Aspiring to transform education? 'Impossibility thinking' as a living experiment: Young learners aspiring towards creative education futures

Craft, Anna; Twining, Peter and Chappell, Kerry (2007). Aspiring to transform education? 'Impossibility thinking' as a living experiment: Young learners aspiring towards creative education futures. In: British Educational Research Association Conference, Sep 2007, London, UK.

URL: http://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/category/events/confere...

Abstract

What kinds of principles might underpin the development of ideas by young people for transforming the education system they currently experience? From March 2006 until May 2007, Open University and University of Exeter staff collaborated with young people in two secondary schools, to explore this question, as part of a development and research project, funded by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. The programme, Aspire Pilot, offered young people a leadership role in developing provocations to support their own thinking, that of their peers and others, in considering future learning systems, or ‘schome’ (not school - not home - schome – the education system for the information age) (Twining, 2003). Aspire Pilot reflected a growing movement by policy makers here in the United Kingdom as well as in North America and Australasia, to offer young people a voice in their learning offer by sharing their schooling experience (Fielding, 2006).
This paper offers an exploration of the theoretical influences which shaped this project, firstly in its substantive focus and operation, and secondly in the methodology for researching it. Finally some reflections are offered on what our research strand tells us, about what aspects of the theoretical frame have manifested in practice for those involved, and particularly for the young people, in relation to aspiring to transform education.