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Product reviews for Trivium 21c
Jan Sargeant, Associate Principal Lecturer in Secondary Education at Leeds Trinity University
If you want to know the difference between your “trivium” and your “quadrivium”, read this book. And even if you don't, read it anyway because it has something to say about how we can shape 21st century education for children and young people.
In the current climate of debate about what the new curriculum should look like, this is a timely reminder of the importance of teaching and developing the skills and attributes young people need to be successful learners -” whatever the curriculum diet. As a self- acclaimed “school failure”, Robinson draws on his own practice as a teacher and as a parent himself and questions prevailing ideologies and the meta-language surrounding education with its shift towards examination driven teaching and statistical accountability. His mantra is based upon an approach to learning that is based in “knowledge, argument, engagement, belonging and the capacity to make a difference”.
This book is far-reaching and wide-ranging; it moves from looking at classical approaches to education through to more contemporary debates and approaches, whilst always retaining that voice of someone who has made their own very personal journey in their own thinking and teaching. Robinson looks at the approaches of ancient Greek philosophers, through to the Middle Ages then towards the 1944 Education Act and the later comprehensive system and finally to the democratisation of knowledge through the Internet, managing to draw in Hegel, Kant and Descartes along the way. It is scholarly without being dry and it is ambitious in its scope.
This would be an interesting read for anyone interested in the history of education which isn't just about key dates in government reform. The last chapter offers his own conclusions about how we can negotiate the tensions he has already addressed so thoroughly to arrive at an approach to education which uses lessons from the past to help meet the needs of the 21st century learner.
Yes, it is already on my list of essential reading for the new trainees on my PGCE course in September.
In the current climate of debate about what the new curriculum should look like, this is a timely reminder of the importance of teaching and developing the skills and attributes young people need to be successful learners -” whatever the curriculum diet. As a self- acclaimed “school failure”, Robinson draws on his own practice as a teacher and as a parent himself and questions prevailing ideologies and the meta-language surrounding education with its shift towards examination driven teaching and statistical accountability. His mantra is based upon an approach to learning that is based in “knowledge, argument, engagement, belonging and the capacity to make a difference”.
This book is far-reaching and wide-ranging; it moves from looking at classical approaches to education through to more contemporary debates and approaches, whilst always retaining that voice of someone who has made their own very personal journey in their own thinking and teaching. Robinson looks at the approaches of ancient Greek philosophers, through to the Middle Ages then towards the 1944 Education Act and the later comprehensive system and finally to the democratisation of knowledge through the Internet, managing to draw in Hegel, Kant and Descartes along the way. It is scholarly without being dry and it is ambitious in its scope.
This would be an interesting read for anyone interested in the history of education which isn't just about key dates in government reform. The last chapter offers his own conclusions about how we can negotiate the tensions he has already addressed so thoroughly to arrive at an approach to education which uses lessons from the past to help meet the needs of the 21st century learner.
Yes, it is already on my list of essential reading for the new trainees on my PGCE course in September.
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05/08/2013 01:00
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