Animation #1: “Born to Learn” http://born-to-learn.org/# vimeo.com/20924263

1. What Kind of Education for What Kind of World;Do you want your children to be battery hens or free-range chickens?Victoria, April 28, 2013 The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

2. Animation #1: “Born to Learn” http://born-to-learn.org/#vimeo.com/20924263 (click link to play animation)

3. We have not inherited this world from our parents,we have been loaned it by our children.Chief Seatle : late 19th century The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

4. A “The task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees.” Schopenhauer, 1788-1860 The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

5. A The Troubled World of 2013 • There are now two and a half times as many people on the Earth’s surface as when I was born just before the outbreak of World War Two. • At the most recent count, about 7,000 people (One hundred millionth of the world’s population) owns more than over 3 billion people, (just under half the population). • 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day. • The richest 20% of the world’s population receives 75% of the world’s income while the poorest 40% receive only 5% or the world’s income. • Of the world’s largest 150 economic entities, 95 are corporations (63.3%). Wal-Mart, with revenue of $287.99 billion, is the largest corporation on the planet, and ranks number 22 on the list. The United States is the world’s largest economy with a total economic output in 2004 of $11,667,515,000,000. The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

6. David Suzuki, internationally renowned geneticist and environmentalist, born 1936... ...believes that “human intelligence and foresight got us into our present pickle by enabling us to invent such efficient ways of exploiting Nature that our population growth went into overdrive. Now human intelligence and foresight are all we can rely on to see us through the tight bottleneck we are fast approaching – that narrowing chasm where far too many people are faced with far too little food and, very possibly, far too little air. The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

7. A “If civilisation is to survive it must live on the interest, not the capital, of nature. Ecological markers suggest that in the early 1960’s, humans were using 70% of nature’s yearly output; by the early 1980’s we’d reached 100%; and in 1999 we were at 125%” Ronald Wright A Short History of Progress (2004) The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

8. C The 21st Century Learning Initiative “The Initiative will facilitate the emergence of new approaches to learning that draw upon a range of insights into the human brain, the functioning of human societies, and learning as a community-wide activity.” Washington DC 1995 onwards The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

9. Over 800 lectures… …in over 40 countries The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

10. C The Descent of Mankind Studies in genetics suggest that the split with the Great Apes occurred seven million years ago. At twenty years to a generation that is three hundred and fifty thousand generations ago, at a minute a generation, this is equivalent to the minutes we are, on average, awake for in a year. In all that time the genetic structure of us humans differs from the Great apes by less than 2%. Stone Age Man, on this scale, appeared 60 hours (two and a half days), while Modern Man, Homo Sapiens appeared some thirty hours ago, in Africa, or equivalent to one and a half days ago. Each of us is a result of all that evolution. The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

11. C The growth of synapses during the first 6 months Not until the child is about three years old does it’s brain reach 95% of structural completion (that does not mean it has finished its growth - far from it for further development involves removing part of the young brain to enable it to become more complex) The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

12. C How do we learn? “Tell me and I forget; show me and I remember; let me do, and I understand.” Confucius, 551-479 BC The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

13. Probably the earliest representation of intellectual thought was the bone uncovered in France some 15 years ago, covered with a series of images that archaeologists and astrophysicists have identified as the phases of the moon over a number of nights as observed from that latitude 32,000 years ago (c. 1,600 generations back. C The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

14. C Babylonian Mathematicians 5,500 years ago (c. 270 generations ago) The mathematics of space: 60 seconds to a minute, 60 minutes to a degree, 360 degrees to a circle... The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

15. C Polynesia Apparently the islands of Polynesia began to be colonised some 1500 years ago by people who navigated entirely on their ability to use the stars as a chart... ...together with their understanding of the different ocean currents containing waters of significantly different temperature and shoals of different kinds of fish. The skill to do this is something modern man can only wonder at... The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

16. C Evolution in Brain Until the early 19th Century the very best estimate of the age of the earth had been made in the mid 17th Century which had calculated from the book of Genesis that the earth had been formed at 4pm on the 22nd October 4,004 BC. Findings in geology in the late 18th Century suggested that it really had to be several million years ago. Sixty years later in The Origin of Species, Darwin said, “it is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one most adaptable to change.” Biology at the time lacked any technology that enabled it to study the structure of the brain at a scale which could show synaptic development. But Darwin guessed, “psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary requirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation (evolution). Light will [then] be thrown on the origin’s of Man and his history.” The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

17. Now, in 2013, we understand... C “Human beings did not fall ready made from the sky. Many of our abilities and susceptibilities are specific adaptations to ancient environmental problems rather than separate manifestations of a general intelligence for all seasons.” (Barrow, 1996) “The human mind is better equipped to gather information about the world by operating within it than by reading about it, hearing lectures on it, or studying abstract models of it.” (Santa Fee Institute, 1995) The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

18. C “Historical evidence is plentiful for the first couple of hundred years, then rapidly diminishes. At the 5,000 year mark visible records disappear altogether. At the 15,000 year stage humans began to settle down. Go back to the 50,000 year mark and it seemed that our slowly evolving ancestors started to show the first signs of modern human behaviour.” The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

19. D Three different traditions • The Judaic-Christian tradition of self improvement, the Book of Ecclesiastes says, “of the writing of books there is no end, and much study wearies the mind” (approximately 800BC) • Platonic Thought proposed that philosophers and rulers were born with gold in their blood, warriors were born with silver in their blood and farmers and labourers were born with lead. He believed that nothing in a person’s life could change their status. (428-348BC) • The Roman belief in rote learning and • the forcible injection of learning through • the classroom The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

20. D This began to change slowly Roger Ascham, tutor to Queen Elizabeth I and a renowned classical scholar, sat down in Windsor Castle in the late 1560s to write the first book in English on education, called The Scholemaster aimed at correcting the faults of traditional Roman education. Firstly, he urged cultivation of what he called ‘Hard-Wits’ rather than superficial ‘Quick-Wits’ of those whose memories were good, but who couldn’t work things out for themselves. “Because I know that those which be commonly the wisest, the most learned, the best men also, when they be old, were never commonly the quickest of wits when they were young.” Secondly, he urged teachers to be more gentle with their students and warned them against what he called ‘the Butchery of Laten’ – go easy on the birch he was saying, for children who only learn because they are frightened, gain nothing. The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

21. D Thirdly, Ascham urged that “in the attainment of wisdom, learning from a book or from a teacher is twenty times as effective as learning from experience because it is an unhappy mariner who learnt his craft from many shipwrecks.” Why this extraordinary explanation? “I was once in Italy myself, but I thanked God that my abode there was but nine days. I saw in that little time, in one city, more liberty to Sin than ever I saw in our noble city of London in nine years.” Consequently Ascham piously defined the indisputable role of the school master as a censor of what their students should learn. The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

22. D Behaviourism and JB Watson JB Watson (1878-1958), denied that evolution has any part to play in the understanding of the human brain. It was all to do with the relationship between what a teacher put in, and what a child observed. He believed that learning should become something that schools did to you, and quality instruction as being infinitely more important than encouraging students to think for themselves. He believed that children’s minds were putty to be shaped by well-trained teachers... (the shadow of this thinking has deadened that imagination of millions of children and frustrated a large number of teachers). The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

23. D Einstein disagreed profoundly “It is almost a miracle that modern teaching methods have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of enquiry; for what this delicate little plant needs more than anything, besides stimulation, is freedom.” Albert Einstein, 1889 - 1955 The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

24. D In the 1980s cognitive science, began drawing upon neurobiology began to undermine the claims of the behaviourists “Learning does not require time out from productive activity; learning is at the heart of productive activity” ShoshanaZuboff, 1988 The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

25. Neural Darwinism, or the grain of the brain “The complexities of our minds and bodies bear witness to a long history of subtle adaptation to the natural world by our innumerable ancestors. Literally every child is born with a mind and body that recreates the imprint of the history of our species.”

26. E Crazy by Design We have long suspected that there is something going on in the brain of the adolescent, apparently involuntarily, that is forcing apart the child/parent relationship. Adolescence is a period of profound structural change, in fact “the changes taking place in the brain during adolescence are so profound, they may rival early childhood as a critical period of development”, wrote Barbara Strauch in 2003. “The teenage brain, far from being readymade, undergoes a period of surprisingly complex and crucial development. The adolescent brainis crazy by design.” The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

27. E Flow Neuroscientists, together with psychologists and evolutionary scientists are starting to “show that youngsters who are empowered as adolescents to take charge of their own futures will make better citizens for the future than did so many of their parents and their grandparents who suffered from being overschooled but undereducated in their own generations.” “Students who get the most out of school, and have the highest future expectations, are those who find school more play-like than work-like. 1997 “Clear vocational goals and good work experiences do not guarantee a smooth transition to adult work. Engaging activities – with intense involvement regardless of content – are essential for building the optimism and resilience crucial to satisfying work lives.” The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

28. E Don’t Fence Me In – Cole Porter, 1934 Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above, Don't fence me in. Let me ride through the wide open country that I love, Don't fence me in. Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze, And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees, Send me off forever but I ask you please, Don't fence me in.  The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

29. “Our enormously productive economy...demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego-satisfaction, in consumption... We need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever accelerating rate.” quoted in ‘The Waste Makers’, 1960 On September 14th 2011, half a century later, the largest shopping centre in Europe – Westfield Stratford – was opened as the only gateway to the Olympic Park of 2012; in floor area it is 20 times that of St Paul’s Cathedral. ‘British family life is in crisis’ proclaimed the Telegraph last week. ‘It is parents who are to blame who by working like pit ponies to house our offspring, feed them and keep them in with the latest digital cameras and micros scooters, it seems we have created a generation of miserable children who are wallowing in materialism. We spend £7.3 billion on toys in children's bedrooms, when what they really need is to play outside with friends and family.

30. The Ultimate Ecological Crisis “If civilisation is to survive it must live on the interest, not the capital, of nature. Ecological markers suggest that in the early 1960’s, humans were using 70% of nature’s yearly output; by the early 1980’s we’d reached 100%; and in 1999 we were at 125%.” A Short History of Progress, 2004

31. Asked on 1st January 2000 what chance he gave the world of surviving the next thousand years, Sir Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal and later President of the Royal Society said; “I’m not sure about the next millennium but I think I give us a 50/50 chance of surviving the next hundred years. I fear that the speed of man’s technological discoveries is outpacing our wisdom and ability to control what we have discovered…” When our first granddaughter was born a year ago, our doctor said with great pleasure “she has a 25 % chance of living to the age of 100”. For her to do that we have to educate the next generation to bring technological knowledge and wisdom together.

32. E So What Now? Formal schooling, therefore, has to start a dynamic process through which students are progressively weaned from their dependence on teachers and institutions, and given the confidence to manage their own learning, collaborating with colleagues as appropriate, and using a range of resources and learning situations. The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

33. E Subsidiarity “It is wrong for a superior to keep to itself the right of making decisions for which an inferior is perfectly capable of doing for itself.” The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

34. E The Political Dilemma “Much to my surprise I can’t really fault your theory. You are probably educationally right; certainly your argument is ethically correct. But the system you’re arguing for would require very good teachers. We’re not convinced that there will ever be enough good teachers. So, instead, we’re going a teacher-proof system of organising schools for that way we can get a uniform standard.” Verbatim report of conclusions of presentation made to the Prime Minister’s Policy Unit, Westminster March 1996 The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

35. E It has been the lack of real understanding about education and learning amongst teachers that has allowed successive governments to bully the profession. Teachers undoubtedly need to understand the theory of learning. Deprived of a real understanding of both pedagogy and policy they are simply parroting the latest curriculum directives. The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

36. E Time is going by "The biggest crisis we are facing is a Crisis of Meaning. The tremendous social changes of the last 100 years have stripped modern society of that which gives us meaning be it in our roots to our ancestors, religions, spirituality, our relationship to nature...... Within this Crisis of Meaning our young people are facing a MORAL crisis - a crisis of values. Without these anchors young people no longer understand the value of perseverance, learning for learning's sake etc.. Instead our daily lives are filled with a pursuit of money and temporary ecstasy. Both of these goals are unfulfillable and result in a misguided frenzy in the pursuit of the next thrill, or in depression. E-mail from Dr Rolando Jubis Psychologist and Counselor Jakarta International School, 11/11/00 The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

37. Robert Bateman: painter, conservationist, and philanthropist (born 1930) ... ...fears that the ever-growing disconnection of the human race from the rest of nature is a “link that is not only being diminished, it is being completely eliminated for the first time in the history of our species. This is going to change the world in a horrible way: what kind of parents are these zombies going to grow up to be, if they grow up?” The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org

38. Animation #2: “The Reunion” http://born-to-learn.org/#vimeo.com/25962693 (click link to play animation)

39. Animation #3: “Faustian Bargain” http://born-to-learn.org/#vimeo.com/29948790 (click link to play animation)

40. For further information: Web www.born-to-learn.org www.21learn.org Email mail@21learn.org The 21st Century Learning Initiative - www.21learn.org