Teachers from across School District 5 and beyond are excited about a special guest — an educator’s educator — due to give a presentation Friday at the invitation of the School District, Mount Baker Secondary and the College of Rockies.

Sir John Jones, from the United Kingdom, is an internationally renowned speaker and a key advocate of a modern day shift in the philosophy of education. He will be talking to teachers about this paradigm shift in education, and reminding them of the importance of their profession, and ways to reignite the passion for teaching.

Jones spoke to the Daily Townsman in an interview Thursday.

“Whatever audience you stand if front of … if I say to them, ‘knowledge, skills and attitude: if we could give the children just one of these things to take through life’ — because they’re all important — almost without exception every hand goes up for attitudes,” Jones said.

“Now, the strange thing is, I confront them with the fact that school is mainly about developing knowledge. So our curriculum is about the transmission of knowledge, of facts, and many of our examinations are testing memory skills, really.”

Jones plans to show an example of a curriculum from 1904. “With the exceptions of midwifery and manual work, the curricula are basically the same as today.”

Jones doesn’t deny that the impartation of knowledge is important. But he goes on to cite the old “Three Rs” we’ve all heard of — reading, writing, ‘rithmatic — and contrasts them with the skills-based “New Rs,” of which there are several. “Like ‘resourceful, reasoning, reflective, responsible (are you prepared to be a citizen), and resilience.”

These skills are vital to the acquisition of knowledge, and how this knowledge applies to life — even, or especially, in subjects like Science, or mathematics. Take resilience, for example.

“The key to mathematics is not giving up when you’re stuck. And being able to live with stuckness. So if you teach kids that skill, you will improve their math.

“The philosophy is not saying abandon the subjects. It’s just saying if you teach kids these skills, you get better results. So they will give the government the statistics that they crave. We’re all under pressure to produce results, and results to improve life chances. It’s just another way of looking at the same problem and issue.”

Jones has just written a book — The Magic Weaving Business. “I try in the book to remind teachers of how important they are in the lives of young people.”

Part of Jones’ message to the teachers is “The good news is, the teacher makes the difference. And the bad news is, the teacher makes the difference.

“So what is it about, what I call magic weavers, that enables them to empower young people, and bring out the best in young people? How can all of us learn from those paradigms, that it’s about those human beings who arrive in Mount Baker High School every morning?”

In Jones’ experience in Canada, which is extensive, he thinks much of the curriculum in Canada is already being built around these principles.

Jones is also going to speak of the importance of embracing technology, and how it can go hand in hand with imparting these “New Rs.”

“In many ways, the geeks have won. We have to harness the technology in the delivery of these learning skills.”

As an example, Jones speaks of the need to personalize education. “Instead of treating kids in year groups, in class groups, in stage groups, to actually see each individual child as unique, with a unique set of needs. And one of the ways to deliver a personalized curriculum is through the use of technology. “The kids today have at their fingertips a whole range of pieces of kit, which will allow them to progress at their level, at their speed,” Jones says.

Used to be, students had to move together in a group of 20 or 30, with a textbook which limited what they could do. Google wasn’t an option.

However, Jones cautions, the technology is not enough. The machine can’t teach you the love of a subject, or indeed, can’t teach resilience, resourcefulness, or any of the New Rs. You need a human being to impart the love.

“I had a student ask me, ‘why do I need a teacher if I have Google?’ That’s a great question. And another student answered it for me. She was going to University to study history. She had a passion for history, because Mrs. Smith didn’t teach her history, she taught her the love of history.

“(Technology) can always teach you the knowledge and the skill. But they can’t teach you the passion. You need Mrs. Smith to do that.”

The gist of Jones’ message, again, is to remind people of why they come through the gate in the morning.

“And I’m going to give them some research about how much the teacher does make the difference. There are a lot of kids facing huge barriers in their lives — poverty, the breakdown of the family, the neighbourhood, lots of reasons. But if you come across a teacher who is a magic weaver, then it can be life-changing for you.”