Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Marching to a different beat

Our kids come to school with this creativity and the love of learning - how do we do school so we don't take it out of them?  As a society, as a country what does it take to create a happy, creative, motivated human being?  How do we balance the pull of the traditionally orientated curriculum with the flavour and intent of the actual New Zealand Curriculum??

Skennynz made this following clip after a brilliant day listening to Lester Flockton explore the National Standards. He put this together to share with his staff in order to create discussion and debate about the complex issues surrounding assessment, intending it to draw attention to the fact that children have different abilities and needs and that we as educators need to develop the whole child.

The idea for the song came to Harry Chapin when his secretary told him about her son who brought his report card home from school one day. The teacher had written a note in the card saying: "Your son is marching to the beat of a different drummer, but don't worry we will soon have him joining the parade by the end of the term."