Back to school!
“I can’t WAIT to go back to school”.
Hearing the excited voices of my own children who attend The New School and other children on the first day of the new school year, it filled my heart with joy. This is what learning should be about and this is what I believe the experience of education should be. It doesn’t necessarily need to be in a school setting, but having rich social and learning experiences that bring excitement and joy are a vital part of living, especially given that young people will be formal learning age for at least 12 years of their lives.
However, this is not the experience of so many young people. Anxiety; fear to the point of vomiting; the last few weeks of school holiday marred by a relenting dread of going back to school. Back to the pressure, the unreasonable expectations, practice and pedagogy not rooted in child development due to high stakes testing and coupled with the lack of play opportunities, combining to create a highly stressful environment.
Something has to change. As we move into our fourth year of The New School we continue our mission to create a funding model that allows innovative schools to exist in the mainstream system. Schools with a different focus, the space to critically evaluate practice and pedagogy and to create anew learning experiences for young people.
We will all watch as AI begins to pivot our world and our systems as we know them in a new direction and we have to look up and look outward at new possibilities in order to meet this challenge. More of the same is not good enough.
This is a call to arms at the start of a new academic year - to every person in job role that has the capacity to take a wider lens on education or health:
How can we think more expansively about third sector commitments and how to really address system change?
How can we push to devolve more power to a local level, whether that is public or private sector?
How can we play with and extend budget cycles or board strategies from annual to 10+ years to really test solutions?
How can we understand more about our role in public/private partnerships and how that can unlock social change?
If you know any child in a school or learning setting, I invite you over the next few weeks to look for the joy in their experience and ask yourself what it is that is that makes that learning space so worth that child’s time and energy. And if you can’t find the joy, ask yourself how you can help the ones that are trying and testing different solutions. We’re always happy to talk.