Education Forward: Moving Schools into the Future

by David Price (Editor), Mark Stevenson, Valerie Hanson

Too often, we think of school as a fixed-rail path we all have to teachers teach, students learn, exams are taken, futures set. That's how it's been since the introduction of compulsory schooling in the 19th century.
But parents, teachers and corporations around the world are now voicing their dissatisfaction with education systems that are no longer fit for purpose. Too many of our young people are not being adequately prepared for the unprecedented challenges they will face in a world that is changing as rapidly as ours is. We should be preparing them for the test of life, not a life of tests.
A group of distinctive voices – working in education and beyond – has produced a collection of essays that presents a call to action, a positive way forward, and a programme of change. Education Forward challenges us all to find another story for the future of schools.

Genres: Education

194 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 2017

About the author

David Price, OBE, is a speaker, author, trainer, advisor. For the past 15 years, David has written, talked and advised on some of the biggest challenges facing business, education and society: solving the problems of employee, student and civic disengagement; maximising our potential to be creative, innovative and fulfilled citizens, and understanding the global shift towards open organisations, and systems of learning. In 2009 he was awarded the O.B.E. By Her Majesty the Queen. For services to education. his first book, OPEN: How We'LL Work, Live And Learn In The Future, was published in 2013. Goodreads members voted it the most influential education book in 2014. Sir Ken Robinson wrote that 'from every perspective OPEN will open your mind to some of the real implications of digital technologies for how we live and learn in the 21st century'.

In 2017, David edited and contributed to Education Foward: Moving Schools Into The Future, published by Crux, as a manifesto for change in education

in 2020, Thread published his most recent book, The Power Of Us: How We connect, Act, And Innovate Together.

David is an international advisor for the Mastery Transcript Consortium in the USA, Vega Schools in India, and the Canadian Educators Association. He lives happily with his wife and dog in North Rigton, North Yorkshire, chosen mainly because it is home to the Square & Compass pub. The best pub in the world.

Website: www.davidpriceobe.com
Twitter:@davidpriceobe
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/davidpriceobe/

For literary enquiries: The Viney Agency charlie@thevineyagency.com

For speaking enquiries: Maria Franzoni Ltd Tel:+44 (0)20 3384 3664 www.mariafranzoni.com

Reviews

[n · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is incredibly annoying. For all the times they say that educators are involved, one educator is involved twice and another two (maybe three) people who have actually been in educational facilities exist.

Mostly, this is a book for non-education professionals BY non-education professionals. I'm not against this on principle, but I find it condescending to assume that people who really aren't in schools on a regular basis have any real knowledge about problems IN schools. Teachers should've been centered more often than they were.

Robots, on the other hand, should've bee LESS centered.

Here's a run-down of a longer review I did elsewhere:

This book likes to pretend that it has a lot of different goals and topics to discuss, but it doesn’t. It starts off claiming that we are “implementing ‘strict discipline procedures’” but then complaining about how we won’t let children have gum in the classroom (because many students put it under desks and chairs, and that’s kind of unhygienic) or how we won’t let them use their phones as calculators (but forgets to consider either distraction or cheating).

But ignoring the silly complaints about so-called strict discipline (while they ignore genuine examples of over-the-top discipline, particularly against children of colour), their main premises seem to be:

- We need to be training children for the workforce, and we need to make sure that they are capable of working with an “always innovating world.”
- We are not preparing our children for the workforce properly, and many companies do not like their “lack of skills.”
- We need to figure out what the purpose of education is because no one seems to know anymore.
- We are going to be dominated by automation and artificial intelligence (AI).
- Education policy is “too ideological.”

All of these ignore the realities in which we live. Teachers are told to prepare students for "jobs of the future," but no one knows what these jobs are beyond speculation; we're told to prepare students with the skills they need, but the skills we know they will need are the ones discouraged the most (critical and creative thinking, analysis, transfer).

It pretends that any policy will be apolitical, and that's not possible. Anything dictated by policy is inherently political, and politics inherently have an ideology supporting them. These are the classic white people wanting an apolitical world but not realising that being apolitical is a political stance (one that ignores the world).

[Gill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book to make school leaders consider the future ~ bought copies to pass on to my governors

[Des Cullen · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent read for anyone with an interest in education