From falling behind to leaping forward, the opportunity of school closures
Reimagining education for the 21st Century
Coauthored by Kathryn Pratt and Caroline Palmer
With the new year just beginning, the sense of relief garnered from leaving 2020 behind seems to have rapidly evaporated, despite the vaccine roll-out. COVID-19 cases are up nearly 50% on last week and we are, again, in lockdown with schools closed to all but vulnerable and key-worker children.
While lockdown and school closures are greatly needed, for many parents it brings a largely unworkable situation. Fitting in work while teaching the National Curriculum requirements to, often multiple, children is simply not humanly possible. Yet the overwhelming expectation is that they do.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly stated that school is “vitally important” and that being out of school is “damaging” for children. Even while announcing the third lockdown and school closures, Johnson emphasised how important each day in education is for “life chances”.
Such powerful rhetoric suggests and reinforces the idea that you will be failing your children if you don’t keep up with teaching the set school work. It is not surprising, therefore, that parents are stressed, depressed and anxious. With no training, no forewarning and not much family support, parents are tasked with schooling their children to ensure they are not “left behind”.
Parents have been set up to fail.
But will missing formal education really damage your child?
The origins of schooling stem from a need to ready a workforce for factories; the education system fashioned alongside the industrial revolution. In 1980s, the system developed with the emergence of the National Curriculum — a government-stipulated and predetermined set of learning requirements considered suitable for preparing children for future employment.
The education system was built for the past, and hasn’t evolved for the present, let alone the future.
Our children will grow into a world starkly different from that of our early adulthoods, and consequently will need a wildly different set of skills to thrive in it. Gone are the days of rewarded company loyalty and jobs for life, and here instead are global pandemics, climate disasters, mass extinctions and ecosystem loss. By the time our children are middle aged, they may well have had 20 different jobs, largely self-created and internet-based, and be navigating the fall-out of complex global events.
We’ve each sat, uniform-clad, in rows across square classrooms, being drilled and tested on times tables and English grammar. We’ve each been measured against arbitrarily constructed learning scales and reprimanded if we don’t meet expectations or dare to challenge the system. We are indoctrinated into the British Education System and, as parents, it is scary to think of stepping out of it. But is the education system really preparing our children for their futures?
Clear paths and certainty have evaporated, and that requires pause.
To thrive in our uncertain world, our children need to expand their innate learning capacity to become extraordinary creative innovators, collaborators and thinkers. We need problem solvers armed with skills to adapt to rapidly changing situations. We need self-assured, compassionate humans with a solid grasp of their mental health needs and the strength to accept challenges and ask for help. Such fundamental traits are instilled and developed in us during childhood and shine through in our adult personalities. The development of these traits in our children needs attention and nurture right now.
What if, during this winter lockdown we, the parents, change the narrative from ‘falling behind’ to our children ‘leaping forward’?
Leaping, well prepared, into the future they will inherit. As parents, we can set a positive course for our own children, shifting the education culture and creating ripples of change for the wider world to notice.
Instead of choosing high-stress in the pursuit of productivity, let’s take the opportunity to realise what 21st Century education could look like.
What if, instead of worksheets and metrics for assessing a child’s absorption of predetermined knowledge, we embrace forward-thinking positive change and follow their lead?
Ivan Illich, in 1971, challenged institutionalised education systems and called for us to “deschool society” through self-directed learning. This, he argued, would enable children to perform their best. He was largely ignored, yet today his ideas have a significant potency, as parents grapple with their new teaching roles and we have an opportunity to reimagine education.
What if we were supported in home educating our children in whichever way works for our unique family situation and skill set? What if, instead of being reprimanded for missing homework and not completing tasks, children were asked about what they did, why and how they felt about it? The best learning happens with an authentic need that fuels motivation and sets ideas bubbling.
Every parent has a wealth of knowledge and skills to teach their child and each child has a wealth to teach each adult. Perhaps it’s time to stop viewing education as top down, as starting at five and finishing when we leave school or university, and instead embrace the wonder of curiosity, exploration and learning at all ages. What if we showed our children that we too are learning? That it is a natural and fantastic part of life, not something limited to school hours and confined to the curriculum.
What if our metrics of success, instead of percentages on tests, were of measures of character, perseverance and passion; of honing skills through total immersion in subjects that fascinate us. What if failure wasn’t bad? What if we could map these projects and charter journeys for future employers and universities to really see what the kids can do? In such a future exams might suddenly be needless.
Leo is nine and, for his second birthday last Saturday, his youngest brother received gorilla figurines as part of a small world play set. Asking to borrow them, Leo has spent three days constructing a model gorilla habitat, researching their exact diet and life in the Congo rainforest. Immersed in discovery and creativity, with a few nudges and resources from parents, he is learning. From problem solving “will the glue gun work with this bamboo?” to exploring his potential to make a real-world difference: “I’ve been looking at the Born Free Foundation and I’m spending my Christmas money adopting two gorillas, one has lost his hand in a poacher’s snare. Will he get better? Will my money help?”
Lockdown 3.0 could be an opportunity to support families and teachers in fostering passionate, self-directed learners. It could be an opportunity to take a breather from the structure and expectation of the school system and lay the foundations for positive, forward-looking change.
Will you embrace it?
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.
1 Illich, I. (1971). Deschooling Society. New York: Harper and Row
