The thoughts and ideas for ClassroomTM have been buzzing around my head, classroom, schools and conferences for a few years now. The persuading factor of changing a want to a need in today’s culture seems stronger than ever, and yet in education it appears weaker. Is an education a desire or a necessity to even an eight year old now? Is a passion for learning a fabrication of expectation?

I have witnessed the genuine excitement of learning something new, developing an idea and creating a body of knowledge, but the methods and ways of doing this are still quite limited. As an enormously influential group of people, teachers now need to wise up to the ways that young people get delivered their ideas, thoughts, opinions and thinking skills, and adjust these to suit our lessons.

This means taking a risk.

For anyone who has worked in a school where distributed leadership operates, this is possible but make the more sceptical among the staff anxious. Without risk however, the wheel would still be square, crisps would still be potatoes and tomatoes would still be seen as poisonous.

Make the leap.

Our children are learning in a rapidly-changing environment. Techniques and methods that have held for a hundred years are suddenly seeming illogical, antiquated and ineffective, especially when compared to the language that consumerism, branding and digital living have in their lives.

If we are to teach these Digital Natives, then we must use every marketing trick and technique being used to sell to them now, and use it to sell learning. Without branding our schools and classrooms as powerful, involved and dynamic places to be, without making full use of a digital age in our educational stage, and without treating our children as knowledge consumers, we risk losing their interest, their respect, but most of all, their trust.