Daniel Pink’s ‘A Whole New Mind’ is a must-read book for all of the future focused teachers out there. He delves into the science regarding how the left and right hemisphere’s of the brain work, and explains why a ‘whole new mind’ is going to be needed in the future. 

 

To briefly summarise, Pink outlines how in the past (and especially since the Industrial Revolution), we have relied predominantly on the left hemisphere of the brain. This is the part of the brain responsible for logic, sequencing, reason, reading, writing, maths and so on. Most jobs during this time has heavily relied on these skills. Then, moving out of factory work into more of what he calls the ‘knowledge era’ - think lawyers, engineers, doctors, etc, we further relied on the left side of the brain. 

 

However, the world - and the economy - is changing (or has already changed). Just as many people working in factories in the western world have...

Does the mere thought of ‘covering’ the curriculum make you anxious? Overwhelmed? Stressed? Me too. I hate that word, ‘covering’ -  it seems like we are just going through the motions, ‘ticking off’ each content descriptor as quickly as possible, just so that we can move on to the next one. It seems relentless sometimes, and there just seems to be SO MUCH CONTENT to teach. 

 

Whew. Deep breath. What if there might be a better way? Because I think there is, and I think that taking a future-focused approach is key. By focusing on the skills first, and making project based learning the vehicle through which both skills and knowledge can be developed together. 

 

I always thought that in order to cover the curriculum, that it was necessary to teach each content descriptor equally, or to the same depth (which often wasn’t very deep due to time constraints). In addition, each subject within my learning area (Humanities...