World history author Christopher Lloyd’s new campaign Absolutely Everything! aims to connect knowledge back together.
The real world is more amazing than anything you can make up! That’s the message from children’s best-selling non-fiction author Christopher Lloyd as he launches a major new initiative to raise awareness amongst educators, parents and students in the importance of an interconnected, cross-curricular approach to knowledge and education.
Christopher Lloyd has kicked off a new campaign Absolutely Everything! with a series of lectures at the prestigious Royal Institution in Mayfair, London. During the talks, Christopher demonstrated how it is possible to guide an audience ranging in ages from aged 6 – 96 through the history of the world in just 60 minutes, using nothing more than a giant timeline, a series of everyday objects and a multi-coloured storytelling coat.
Christopher Lloyd says:
“For too long knowledge has been chopped up by adults into meaningless chunks through timetables, syllabuses and learning objectives that prevent young people from learning in a more interconnected way. Actually, the real world is not like that at all. Only by connecting knowledge back together again can children learn to think out of the box, develop critical thinking skills and become their own self-learning systems.”
Christopher Lloyd’s Absolutely Everything! campaign includes the development of a new curriculum for teachers in the UK that embodies these philosophies – it mirrors similar efforts in the US by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his wife MacKenzie, who are donating $2 billion to create a new generation of schools inspired by his Montessori education, that will provide a more holistic, contextualised approach to learning.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder says:
“The gift of a Montessori education ultimately enables children to become individuals, who can think for themselves, think of others, and think out-of-the-box,” Said Bezos. “We believe it is no accident that two of the three most successful companies in the world (Amazon and Google) were founded by former Montessori students. Jeff Bezos, Larry Paige, and Sergei Brin were given the opportunity, in the microcosm of their Montessori classrooms, to develop the skills required for success in today’s world.”
Christopher Lloyd’s lectures at the Royal Institution were just the start of a multi-layered campaign designed to raise awareness of the value of a more interconnected, narrative approach to knowledge and learning. Also recently launched in the UK and the US is Christopher Lloyd’s new world history book called Absolutely Everything! aimed at all ages 9 upwards that takes readers on a journey through everything from the beginning of time to the present day.
The Absolutely Everything! campaign will continue with a range of new initiatives over the coming months. These include:
- The Absolutely Everything! charitable foundation that offers grants to schools and home learning groups to receive workshops for educators in how to build successful cross-curricular learning strategies as well as inspirational cross-curricular lectures for students.
- A new Absolutely Everything! Curiosity Curriculum currently being piloted, that takes the existing National Curriculum Key Stage 2 framework aims and objectives and re-organises them into a coherent, narrative structure that provides an alternative cross-curricular, integrated approach to teaching and learning.
- The publication of Absolutely Everything! (4 Oct 2018), a book for 9+ year-olds that tells the story of the history of the world in a fun and engaging way.
For more details on the new world history book Absolutely Everything! please contact Lucy Allen on 01732 464621 or email info@whatonearthbooks.com or visit www.whatonearthbooks.com
To enter our competition to win one of FIVE copies of Absolutely Everything!, worth £16.99 each, please click on the link below: