What+is+Flat+Classroom?

=Explaining or confusing?= Being a parent today can be viewed from 2 perspectives: 1 - I don't understand the young generation and their obsession with technology, or 2 - Never have my children had a better chance to learn, independent of what I know and / or what the teachers know. The expression "Flat Classroom" can be perceived in different ways, both negative and positive. Let me try to give you my understanding, and why I am so motivated by this expression.

FLAT ClassRoom?
You can easily associate it with a flattened classroom, something left smashed after a Tsunami, earthquake or a tornado. Or maybe a flat car tire, with no air inside, which gives you a bumpy ride, even on smooth tarmac. But if it was so, that the classroom was flattened, then we had no walls, no bookshelves, no computers; "no nothing". And what a great starting point! We have to look around us, view beyond the ruins of the walls, and adapt to our surrounding. To view it all with a new understanding. What do I need to learn? Where do I believe is the best place to go to get hold of that information and experience that is needed to learn what I just decided I wanted to learn? And if I find that person or place, how do I use my critical sense to be able to evaluate and secure the inputs I get to determine if I am moving i the right direction? That I am building new knowledge? And then, if I learn, where can I use this new knowledge, still being outside of the classroom, where there are other rules than those we used to have at school, before it was flattened? How can I check that what I have learnt has a value, both for me and my surrounding? As a base for my life, as a contributor and member of social network, family and friends. In an ever learning culture? Where the curriculum is a mix of basic facts and individual growth where different talents are regarded equal quality and value? Because we are individuals, although we share the same environment and society, and I learn to manoeuvre, based on self-esteem and willingness to adjust, re-learn and adapt, my whole life through. That is for me the Flat ClassRoom. No borders, no straightjackets, no stigma or religious limitations trying to stop me in learning to be ME. And to value myself as an equal member in these surroundings that we now see beyond the walls of the classroom. They can rebuild the classroom, but they can never more keep me locked in when I try to access knowledge which I mean is important for the real world. Because, that is where I live.

Yours sincerely Haldor Lønningdal Stavanger Norway

05/29/2011 PROJECTS