Idea

“But this method is no longer relevant, because students are no longer listening.”

Teaching Digital Natives - Partnering for Real Learning
(Marc Prensky, 2011)


2018-1-DK01-KA203-047061
Strategic Partnership - KA 2 supporting innovation and exchange of good practices

The new generations of young students are challenging the very basic axioms of what we know as “education” and “educatability”. An increasing number of young students might therefore be called “unteachable” from the point of view of the educational establishment.

The project aims to explore to what extent the new generation can be transformed from “unteachable” not to “teachable” but to “learnable” or “engagable” – without “revolutionizing” the entire education system.

The “The Unteachables” is basically a KNOWLEDGE CREATION project, but knowledge based on practical experimentation. It addresses the rapidly increasing challenge of the unteachability of the new generations with which teachers and schools all across Europe are increasingly struggling. Schools and teachers are not at all prepared for this “cultural revolution”. Teachers are not trained at all to create learning environments for the new generations of digital natives and “unteachables”.

IT IS INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT THAT BASIC AND FURTHER TEACHER EDUCATION AND TRAINING INCLUDES CAPACITY BUILDING OF THE NEW GENERATION OF YOUNG TEACHERS TO MANAGE AND TACKLE SUCH NEW “LEARNABLES” STRATEGIES AND DIDACTICS, GOING FAR BEYOND WHAT TEACHER EDUCATION AND TRAINING MEANS TODAY. THEY ARE NOT EXPECTED TO HAVE READY-MADE SOLUTIONS, BUT TO HAVE TOOLS TO WORK THE WITH THE CHALLENGES.

In fact, the new generations of teachers need to have considerable insight into the profiles and identities of the young 21st century learners and how they can be taken from “unteachables” to “learnables”.

This is why the project directly addresses and involves teacher education partners and teacher students. We all know this, but we see few attempts to systematically analyse what “unteachable” means, and what taking the young people to “learnable” means – in practice.

Unteachable does not in any way mean that the young people are not able to learn. On the contrary, many of them are brilliant learners. The way they learn, however, does not fit well with what we know as “education”. Of course, this is to a great extent a result of what we know as “the internet revolution”, “digital natives” and “globalization”.

The Commission calls for such initiatives as The Unteachables, and is at the same time aware of the mountains of challenges linked to such education innovation: it will take a sea change, says the Commission. The consortium therefore opts for a “The Unteachables” project with a clear knowledge creation profile and producing the needed resources to engage in future not one but several Erasmus+ experimentations, including preparation a higher level Knowledge Alliance.