Monday, April 15, 2013

Tuesday Interview: "Deschooling" with Matt Hern


Join me Tuesday, July 2nd BEING RESCHEDULED!, for a live and interactive FutureofEducation.com conversation with Matt Hern on "deschooling."

The phrase "deschooling" was popularized by Ivan Illich, and indicates a belief that "most people learn better by themselves, outside of an institutional environment, at a self-determined pace" (see Wikipedia). Matt's most recent book on this topic, Everywhere All the Time: A New Deschooling Reader, "presents an array of historical and contemporary alternatives to traditional schooling, demonstrating that children’s capacity to learn decreases as soon as they enter bureaucratic, institutional facilities."
"Debates about education often revolve around standardized testing, taxes and funding, teacher certification—everything except how to best help kids develop learning skills.... Census data in the United States alone places the number of home-schooled children at five hundred thousand. Trends point toward an increasing skepticism of the ability of public schools—and private ones, based on similar pedagogy—to give kids what they need to be healthy, self-directed life learners. Major themes in this book include: children’s self-directed learning, encouraging community-building and participation from parents in the learning process, critical thinking for active engagement and democratic self-governance, and alleviating the negative psychological effects of traditional schooling methods. It also includes the voices and artwork of alternatively schooled children themselves." (From the publisher description.)
Matt lives and works in East Vancouver with his partner and daughters where he co-directs the Purple Thistle Centre and founded Car-Free Vancouver Day.  His books and articles have been published on all six continents, translated into ten languages and he continues to lecture globally. He holds a PhD in Urban Studies, and teaches Education at UBC, Urban Studies at SFU and Community Economic Development in CBU’S MBA program. He is currently primarily occupied directing the Groundswell project.

Date: Tuesday, July 2nd, 2013 BEING RESCHEDULED
Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Blackboard Collaborate (formerly Elluminate). Log in at http://www.futureofed.info. The Blackboard Collaborate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Blackboard Collaborate, please visit the support and configuration page.
Recording:  A full Blackboard Collaborate recording and an audio mp3 recording will be at http://www.stevehargadon.com and http://www.futureofeducation.com.
Mightybell:  A Mightybell space with interview resources and to continue the conversation is at https://mightybell.com/spaces/43623.

3 comments:

  1. Hi! When will the recording be available for viewing/listening? I was unable to attend last night, and would see what I missed.

    Thanks!

    David

    ReplyDelete
  2. Matt had the wrong time on his calendar, so he didn't show up until too late! We're rescheduling!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Really looking forward to Matt's talk, hope it will be rescheduled soon!

    ReplyDelete

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