The Education Domain
Populated by Philosophers, Educational Thinkers, Academic Experts, Teachers, their Pupils and Parents
The UK Government Curriculum and Assessment Review 2025
see: https://global.oup.com/education/content/curriculum-review/?region=uk
With focus in reading and oracy as foundational skills. The Curriculum and Assessment Review Report states that the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) necessitates greater media literacy and critical thinking.
The Scottish Government Curriculium for Excellence, 2010
The Scottish Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) has faced criticism for shifting focus from traditional, knowledge-based learning to a skills-based approach.
2023
see Sonia Sodha
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/10/scottish-schools-have-tumbled-from-top-of-the-class-this-is-what-went-wrong
“The CfE downgraded the status of knowledge and adopted a competence-based approach, emphasising the development of transferable skills and interdisciplinary learning.” This is in line with a growing movement in western education that discipline-based knowledge is becoming outdated in a world of Google and artificial intelligence, and that we would be better off focusing on skills children can one day apply to jobs that don’t even exist yet. It’s a theory with considerable traction. But the problem is that it is only that: a theory, based on zero evidence.” These kinds of curriculums are based on an entirely false but faddish dichotomy between knowledge and skills. As Daisy Christodolou sets out in her seminal book on knowledge in education, fact-based learning cannot be separated from understanding; being able to engage with facts is the key to conceptual understanding in disciplines such as maths, science and reading. Of course, we want the school system to produce independent learners with transferable skills; but that does not mean the best way to do this is to emulate real-world problems in schools.”
There appears to be a growing movement in western education that discipline-based knowledge is becoming outdated in a world of Google and artificial intelligence, and that we would be better off focusing on skills children can one day apply to jobs that don’t even exist yet. It’s a theory with considerable traction. But the problem is that it is only that: a theory, based on zero evidence.
There is evidence that the “progressive” approach to education (embodied in the CfE) disadvantages poorer children the most
What to do?
“New Thinking in Education”?
“New Thinking”? Fresh thinking?
We need an education that creates independent, creative thinkers.
Adapting to the Digital World and the revolutions of the social media and AI?
Technologies developed by Big Tech in pursuit of Wealth and Power/. Ordinary People becoming “gadget-led consumers”?
The Next Generation of Citizens of The World?
When should children access “screens” – for the first time and in their cognitive and social development? Smart phones? How should computers be employed in education? Like the predictions of a the “paperless office”, the predicitions for books and libraries of books on shelves being a thing of the past?
“Personal Computing”?
In the 1970s, what did the thinkers and the pioneers of “personal computing” have in mind? Douglas Engelbart’s ‘AUGMENT Project and his “Mother of All Demos” was revolutionary – what was his vision? Has it all come to pass or perhaps it has gone too far, gone awry?
Ben Sheneiderman wrote about the “Old Computing” and the “New Computing” in his book:
Creativity and Agency?
Is creativity – digital, computer-based – the province of professional creatives employing the wealth of sohistictaed software tools? Where “ordinary people” are consumers rather than creatives? The wealth of sohisticated software tools rather too sophisticated for ordinary people barely keeping up with the news, the latest fashions, the latest gadgets, otherwise distracted with entertainement and simple easy to use online audio-visual tools?
What “agency” do “ordinary people” need, when thay can communicate and share all manner of on-line stuff? Big Tech and “influencers” (including “bad actors”) PUSH so much stuff all over the place. To what extent are we free to choose, where increasingly smart algorithmically configured interfaces distract, disrupt and lead us along so mnay garden paths? So much stuff to “browse”, so much noise, so much distration, so much manipulation. How do we find time to think/. To think independently? To focus and to gather and organise our thinking? Beyond just accumulating stuff in never-ending folders.
How can we educate (teach) our children to think?
Contructivism and Constructionism
Jean Piaget, Jerome Bruner, Seymour Papert
Hands on; making things. Learning by doing. Making Models. Making Prototypes.
The Education Domain
Is it all being done at school?
What is the “Cluster of Skills” really necessary for the 21st century digital world that our children will need? Beyond Numeracy, Literacy (reading and writing). Adding Oracy, the spoken word. Employers are looking for “Transferable Skills”. These include problem solving; analytic ability (what things, naming, clustering, categorising, what context?); creativity (thinking out of the box, modelling, simulation, hypethesis and expriment); initiative (new thinking, experimentation); logical and methodical reasoning; persistence (making and learning from mistakes; sharing understanding to identify flaws. “Critical Thinking”
“Programming” and ‘Coding”. Awareness of the “AI” revolution and new AI tools.
Theories of Education
see: “Skills versus knowledge: a curriculum datae that matters – and one which we need to reject”, Perspective Article, Tim Oates, September 2018
“The unprecedented growth of human knowledge has led some commentators to argue that a focus on carefully selected ‘core knowledge’ is irrelevant, and the ‘skills’ associated with ‘finding knowledge’ are the true focus of education.”
“…. established theory in psychology – that persistent schemas are needed in the minds of individuals to identify and organise knowledge, and that the knowledge held by an individual is determining of identity (who they are) and competence (what they can do). Helen Abadzi’s work (Abadzi, 2008), for example, shows how higher order thinking is dependent on the utilisation of cognitive resources that have been located in long-term memory – concepts, principles, ‘core knowledge’.”
see: “The Enigma of Reason” (Harvard) Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber, cognitive scientists argued that, more or less, as follows: Humans’ biggest advantage over other species is our ability to coöperate. Coöperation is difficult to establish and almost as difficult to sustain. For any individual, freeloading is always the best course of action. Reason developed not to enable us to solve abstract, logical problems or even to help us draw conclusions from unfamiliar data; rather, it developed to resolve the problems posed by living in collaborative groups.
Education Methodologies
Developing effective learners.
“The National Curriculum”
“The School Curriculum”
The Scottish Government’s “Curriculum for Excellence”
The Education Domain: A Thinking Model
[This Thinking Model was constructed using the IMP JavaNED tool; part of the IMP Information Modelling Toolbox: SMALL & SIMPLE TOOLS the ‘JavaNED’ Tool and the ‘Frameworks’ Tool and methodology]
Think and Model; Browse and Think
FRAME and CONSTRAIN YOUR THINKING
Create a framework. Create a Thought Palace with rooms and cupboards.
Create Containers for thinking, for ideas, for memories. Frame your thinking. Create maps
Concentrate on a Focus; the immediate focus. On Focus at a time. Consider what is the Context of the Thing of Focus. Context is the determinant of meaning.
A Blank Canvas might appear inviting, exciting. BUT, consider developing ways of dealing with LOTS and LOTS of Stuff; of Many ideas. How to reduce scale and complexity to manageable proportions? Reduce the thinking space to a minimum. We, you, surely cannot deal with 999 Things, not even 99 Things. Beware Cognitive Overload. 9 Things may be quite enough to start with. Construct a useful schema to start with and then Elaborate it.
The Domain of Thinking has been considered in many domains of knowedge and research. Aristotle and Plato developed theories of knowldge involving forms, kinds, basic entities and categories. And where thought is the active process of engaging in the manipulation of forms.
Perhaps AI Agents/Assistants will take over the task of Thinking? Perhaps Human Intelligence and the exercise of Imagination and Memory will remain special?
