Profile

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  Michelle Clarke

  Mar 20, 2020 at 09:18 in Freckleton, Preston, UK

  Hi Lance, please use the pinned thread at the top ;)
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  Jan Polak

  Mar 20, 2020 at 10:02 in Czech Republic, Slovakia, Global

  Great call. Will stay connected and already leaving with a list of actions on partnership, client/lead and onilne event front. Thanx!!!
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  Colleen Binks

  Mar 22, 2020 at 01:56 in 2 Alycon Place, Kallaroo WA, Australia

  Hi Lance how are you

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  Susan Ritter

  Mar 15, 2020 at 04:56 in Penang, Malaysia

  Beautiful, Lance! Both the artwork and its representation.
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  Tina Jonasen

  Mar 15, 2020 at 09:45 in Denmark

  Love it XXX
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  Jacqui Duarte

  Mar 17, 2020 at 14:42 in South Africa

  Fascinating Lance.

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  Lance Box

  Mar 14, 2020 at 05:27 in Australia

  It is my contention that we cannot allow civil governments to set the agenda for what is and isn't educational. Civil governments are driven by utilitarian objectives: everyone needs to get on the STEM bandwagon so that we can stimulate the economy. Economy schmonomy, as far as an education is concerned. A truly educated person is someone who has been enriched by the beautiful and the good in life, and for no other reason than that they are beautiful and good. Without this dimension to someone's educational experience, I would suggest that they have not experienced a quality education. Thoughts?
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    Lance Box

    Mar 14, 2020 at 22:18 in Australia

    Rita Juse-Cirkse in some places you can have your children taken away from you and never see them again if you take responsibility for educating them and refuse to send them to government-funded, government-curriculumed, government-mandated schools. In other places you have to register your efforts to educate your children outside of the total institution of school, and if your concept of an education does not align with the concept of the education bureaucracy, then your permission to educate outside of the schooling system can be revoked. In many places, civil governments forbid us to take responsibility for our own education and that of our children. The power of civil governments in this area is weakening in many places, but I still remember the days when children were taken from families in Australia, and it has happened in the USA, Germany, and many other countries around the world. There is a work to raise the consciousness of the fact that education and schooling are not synonymous. Governments school. Families have a wonderful opportunity to educate because you are correct, "We have as many tools and opportunities at our disposal as never before in history".
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    Rita Juse-Cirkse

    Mar 15, 2020 at 09:02 in Internet

    I know that. But there are always ways to cultivate a healthy attitude to the schooling if here's no way to avoid it and to do our part of adding true education to it. And I don't agree that all education should be left to the families. Many of them are not ready for that
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    Rita Juse-Cirkse

    Mar 15, 2020 at 10:26 in Internet

    Sorry, here = There. This platform didn't allow editing of comments, now, it stopped allowing deleting them as well :(

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  Lance Box

  Mar 13, 2020 at 23:06 in Australia

  For me this speaks of the learning journey through life. A rich education allows us to try and play with a vast range of experiences, without requiring us to commit too early. But each experience enriches us in terms of our education. Life is in the blood, so our journey is like a system of veins and arteries transporting life and us through life. Education is in life; as we are living life. The golden fruits, flowers, leaves are the outcome of each educational experience. Individually they are of value on their own, but collectively they are evidence of a life well-lived. I love this painting. I am in a rented facility, and I am not permitted to hang this painting in my home (which saddens me), but when I think of this painting, and the young artist who created it by simply applying herself to testing the boundaries of her educational opportunity, it makes me think of what education could b: a 'Quality Education'.
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  Jacqui Duarte

  Mar 17, 2020 at 14:44 in South Africa

  ...so beautifully illustrated and explained, Lance.
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  Lance Box

  Apr 13, 2020 at 10:43 in Australia

  Thanks so much for your kind comment.

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  Lance Box

  Mar 12, 2020 at 11:55 in Australia

  "(In) today's school-based technique of testing (the) vision is to have concentrated moments of pure evaluation, where students are asked to demonstrate what they know. And we want tests to work so badly. We love the idea of a simple-to deploy, objective mechanism that can sort, motivate, and diagnose—the equivalent of quality control at a car manufacturing plant looking for defects. The only problem is that tests do everything wrong. Tests only test the test taker's ability to prepare for and take tests. For example, there is no skill worth having that can be measured through a multiple-choice exam. Worse, tests emphasize exactly the wrong skills. They emphasize the memorization of massive amounts of facts that neurologically have a half-life of about 12 hours. They focus on short-term rewards through cramming to compensate for a failure in long-term development of value. It is no wonder we have financial meltdowns caused by successful students. We have to swallow a hard pill. The issue is not how do we make tests better? Or how can we have more or different types of tests? Or how do we arrange for more parts of a school program (such as a teacher's worth) to be based on tests? The reality is, tests don't work except as a blunt control-and-motivation mechanism for the classroom, the academic equivalent of MSG or sugar in processed food. In place of schools as testing centers, we have to begin imagining and setting up learning environments that involve no tests at all, that rely on real assessment and the creation of genuine value instead." Now that makes a lot of sense to me, and I feel very sad for the young people who walked away believing that they were no good because they didn't pass the test that I set and marked. Surely, Quality Education looks a lot different to that?

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  Rita Juse-Cirkse

  Mar 11, 2020 at 08:42 in Internet

  As I see it, one can be a good coach without ever reaching the same level of mastery of the coaching subject (sport give us plenty of examples). A mentor is somebody who has walked the talk, before they start mentoring people a couple of steps behind them on the path. And I see discipleship as a specific form of mentoring.
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  Lance Box

  Mar 11, 2020 at 09:22 in Australia

  That is really helpful. Thank you. Have a great day!
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  Tina Jonasen

  Mar 11, 2020 at 11:33 in Denmark

  One has a specific knowledge of a specific topic,the other teaches more around it ;-)
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    Tina Jonasen

    Mar 11, 2020 at 11:33 in Denmark

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellevate/2015/10/15/the-difference-between-a-coach-and-a-mentor/
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    Lance Box

    Mar 11, 2020 at 22:55 in Australia

    Thank you so much. Very helpful article.

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  Lance Box

  Mar 9, 2020 at 20:24 in Australia

  "The education-industrial complex is structured around organizing children by age. This is a bad idea for so many reasons. "First among them is that this notion is based on a false assumption that young people of the same age have roughly the same skill level in subjects across the curriculum. Clearly, this is not the case. Even the maturity level between genders is a schism. Likewise, different students with different interests and interest levels have wildly different abilities. "But grouping by age remains an "objective" easy criterion, one whose inaccuracy has done nothing to minimize its use. "More importantly, putting children in groups of "peers," organizing students to emphasize their social sameness, necessarily forces them to emphasize and exaggerate their differences. Stop for a moment to imagine the Kafkaesque nightmare of being part of a community that was organized because someone thought you all were interchangeable. You would spend a lot of energy differentiating yourself through your actions and your dress and ultimately through forming social cliques. "Monocultures don't work. They are the product of a dated manufacturing mentality of mass production, and are seldom found in nature. That is why the waste from a deer in the wild enriches the soil, whereas sewage from a massive pig farm causes a health risk to the communities that live downstream. "In childhood learning, diversity of ages and experiences allows everyone to find their strengths in a vibrant ecosystem. Adults and kids should interact. Older people can mentor younger ones. Younger people can use their strength and vitality, each of them wanting to contribute and find a role to fill uniquely." A 'Quality Education', therefore, will be conducted in an environment where there is a diverse range of ages in the cohort that is learning together. The common thread in the cohort would be interest, not age.
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  Flourish Balami

  Apr 13, 2020 at 08:45

  I totally agree.
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  Lance Box

  Apr 13, 2020 at 10:39 in Australia

  Thank you for taking the time to make a comment. Keep safe and have a great day!

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  Lance Box

  Mar 9, 2020 at 01:07 in Australia

  He writes: "Schools seem to provide a variety of unhealthy social situations that are more likely to build scar tissue and resentment than success. ... Socialisation has to happen despite school, and perhaps even to compensate for school, rather than through school. So it may be more accurate to think of any school social time not as a solution to the need for socialisation, but as negative social time that requires more positive get-togethers to overcome the bad influence." (pp. 115-117). The real intention of school socialisation is to create "socialists". Only a few short decades after Karl Marx published his 'Manifesto' -- with point 10 of his plan to implement world communism being the establishment of government-funded, compulsory schooling -- the Secular, Free and Compulsory Acts precipitated the development of schools as institutions of "socialisation". Children have always been socialised throughout history, without the aid of schools. Perhaps a 'Quality Education' includes socialisation in the context of children interacting with the wider society, not just a cohort of age-graded peers.
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  Susan Ritter

  Mar 9, 2020 at 03:23 in Penang, Malaysia

  Absolutely - that is the wonder of homeschooling. Socialization must come from the broader community which makes a significant difference to the maturity and emotional intelligence of children that are educated at home, I'm sure.

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  Lance Box

  Mar 5, 2020 at 22:07 in Australia

  His full comment is worth noting: "No matter what his or her age, when a child has a serious and productive interest in something, do anything possible to feed it. Be the perfect enabler. Drive anywhere. Fly anywhere. Rearrange schedules. Get or otherwise provide access to the supplies and props (and animals and vehicles and equipment and ...). Find the experts, communities, even mentors. (Eventually you'll want to find people who can provide real and credible feedback.) Just as importantly, protect the child from the trivial work inevitably and often mindlessly and reflexively foisted on him or her by others. A year absolutely dedicated to a single area of deep passion is better than the potpourri of modem curricula. Some care needs to be taken not to subvert the interest or overwhelm it. And admit your own humble status as not being an expert. Childhood passion based on curiosity and real interest is one of the most powerful forces. This is what eventually shapes industries and nations." If we agree that this looks like how a quality education might look, then we must agree that this cannot be done within the parameters of schools and schooling; it is an element of "Quality Education" that has to be pursued in an unschooling context. Agree? Disagree?

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  Lance Box

  Feb 27, 2020 at 18:10 in Australia

  He writes: "...class size should be about five. This allows common presentations, peer-to-peer conversations, and one-to-one coach-to-student interactions. ... with this ideal class size comes a redefinition of class, from 'entire community all day' to 'time of focused learning'. From the point of view of the education [I would say 'schooling'] industry, fifteen is a calculated target -- a stretch goal for more funding without actually meeting the needs of the students. Once you get past their framing, the ideal number is much different." Five is an interesting number. It enables a team to be assembled that has representatives from each of the energies, and an extra to ensure that there is a good balance of profiles in the mix. Perhaps 'Quality Education' could be delivered in the context of learners coming together in learning teams, and the teams being assigned problems and challenges that they get to solve. The coach would function as a supply of resources, when necessary, and would supply leading questions and suggestions when there were blocks in the learning experience. These teams could change from learning situation to learning situation, and provide an opportunity for young people to find others with a common passion around common interests. Students could be working on several or only one learning opportunity at a time. This idea has logistics challenges, and would not necessarily support the top-heavy administration infrastructure of a regular school. However, if this kind of education was delivered in the context of a micro-school, that did not have layers of administration to support with the funding, then quality education might be a reality. There would certainly be an absence of the the negative dynamics when you have a large cohort of age-graded students, which always degenerates to the lowest common denominator.

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