SUNDAY+Youth+Debate


 * ||  || **YOUTH DEBATE**: ||
 * || 16:15– 17:15 || = MAKING SCHOOL COOL = ||
 * ||  || Young people & teachers will debate how to make education engaging and relevant.

Our speakers from around the world will present short videos from their classrooms, where they ask their students: “How would you like to be taught?” Over the last three days, the conference has looked at systemic reform – this debate will hear how students believe they would learn best. Questions to be answered include: why science doesn’t interest them; what makes a good teacher; what would make them spend more time on homework; what are their plans?

The on-stage speakers will discuss the answers provided – and how they differ internationally, if they do differ, and the moderator will pose the same questions to the students from Bahrain on stage. || · **//Dr Taddy Blecher//**//, Founder, CIDA, South Africa// · //** Dr Kathleen **// **//Hagstrom//**//, Principal, Walt Disney Magnet School, USA// · **//One of the DC Principals//** · **//Videos from classrooms around the world//** · **//4 students//** //from Bahrain// ||
 * ||  || //Proposed speaker panel:// ||
 * ||  || · **//Tony Wagner//**//, Co-Director, Change Leadership Group,// //Harvard Graduate School of Education, USA (moderator)//

TONY WAGNER'S COMMENTS

TADDY BLECHER'S COMMENTS

KATHY HAGSTROM'S COMMENTS

TINA'S BRIEFING EMAIL FOR REFERENCE

Dear Kathy, Taddy and Tony,

As part of the Making School Cool session on Sunday 10 October, we will be showing a video of interviews with youngsters aged around 15. We want to hear from them what they think good teaching is, and what might be done to improve learning. We'll also have 4 young students from/based in Bahrain on stage, who will be asked the same questions, moderated by Tony Wagner.

Kathy and Taddy, we would like to ask you to help us produce a video with some of your students and ask them the questions below. We will then edit and mix the video for use during the session, bearing in mind that the total duration of video will be limited to about 10 minutes or so (we'll probably break it up in sections - exactly how will be determined when we see the raw video files).

Will you be able to do this? And, Kathy, you'd mentioned to Kirstie than one of the DC principals might be able to record a video as well - if you think this will be possible, we should get it into production now, but it's fine if it isn't possible.

We will need the raw videos by 28 September - which is tight but hopefully doable.

The event owner, Economic Development Board, Bahrain, has written the questions, but I think we need to accept the fact that English is used differently in each of our countries, and notions such as society may not be common - perhaps it's 'preparing for citizenship' that will better capture the notion below of 'play a productive, purposeful role in society'. So we'll leave to at your discretion to fine tune the wording to get the most useful answers. As teachers, you'll also know if the interviewees will respond better if asked about what works for them as individuals rather than being asked what works for students in general, and we'll leave it to you to fine tune that as well!

The questions: 1. As you think about your personal future, what are some of the most important things you believe you need to learn to be prepared for your career? 2. What do you think you need to learn in order to play a productive, purposeful role in society? 3. Why do you think some students do not engage in school, or do not enjoy school? 4. What motivates to you to do your very best in school? 5. What is good teaching? What does a good teacher do? 6. If there was one thing that could be changed in your school to improve learning for all students, what would it be?

Tony, once we have a first draft of the mixed video, we can set up a webinar to review the outcome together and decide on changes and specific plan for the session - probably be around 1 October or the following Monday, 4 October.

I hope we can make this ambitious project work - it'll be different and a lot of fun!