I remember fondly the movie “The Magnificent Seven” which starred Yul Brynner in black. The movie was of course based on Kurosawa‘s “Seven Samurai” which was an even better movie. In both movies, a large band of bandits were beaten off by seven highly skilled cowboys and samurai warriors. Those two movies can be used as a parody for what should be happening in education today. We need to prepare a band of skillful people to ward off the large number of people only interested in high stakes examinations. The odds seem overwhelming. But train our students we must. For the sake of their future.

So what are the skills that we can teach to fight these educational bandits? Guy Claxton suggests eight of them. He suggested that students be imbibed with the following qualities:

a) curiosity;

b) courage;

c) a mind that enjoys exploration and investigation;

d) a willingness to experiment;

e) imagination;

f) reasoning and creative ability;

g) sociability; and

h) a reflective attitude.

These are learning dispositions which Claxton feels all students should have. These are dispositions that will make independent, life-long learners real and not just wishful thinking. Not the school written tests. Not the rote-learning and mechanical operations that e come across in schools all too often. Do you have your own set of qualities that you would like to this list to acieve the goal of an indepedent learner?