KNOWLEDGE - The verb


                                                       
Report to the Ministry of Education
R Bolstad & J Gilbert


In the past our understanding of knowledge has been treated as receiving content as part of disciplinary facts. 

The report to the Ministry of Education maintains there needs to be a new focus on the role of knowledge:
  ".. the focus needs to be on equiping people to do things with knowledge, to use knowledge in inventive ways, in new contexts and combinations." 

Knowledge:

 ".. is seen as something that does things, as being energy.."

Knowledge is a doing word.




Jane Gilbert Professor of Education AUT

Jane Gilbert suggests this new understanding of knowledge is about:
 "How to use knowledge to generate new knowledge. To think about knowlege in new ways, as a knowledge-building or knowledge-creating enterprise, or as an activity that focuses on 'doing things with knowledge"
Catching the Knowledge Wave pg 76

With this understanding of knoweldge, Gilbert suggests that:

“The future is about students problem solving and thinking critically in a new way.  We therefore need our trainee teachers to experience this transformational learning at university so that they can work with students in the classrooms of the future.”

Amelie Kelder believes if knowledge is about energy it then  becomes connected to new tasks. 

Kelder explains, 


"...the energy is used to do something which leads to another action. For example, the lamp needs energy to brighten the room in order for me to read my book; the car needs energy to drive in order to go to the shop; the ball needs energy to move in order to be played in a game etc. The knowledge here thus would abolish the boundaries as it is connected to new tasks."




As a result of thinking about this new understanding of knoweldge:

1.  I have started looking at Sugata Mitra's model of SOLE and how it may be utilised in the classroom. At present I am in the process of preparing a presentation for the next staff meeting. My colleagues and I  are wondering what are  going to be the strongest angles we can enter into Inquiry teaching and learning.



2. I am asking myself how is the capacity to  create, change and collaborate within all teaching and learning contexts being realised?


Ken Robinson

Ken Robinson suggests that it is time for creativity and collaboration  to be part of a systematic process. Much like we learn numeracy and  literacy. Where being creative and using knowledge in a new way needs to become a habit.


3. I am looking at all classroom program development and implentation and asking: Where is the play, passion and purpose?










Tony Wagner

4. I am looking for a new metaphor for school. Guggenheim.  A archetyple spiral. A metaphor that has energy! 














5. I am looking to other disciplines for sign posts of where to go next.  One sign post is The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa statement of intent.  Within the statement is a vision about change.


E huri ngakau ana. E huri whakaaro ana. E huri oranga ana.
Changing Hearts, Changing Minds, Changing Lives

                                               













6. Sweeney believes the metaphor Punctuated Equilibrium is a metaphor for change. That change happens on the edges of any given species. Sweeney challenges us all to find our edge.




When schools work with knowledge

having an energy, schools may be able

to explicitly KNOW their EDGE.




Brian Sweeney, founder of NZEDGE.COM



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