An education system fit for purpose
21st Century education needs 21st Century thinking
Coauthored by Kathryn Pratt and Caroline Palmer
A fifth of the way into the 21st Century, we are still teaching for the 20th. As we settle into the Fourth Industrial Revolution, driven by technological advancements that transform all industries and touch each corner of society (Philbeck, 2018), it is clear that centuries of top-down, knowledge-based education is no longer adequate. With information at each of our fingertips and technology providing ever expanding possibilities, teachers are no longer the keepers of knowledge. Striding towards a future laden with uncertainty, children need to be encouraged to learn “how to think, not what to think” (OECD, 2013). We need children who are unafraid to question, explore and to problem solve — for whom failure is an essential component of success and who are valued as more than their latest exam result.
The UK’s education system has held fast to its archaic roots of knowledge-based teaching, despite the dramatic shift in the life skills needed for our children to thrive in this 21st Century. As a consequence, young people are emerging from their school education without the dispositions or tools critical to their future happiness and employability. In this 21st Century, with catastrophic world events set to be the norm, a ‘world-leading’ education system would be founded in 21st Century skills. A system that supports children to become compassionate and curious, knowledge-hungry, with agency and drive, capable of managing their mental and physical health. Children who make positive contributions as global citizens.
The National Curriculum steamrollers children’s innate curiosity and instead provides a predetermined set of information to memorise and recall. Education Technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) entrepreneur Priya Lakhani, in her excellent book ‘Inadequate’ that dissects the current system, comments that students ‘cram and forget’ much of what they learn. Quoting Peter Kaufman “too often students just want to be told what they need to learn… their experience of the school system means they forg[et] how to be the self directed and genuine learners that they were when the first entered school.” (2020: 105). Without an authentic need to problem solve, understand and explore, the purpose of learning becomes dependent on satisfying socially constructed, external performance indicators:
“Will I meet my teacher’s expectations?” “Will my test score be enough?” “Can I add this to my CV?” “Will I get a reward?”
In this year’s Children’s Mental Health Week, we are at an all-time high of childhood mental health issues (Lakhani, 2020), and it’s hard to ignore the potential impact of such externally-based measures of success and self-worth. Children are “losing all hope for their future” (Jonathan Townsend, Prince’s Trust) with the disappearance of jobs for life and familiar career paths, and in the face of increasingly catastrophic world events.
We can turn this around, and inspire and motivate our children to be the best version of themselves. Instead of focussing on the high-pressure need to “catch-up”, the government should work to improve both children’s mental health and life chances. To do so, curiosity-led, 21st Century learning should be a priority along with fostering a ‘Learning Culture’ (Grant, 2021) based on children’s authentic needs and curiosity.
The power of the authentic need to learn
We are all drawn to topics, ideas and experiences that inspire, bring happiness and enthrall.
Children naturally find what entrances them. Inspired by a question, chasing curiosity or pursuing creative expression, children will problem solve and learn when they have an authentic need and as self directed learners. They poke, prod, explore and create, nudging forward the boundary of their skills and understanding at an ideal pace — learning, driven by an authentic need.
“A child’s natural state of being is to smile and laugh, and they are instinctively drawn to whatever makes them feel happy” Mike Fairclough ‘Wild Thing’(2020:9).
Enabled to pursue their authentic need to learn, children cannot fall behind.
Given space, time, resources, nurture and nourishment, children learn through exploration. Their brains log and categorize novel experiences, drawing mental schematics and, at pace, develop conceptual frameworks where knowledge is organised, understood and synthesised. Learning because of an authentic need enables deep, memorable, emotive and context-based understanding.
The Creative Project Cycle & 21st Century Skills
Project-based learning enables children to actively explore a problem, question or challenge, in a real-world context and for an extended period of time. Diving deep into a topic, children learn by doing and experience the ups and downs of progress and set-backs as they work toward their self-identified goal.
If you watch a child working through a project — big or small, long or short — they will poke, explore and create, sometimes ambling, sometimes striding, down the path of inquiry.
When we think about it, we’ve all been down that path numerous times; in childhood maybe building a go-kart and in adulthood maybe building a start-up company.
Along the path, ignited by inspiration and motivated by curiosity, we encounter a need to gather resources, research and gain knowledge, and expand that spark into a big vision, defining an ultimate goal. We create, communicate and collaborate. Barriers, holes in our logic or missing information make us stumble, rethink and redirect as we challenge ourselves to emerge from the learning struggle pit where everything is hopeless and impossible. We might wallow a little, and projects might stall and there may be a sense of failure, but this is fuel for innovation, sparking a need to explore and experiment, to test and try. With a path to success mapped out, the project — your innovation and discovery — can be shared with the world. It might be a conversation with a parent, a performance to the family, a gallery on a website, a newspaper story, the start of a movement… No matter the scale, there will be a positive impact on the world. We can sit back and reflect on our journey; how we trod that path, what we learned, diving deeper into how we, as an individual, learn best.
Several projects of different themes and scales can happen simultaneously, enabling constant learning and exploration as interest and motivation for topics ebb and flow over weeks and months.
As adults, perhaps without even realising, many of us are used to project-based learning as we pursue hobbies, try something new or do some DIY.
Imagine if children were supported in schools to follow these project cycles — motivated by their authentic need to learn and facilitated at every stage by teachers with plentiful resources, nuggets of knowledge, literacy and maths and oodles encouragement.
Children’s 21st Century skills, self-confidence and self-awareness would sky rocket, their place in and impact on the world real, tangible and valued.
What next?
As parents we can make the loudest noise for positive education reform.
Together, we can stand-up for our children’s mental health and life prospects. We can set a new course for the UK’s education system, a course of positive change firmly focused on dynamic and resilient systems, fit for purpose in this 21st century.
During this pandemic, we have the perfect opportunity to shift the landscape of learning and unshackle ‘education’ from the misguided measurables of standardised testing. No more high stakes. We, the parents, teachers and community, have an ‘authentic need’ to change the system now so our children can succeed in a changing world.
Read our next article, Envisaging a new era of education
Kathryn Pratt is an educator, parent and founder of Soweni (Soweni.com), a social enterprise project which reimagines education.
Caroline Palmer is a freelance writer, editor (www.flourishlife.co.uk), scientist and parent.
Join the education revolution
The education revolution is gaining momentum. We need your voice to make positive change. Here are some things that you can do:
- Tell your children they are incredible and not falling behind.
- Start documenting your child’s learning and project cycles with photos and videos
- Write to your MP and ask for change. Below is a draft letter you can use.
- Join the Rethinking Education community and dive deeper into the current thinking on education reform www.rethinking-education.mn.co
- Add your voice to rethinking assessment https://rethinkingassessment.com/help-us-rethink-assessment/
- Write to your children’s school and ask them to support education reform and help your child to develop 21st century skills.
References
Fairclough, M. (2020) Wild Thing: Embracing Childhood Traits in Adulthood for A Happier, More Carefree Life. Hay House
Grant, A. (2021) Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know. WH Allen.
Lakhani, P. (2020) Inadequate: The System Failing Our Teachers and Your Children. John Catt Educational
OECD (2013), Education at a Glance 2013: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/eag-2013-en.
Philbeck, T. and Davis, N.(2018) The fourth industrial revolution: shaping a new era. Journal of International Affairs 72, no. 1 (2018): 17–22. Accessed January 30, 2021. doi:10.2307/26588339.
Draft letter to MPs
Dear xxxx,
RE: Urgent education system reform; scrapping exams and supporting children in 21st Century learning
I am writing to request that you raise the issue of our outdated, exam-based National Curriculum with the Minister for Education, and propose a reform towards 21st Century learning.
We are a fifth of the way through the 21st Century, but our education system is built to prepare children for the 20th, and so is no longer fit for purpose. The pandemic has highlighted serious, systemic failings in the education system, underscoring the need for the radial overhaul that educators have been asking for for decades.
Now is the time.
Telling our children, as young as 6 (NFER), that they have lost life chances, and potential earnings (IFS), and must ‘catch-up’ on ‘lost learning’, is deplorable. Such damning narrative by politicians and the media is compounding the national mental health crisis, demotivating young people and instilling a sense of failure in children and parents alike.
We are at a point in time when change and uncertainty are the norm. When we need resilient, quick thinkers, problem solvers and innovators so that we may navigate the global challenges that lay ahead. We need knowledge-hungry, compassionate young people able to manage their mental and physical health and contribute positively as global citizens.
What we don’t need are children memorising facts merely to pass government-set standardised tests that have no relevance to the real world or their ability to thrive in it.
I call for the government to rethink exam-based curricula, and take tangible steps towards curiosity-led learning. Releasing teachers and children from the intense pressure to meet targets and instead offer support and mentorship through inspiring projects. We ask that exams and test scores are abolished and children are instead assessed, compared and valued based on a digital portfolio showcasing their passions, skills and achievements.
I also call for the government to send a message of support, hope and optimism to our children.
I strongly urge you to raise the education reform with the minister for education and actively support progressive policies to enable our education system to become ‘world leading’.
If we don’t act now, the country will be left behind, not only our children.
Thank you for your time.
Yours sincerely,
