Why Do I Need a Teacher When I've got Google?: The Essential Guide to the Big Issues for Every 21st Century Teacher - Softcover

Gilbert, Ian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0415468337 ISBN 13: 9780415468336

Publisher: Routledge, 2010

Synopsis

‘The future of the world is in your hands’

I know that might seem a bit steep considering you’ve got that Year Ten coursework to sort out and the lesson observation on that nervous looking NQT, but that’s the way it is I’m afraid. You chose to be a teacher, you mould young minds on a daily basis and those minds have got to grow up and save the world.’ – Extract from Chapter One

Why do I need a teacher when I’ve got Google? is just one of the challenging, controversial and thought-provoking questions Ian Gilbert poses in his long-awaited follow up to the classic Essential Motivation in the Classroom.

Questioning the unquestionable, this book will make you re-consider everything you thought you knew about teaching and learning, such as:

• Are you simply preparing the next generation of unemployed accountants?
• What do you do for the ‘sweetcorn kids’ who come out of the education system in pretty much the same state as when they went in?
• What’s the real point of school?
• Exams – So whose bright idea was that?
• Why ‘EQ’ is fast becoming the new ‘IQ’.
• What will your school policy be on brain-enhancing technologies?
• Which is the odd one out between a hamster and a caravan?

With his customary combination of hard-hitting truths, practical classroom ideas and irreverent sense of humour, Ian Gilbert takes the reader on a breathless rollercoaster ride through burning issues of the twenty-first century, considering everything from the threats facing the world and the challenge of the BRIC economies to the link between eugenics and the 11+.

As wide-ranging and exhaustively-researched as it is entertaining and accessible, this book is designed to challenge teachers and inform them – as well as encourage them – as they strive to design a twenty-first century learning experience that really does bring the best out of all young people. After all, the future of the world may just depend on it.

About this title

Review

‘This divergent-thinking book is a must read for all who want real, sustainable and effective reform for learning for this century; it should be embedded in the syllabi of colleges of education and education graduate studies worldwide.’ – Dr Earle Warnica, Professor of Education at the American University of Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates

‘This book is a stunner. Writing in an entertaining, page turning style, Ian Gilbert engages the reader with some powerful ideas about learning and teaching ... He inspires us to consider the role of the teacher not as the fount of knowledge but as someone who helps children to learn.’ – Sara Bubb, Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Education, London

‘In his inimitable style, laced with humour and wisdom, Ian Gilbert makes neuroscience reachable, digestible and, above all, applicable to classroom practice ... He proposes a new moral purpose for education – to play a central role in the creation of a society in which you would want your own grandchildren to live. It will become compulsory reading. I couldn’t put it down.’ – Sir John Jones, Presenter, Writer and Educational Consultant

Synopsis

'Economics is education; education is economics' - so says one of the world's leading business gurus. Yet are teachers ready for the challenges that the 21st century is throwing up? Are they aware of what lies ahead for the people in their classrooms today? Is the model of education we have up to the job of preparing young people for a world that is so radically different from the one that existed when the education system was set up? For over a decade Ian Gilbert has been working with young people and their teachers around the world to help them develop the thinking, learning, creativity and motivation for success in school and beyond. But the world is changing at an alarming rate, the future is upon us and so much of what goes on in the classroom is still designed to create successful 20th century citizens who will do what they are told and not cause too much of a fuss. And unless things change we will all be left behind.With his customary combination of hard-hitting truths, practical classroom ideas and irreverent sense of humour Ian Gilbert has written something that should be required reading for everyone involved in educating young people.

If you are a teacher, the future of the world needs you to be great - this book will show you why. And how. This book is designed to be required reading for every teacher to help ensure that the education system in the UK is knowledgeable about and ready for the challenges that today's young people will face in the 21st century. Areas covered will include globalisation, new life skills, thinking and creativity for the new economy, technology, change and learning, neuroscience of learning, the teacher's true power in the classroom, classrooms as laboratories, 'dumbing up' to help more people learn more in a variety of ways.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0415468337
• ISBN 13: 9780415468336
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240