After the Hangout

This was my first experience of a Google Hangout and, like all such, it had pros and cons.

The technology let Amira down so we didn't get much from Lebanon.

But the other four participants were from England (me), Mongolia, Australia and Norway. Five countries and four continents in five people is about as diverse as you can get!

The discussion quickly centred on the understanding that some kids were better suited to independent or enquiry-based learning while other kids needed a teacher to drive them on. I suggested (I was being deliberately provocative) that we therefore needed two schooling systems: one for the high flyers and one for the er low flyers. This went down like a lead balloon (too many flying metaphors here but you know what I mean). So I suggested we designed a classroom that had a break out room which the high-flyers could go into to learn on their own while the teacher drilled the others. This too was not acceptable.

There were two reasons. One was around the difficulty of identifying high-flyers (and they might be different for different subjects). This could be overcome with a completely personalised pedagogy such as in New York's School of One.

The second objection was that schools do have a social function and we didn't want even high flyers to end up as geeks with no social skills. Not sure how to overcome that objection. Would the experience of mixing with other kids at playtime or in the canteen be enough?