Let’s fix education. Tips on how to do it.

People say there are 3 things you shouldn’t discuss at the dinner table: politics, religion and education. I hear a lot of people in my country saying that “here education is really bad, you should go abroad…”, but from what I’ve analyzed, it ain’t much better over there either.

Main problem with modern education is that it’s… not modern. System we use was designed sometime in industrial age. This raises multiple problems. First and foremost there wasn’t much information access at that time. People simply didn’t have access to required books, thus knowledge. That meant primary job of the teacher was a delivery system of facts. Students had to memorize it thoroughly and then took a test to verify how well memorization game went. Later they could use that knowledge to acquire a lifelong job at a factory until retirement. After that it was game over. Primary focus of the system was memorization, template was designed and each person was fitted with it, whenever they like it or not. You go to primary school, secondary, high and then college and that is it, your set for life.

These days samurai soldier in empty valley has more information access thanks to mobile internet. If you need some fact, you can look it up in seconds. Information is everywhere, shared openly, some consider it too much information for us to handle. World is moving a lot faster than in 19th century. These days you might not go though just 1 job in your career, but 20 or more. Todays path are a lot less linear.

What does this mean for education? If world is moving at extreme rates, could that mean that facts that you learn in school could be useless by the time you finish it? Perhaps yes, that means instead of teaching a bunch of facts, we should start teaching how to operate with knowledge at hand. Instead of straight on memorization, it would be better to teach how to think and swim in the sea of knowledge. When I said that critical thinking is one of the essential skill people should have in 21 century to my Ukrainian teacher at university I’ve got this response: “Who are we criticizing?”.

What you should have in 21 century is problem solving and teamwork skills. Memorizing is important, but when we have so much information at our finger tips it fades into the background. I encountered fellow students in my time that actually don’t know how to properly search for information online. Asking Google questions and acquiring right answers is not easy. Modern school is not gonna teach you that. Modern school test will ask you WHEN did the war start, instead of WHY. You see, asking machines WHEN questions is easy, we programmed them in such way. But asking them WHY questions is not gonna be easy, because that requires more thinking on your end. Instead of encouraging you to think and learning to learn, system does what’s easier for it.

Education instead of teaching them how to read books and love them, takes that love and throws it right down the window. Kids start hating reading books, or reading in general. When they stop reading they stop gaining information, thus stops that world view building. They fall asleep in classes because that teacher is too boring. Guess what, that teacher is probably there because something in his/her life got screwed up. They hate their life and try to push that to others. Part of failure goes to the teacher of the teacher, because that was the given mindset. That causes chain reaction.

Kids are natural learning machines, they grab everything from the world around them, taking that natural interest and killing it takes some talent.

That is perhaps why project based education might be a good alternative to older variants. Students still can receive theory and facts, but right after comes a test, not in form of yes/no questions, but of real life experience. Actually taking something and applying it. In the process learning those necessary problem solving skills. Learning how to work with other people. Making mistakes! When people say, you should learn on mistakes of others… I think you should learn on your own mistakes. Nothing teaches better than personal experience. Teachers should encourage students to make more mistakes, show them their true values, unless it’s something life threatening.

Instead of putting students in “education factory”, where everyone is fitted a template, we should give students a chance to show their individuality and uniqueness. Job of a teacher from simple fact teller should become someone who helps them navigate in world of knowledge. Someone knowledgeable, inspiring a.k.a NOT BORING!

Here’s what I see a lot in modern society. People don’t like to think, they have this mindset, when problems rise up they simply can’t think about it. They’ll put up some excuse like “it’s too complicated”, “I can’t possibly do that”, “I’m not qualified” before even trying to solve it. I have people coming up to me saying: “Fedor help me setup this database, I have PhD in computer science”. I’m not even kidding you right now, I wish I was. Instead of denying a problems, you should break it down into small simple pieces by using logic and rational reasoning. Develop the correct mindset that allows you to constantly learn and adapt.

You see, when speaking to many modern students in period between high school and college I see confusion. They don’t know where to go, what to do, what’s the outcome? Everyone is telling them that this is a big decision that will determine who they are for the rest of their life. Don’t fuck it up. That statement does have a bit of truth to it. Students don’t know what to choose and when they do choose don’t actually know why they took that particular option. Even worse parents have to interfere and start steering children on the path they should go. Problem is, school fails to show how todays world actually works, fails to teach kids how to make life choices, THINKING, instead focusing on other things.

People coming out don’t know their purpose. They most likely don’t know it after school, after university. At least 50–60 years ago good college degree was a guarantee that you’ll have a job. These days price of degree inflated (and I don’t mean how much it costs in $), apart from that you’re required years of hands on experience. Companies find that after college you’re not yet in shape for work! Don’t forget you have to pay some good money for it, just not to get any particular result at the end :(

I outlines some of the essential, problems that are encountered in modern day education. I and a lot of people feel like this need to be changed. Thing is what I said here, was probably said by someone before. What I propose we do is say all of that louder. In your university, school, college take what I wrote here and tell them, spread the word. We’ve got to show what modern world requires. If you can’t get this message to your teachers/professors learn skills I wrote about here.

• Develop mindset that allows you to tackle universally and critically problems.
• Develop self confidence, drop the insecurities.
• Take theoretical knowledge and start applying it. Start making changes to the world around you.
• Make more mistakes and learn from them. In education years it’s VERY important
• Learn to take criticism and stand by your actions

I really hope you got something out from this medium post of mine. Learn, spread the knowledge and THINK!