s take Hans Rosling’s presentation on the statistics. With the help of gapminder he demonstrates the changes occurring in sphere of health and money all over the world. It is interesting to watch statistics moving fro and back. The presentation is so detailed that it involves global data of the countries. You can see the path of development of a continent and of a country taken separately. It is difficult to deal with large numbers, but it is easy to watch them. You needn’t read copious statistics done when you can watch them.

I want to draw your attention on statistical data of Kazakhstan with the help of gapminder. As an educator, I searched the data about  literacy. Youth literacy rate in our republic is 100% of all people from 15-24 who can, with understanding, read and write a short, simple statement on everyday life. However, only 42% of the same aged youth are employed. Another interesting data is average age of the first marriage of women is 24 in Kazakhstan, while in Bangladesh is 19, in Sweden it is 32. How huge the difference is!  Unfortunately, statistics sometimes makes you happy, sometimes disappoint you. Comparing the data on HIV affected among 15-49 year old adults I noticed that the highest percentage is still in South Africa(18%), the lowest is in Philippines, Japan and Bangladesh. Kazakhstan with 0.08% is somewhere in the middle. Working with gapminder you can state an endless amount of statistics. Gapminder is useful, if you travel somewhere and what to know the life conditions of a definite country. For more information visit www.gapminder.org/world