A keynote speaker, Jeni Wilson, of the University of Melbourne, is one who firmly believes in that. She will delivery a keynote address tomorrow afternoon to open the conference, which has attracted about 150 educators, mainly from North Otago.
The idea was to bring a conference to teachers in North Otago, who normally faced the expense of attending them elsewhere, conference convener Deidre Senior said yesterday.
Dr Wilson was yesterday at Oamaru Intermediate School, where Mrs Senior is deputy principal, and observed the outlook approach to education first-hand. That was demonstrated by two 11-year-olds, Corbyn Bisschops and Isaac Martyn, who had produced a project on wind power.
The subject they were studying was "Energy to Burn" and they focused on wind-generated electricity because they were interested in that. They selected their own project, researched it in the community then used the information they gathered to make a wind generator to power a radio.
Dr Wilson said that was one example of encouraging children to select their own project, learn beyond classroom walls, drawing on information available in the community and the world.
A subject is posed, children are encouraged to ask their own questions, find the answers and then decide how to use them.
"It's much more a student approach rather than a teacher's," she said.
It gave children a chance to make a difference in the world and learn what they themselves could do about it.
It also encouraged problem solving, something children would need as they lived and worked as adults.
