The document discusses creating schools that cultivate lifelong learning and intellectual character over short-term exam preparation. It questions if schools should measure success through collaboration rather than individual exams. The document advocates for student engagement in learning and more student control over the learning process. It discusses the importance of valuing thinking in schools and classrooms to develop "cultures of thinking" for both students and teachers.

1. Launceston Church Grammar School
Cameron Paterson
cpaterson@shore.nsw.edu.au
Twitter: @cpaterso

3. “There is clear consensus that the
future now emerging will be
extremely different from anything
we have ever known in the past. It
is a difference, not of degree, but
of kind. There is no prior period of
change that remotely resembles
what humanity is about to
experience.”

4. What did you learn during
your first twelve years of
education that matters in
your life today?

5. How would you teach if the
exam was in 20 years time?

6. What do you want the
children we teach to be like
as adults?

7. Reflect on the story of learning you were told when
you were in school.
What were the messages you received about
learning, schooling, and what it means to be smart?
How do they differ from the messages you hope we
are sending our students about learning?

8. Which one of these questions captures your attention?
1. What if schools were less about preparing students for tests and more about preparing them
for a lifetime of learning?
2. What if schools measured success not by what individuals did on exams but by what groups
were able to accomplish together?
3. What if schools took the development of students’ intellectual character as their highest
calling?
4. What if understanding and application of skills and knowledge rather than the mere acquisition
of knowledge were the goal?
5. What if students were really engaged in their learning rather than merely compliant in the
process of school as it is done to them?
6. What if students had more control of their learning?

10. “Cultures of Thinking are places where a
group’s collective, as well as individual
thinking, is valued, visible, and actively
promoted, as part of the ongoing
experience of all group members.”
(Ron Ritchhart)

12. “For classrooms to be cultures of
thinking for students, schools
must be cultures of thinking for
teachers”
(Ron Ritchhart)

23. "The Finnish school we visited today sends 2 students
to every faculty meeting." - @Joe_Mazza
#MadeMeThink

24. “Children are not just future
or hypothetical citizens, or citizens in
training, but rather they are citizens of
the here and now, with the right to
express their opinions and participate in
the civic and cultural life of their
communities.”
(Ben Mardell)

26. Civic Agency