I think other Canadians will be as surprised as I was to learn that we are getting a Canadian version of John Abbott's '21st Century learning Initiative'. But that's what's on the agenda as this British writer is being brought by the Canadian Council on Learning to, um, teach us all about it. The idea behind the 21st Century Initiative is that learning ought to be based on neurology; in his 1998 Policy Paper Abbott explains that human brains have a natural inclination toward language learning and social skills, but that contemporary education works directly against that. While there is much to like in the proposal, there is also much to criticize. We both find the existing system too rigid and mechanical. But look: the same evidence that allows you to say learning is naturally 'linguistic and social' also can lead you to say (as I do) that learning is naturally 'interactive and immersive'. And there's a big difference in how this cashes out, a difference instantiated by Abbott's distrust of technology (as he said recently, "many of my countrymen have embarked on a long and dangerous love affair with the technology") and my own embrace of it. And while Abbott is quick to quote people like Gardener he - and the CCL - still seems to live in the era where it was believed that one overarching system-wide change will solve all the problems. While Abbott - and anyone else - should speak and be heard, we don't need to import a '21st Century Initiative' wholesale. We should grow our own, a thousand small initiatives, based in the quality, diversity, experience and expertise of our own people, and develop our educational policy by empowering the people who work and learn in the system rather than stipulating direction from the top.
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