Changemaker Curriculum Live

Do we have 2020 vision? Moving into this new decade encourages us to take a long term perspective.   We have been around 13.7 billion years and expressed in 24 hour chronological time, we humans only show up at 22:30 and the whole of recorded history happens in the last 10 seconds before the chimes of Big Ben at midnight! No wonder then that we may be reeling with the pace of change; or is it just me?   Thomas Friedman  thinks not: he implies technological change is outpacing our ability to adapt to it.  The technological supernova is charging ahead and we lack the cognitive (let alone the social or emotional) capacity to keep up.   If the pace of technological change (expressed in terms of the development of Intel processors since 1971) were applied to a VW Beetle, it would be hurtling around at 300,000 miles per hour and we’d be getting 2 million miles per gallon of petrol.  It would cost US 4 cents.   So what are the...

Now this is the antidote against a poisonous civilisation: the plan of life for adolescence at school and out of school, should give a place of importance to activities meant to stir and sustain the love of skill, the love of enterprise, and the love of aloneness. On 22 nd December 1940, in the aftermath of heavy bombing in the City of Liverpool, Kurt Hahn made a speech in the Cathedral entitled:   The Love of Enterprise; The Love of Aloneness; The Love of Skill.   This was a rallying call for educators to cultivate these ‘healthgiving passions; to harness the motivations and develop the talents and dispositions of young people to find meaning and purpose through action in extraordinary times.   This speech started: ‘ If it be true that Education can heal the State, then indeed we educators have a grave and anxious responsibility.’   It is clear that the ‘State’ now, as then, is struggling to meet the challenges of the time and s o our responsibilit...

I am three weeks into my new role as Director of Learning Innovation at UWC Atlantic.  This is my introductory blog that will help me share this exciting voyage of learning innovation we’re embarking on.    I say voyage because we journey alone but we voyage together.    I have recently been re-inducted back into Atlantic College having taught Economics, History and Political Thought here from 1998/9-2002/3 which clearly ages me!  My recent induction reconnected me to the sense of belonging that is unique to UWCs.   From the many offers of support I have already received from UWC Alumni, clearly this belonging lasts a lifetime.   There are huge expectations for what we can achieve as we reimagine the curriculum here at AC and with Rebecca Warren’s leadership, across the UWC movement.   Bouncing between the UWC, international schools and the British state system as a teacher, Head of Faculty, Assistant Principal, Principal and E...