Primary & Secondary Education

Schools are facing increasing demands to put more efforts in reaching societal goals. Among these goals are maximizing human potential of more and more diverse pupils by teaching them the skills, capabilities and attitudes which will enable them to participate in societal life taking into account the contemporary economic environment. Our societies evolve towards participative democracies which require an informed electorate.

Schools are struggling with these new demands put upon them. Many schools are not fully prepared to help pupils reach these goals. Can they be expected to carry pupils to these societal goals? Is it funding that causes problems? Is there not enough technology in the class room? Are the pupils and their parents to blame because they are not interested, lost in the demands of our current hectic society?

Could it be that our teaching model is to blame? In our traditional teaching model the teacher teaches and the student memorizes. Some schools, however, have adopted more varied teaching methods with more active participation. Are teachers, backed by there unions, not willing to change and tired of all the demands put on them? In many countries there seems to be a lack of teachers who have been properly educated to work with pupils in order to motivate them for the broader societal goals. Some people are convinced that teachers should only teach subjects.

Many nations in the world struggle with these issues. Despites these problems performance appraisal in countries differ as some international organizations (e.g. PISA studies) have indicated. Extrinsic (coming from outside the task) and intrinsic motivation (coming from the task itself) play a role. In many countries (e.g. some Asian countries) extrinsic motivation encouraged students to study subjects such as science, mathematics and engineering.

When the economy in those countries started growing the extrinsic motivation became smaller. Families became more prosperous and there was little intrinsic motivation because the way these subjects where taught. Besides prosperity, other factors such as cultural and familial influences also play a role.

Our services would consist of finding out together with you, why and how schools could become again an intrinsically motivating experience. We want to have an innovative look at these issues and show you the way to a more student-centered approach by integrating technology in the teaching and learning strategy and adapting the organizational model to this end. We want to go beyond statistically based research and explore the complex context in which many schools operate.

For the previous paragraphs we have been inspired by the scholars C.M. Christensen, M.B. Horn and C.W. Johnson (2008), Disrupting class. How disruptive innovation will change the way the world learns. McGraw-Hill, New York.