21st Century Challenges

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PROFESSOR ROBERT WINSTON is well known today to audiences throughout the world for his several BBC television series,which include The Human Body, Secret Life of Twins and Superhuman, and through which he has shown a great capacity for communicating often complex science to a wide public audience. He is Professor of Fertility Studies at Imperial College School of Medicine, London University, and is world-renowned as a fertility expert. He also heads the Department of Reproductive Medicine at the Hammersmith Hospital in London. 

 Robert Winston official website

 The Reach Out Lab - Imperial College, London

 Jamie's Dream School

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What lead you to establish the Reach Out Lab at Imperial College, London?

"After a Science in schools enquiry at the House Of Lords, something that struck me was that one of the ways of really engaging children was by getting them to do experiements, so that's really why the lab was set up."

How important do you consider hands-on practical work to the learning process?

"I think the more you do practically, the more you embed knowledge, so I think it's a very good form of educaiton. I would argue that practical work is important in every aspect of educaiton. If you are going to do English, then acting out a Shakespere play is much better than reading it."

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How can education help to prepare children for change and uncertainty in the coming decades?

"I think the need for education to prepare children for future decades is becoming increasingly important. As humans get more and more technologically advanced, we throw out more and more challenges and adverse consequences of the technology that we use. I think that one of the issues is that science should be seen as part of human culture."     

Can curiosity help learners on a path to life-long learning?

"Homo sapiens, our species, is by nature the most curious species on the planet. We have greater tools for exploring than any other species and we have a brain which enables us to think abstractly in a way that most animals can't. So stimulating that curiosity is really part of stimulating our humanity.

What I think is sometimes a problem with education, is that it kind of stunts our curiosity. We need to do much more to stimulate our curiosity, by doing so I think we should be able to learn right through our life."  

How does a person's personality affect their process of learning?

"What was very clear from our study to make the television series Child of our time, in which close to one million Britons logged online to do the tests, was that national personality varies from area to area."

"There is no evidence to say that there is any clear advantage of being one strong personality trait which encourages learning. For example, extrovertion might help people to be interested in things, but it might also give you a very short attention span as well."

"Similarly with neuroticism. If you are very neurotic you might want to try and do your homework rather more carefully, but you might not do it so well because you are spending time trying to make sure the punctuation is right, without looking at the overall concepts."

What is your opinion of the increasing influence of technology in learning?

"The internet is a fantastic example of the good side and bad side of technology. The good side is that it is one of the most democratising influences in the world at the moment. It gives you free information free news etc. But of course the downside is it can protray misinformation and subversion."

"Yes the internet is good for learning, it is a fantastic way for all of us to get information. But one of the issues is how to validate the information you have got. Also by interacting with a computer you can lose the somewhat human touch in the information."

What did you learn as one of the teachers on television series Jamie's Dream School?

"I think the program is an example of the wonderful altruism of Jamie Oliver, which is one of the reasons I did it.  Providing we aren't arrogant enough to assume that we can replace real teachers, what I hope it did was demonstrate the value of real teachers and real teachers in difficult environments where people don;t particularly want to learn. The message was to try and pursuade children who are not learning, that it is worth learning."

"It's a complex area, is Jamie's Dream School the answer to the future of education in Britain, no certainly not. But can we learn something from it, yes I think we can. One of the interesting messages that came out of the series was that practical work, in all fields of learning, is a very good way of enhancing, improving and underpinning learning."