"Ideas Generator" Charles Leadbeater to Illustrate New Learning Strategies - with Lessons from the Slums

In this interview in preparation for Online Edua Berlin's Conference on Technology Supported Learning, 2010, Charles Leadbeater previews his thinking on the obsolescence of school curricula and his advocacy for “disruptive innovation” and radical transformation in the digital age.

Leadbeater believes that "students should be seen as ‘users’ of education rather than ‘recipients’ and teachers should, therefore, focus on skills, motivation and peer-to-peer learning, rather than on detailed educational programme." He notes that education reform may be resisted by schools and educators, resulting in the teaching of skills that are not so relevant to the economy and society children will face. In describing strategies to energise students, he states that: "motivation is key to learning and motivation generally comes in two forms, intrinsic and extrinsic. As far as intrinsic motivation goes, learning has to be enjoyable, fun, playful but demanding and stretching. Go to the best schools and you see people working hard and having fun at the same time, like High Tech High in the US. But also you see learning as fun in projects like El Sistema in Venezuela where children learn through playing classical music. As far as extrinsic motivation goes, it means learning has to have a pay-off. Often for children from poorer backgrounds, who do not do well in academic subjects, the pay-offs from academic education are too little and they take too long. So practical forms of learning which lead to problems being solved or money being earned or products being made is vital. I’ve seen learning of this kind all over the world in projects like CDI [Portuguese] in the slums of Brazil. "

He describes digital technology as able to respond with more flexible delivery of learning, "self-organised learning", enabling children to learn from it themselves, with teachers and peers as mentors. Because he argues that learning should start from challenges that learners face and not from a formal curriculum, detailed curricula may become obsolete, in favour of "core skills, capabilities that people will need to find challenges, pose questions, interrogate information, question sources, collaborate creatively. In a world of information and misinformation on the web, we need people to learn how to search, question and think, rather than copy and memorise." He contrasts the current "push" system of education with a need for a system that pulls people to it and motivates them.

Leadbeater concludes with an answer to a question about scaling education to be widely available: "I think you start with the huge hunger for education. But you need new ways to make learning available at scale, which is low cost, flexible and which can be available in very poor, even hostile environments. To be honest I would not start with schools, I’d probably start with mobile phones. "