A Historical perspective
How 19th-Century Education System Is Ruining the Life of 21st-Century Kids
21st-century kids are being taught by 20th-century adults using the 19th-century curriculum on an 18th-century calendar
The modern global economy has gone under an unprecedented change in the past few years. It no longer pays you for your degree. It doesn’t even pay you for what you know because the internet knows everything. It pays you for what you can do with what you know. And thanks to our education system, 21st-century adults can’t do much different than their peers.
The old education system — which is basically a machine producing identical products, gives us the same skilled youth every year. No wonder the life satisfaction rate is decreasing every year.
In the 21st century, graduates cannot thrive with the same skill set as the previous generation. The previous generation is barely surviving with those. In the modern world, they need a capacity for inventiveness, an ability to respond quickly and effectively to novelty, a thirst for continuous learning — which 19th-century rote learning system never developed, personal resilience to deal with uncertainty and failure, confidence in their own values — idea that relative values are higher than absolute and a commitment to the well-being of society.
And all this is not possible without the change in learning pattern and what is being learned.
Importance of learning and change
“Change is impossible without learning, just as learning is impossible without change”
Today, the world is more complex than ever.
‘The more complex the world becomes, the more creative we need to be to meet its challenges-Sir Ken Robinson
Success looks different now than it did in the past. High-achieving people are frequently choosing to opt out of the traditional job market and create their own jobs. Successful people increasingly expect to be able to:
1- Work from anywhere and at a time that suits them
2- Live and Travel anywhere at anytime
Zygmunt Bauman has observed that the rise of the rich is linked to their capacity to lead highly mobile lives:
“Mobility climbs to the rank of the uppermost among coveted values -and the freedom to move, perpetually a scarce and unequally distributed commodity, fast becomes the main stratifying factor of our late modern or postmodern time
3- Outsource all the work they don't like doing
4- Change work according to the change in their interests
An engineer doesn’t have to die as an engineer working at one company or two his entire life and living in one city. He can be a scuba instructor, a writer, a dancer and many more things. Doing one job is like wearing only one colour or eating only one favour ice cream for the whole life. It is as boring as it sounds.
High achieving people don’t decide to be doctors, engineers, advocates or government officials for the rest of their life. They want to explore new jobs on the go, even newly discovered ones — like an Instagram influencer, or blockchain developer. They always have an eye on the next big thing.
In short, success has become having, doing and being only that which doesn’t shatter your peace of mind. The earlier definitions of success being synonymous with wealth, fame and/or title is fading away very quickly.
In the 21st century — for the generation of the information age — new success is peace of mind.
Thanks, however, to the age-old education system, successful people today have everything but peace. For most of these people, Jobs are nothing short of labour. And modern-day labour is slavery minus coercion.
Still, it seems the will, at least, is still in their control — if I assume free will exists. It seems as if they are free to leave the soul-sucking job whenever they want. The question is, can they?
It seems as if no one is forcing them to do something against their will. This is because they are subtly fed with a pill of ‘weekends’ every week as soon as the exhaustion is about to create a questioning mind. And then they forget that life is beyond weekends and holidays.
“Salary is a drug they give you to forget your dreams"- Kevin O’Leary
The whole system of democracy is made to create a grand illusion of free will. Today democratic elections are swayed more easily than ever. The Collective will of people is controlled by manipulation tactics and social media. And we think when we vote, we are exercising our free will to choose, but in reality, we choose what the system wants us to.
The will is in control of the system and this whole system of controlling the will or in layman’s terms — working for someone else started by being forced to work for someone. Otherwise known as slavery. Or else, why would anyone work for someone else? Let’s go back in time and see how all this mayhem started.
History
Broadly speaking, when a person cannot quit his service for another person, he is considered a slave and whatever he does comes under slavery. Slavery, however, occurred rarely among hunter-gatherers. This was because it develops under the condition of social stratification(groupism) and there was hardly any inequality based on wealth, income, race, education, ethnicity, gender, occupation, social status, or derived power (social and political) at that time.
As agriculture started, the man started accumulating more than needed(mainly farm produce). According to Harari, this doesn’t mean the leisure time increased or diet improved. This only means overpopulation and inequality started.
Slowly this inequality gave rise to three types of slavery: Conquest slavery, Debt slavery and the one in which parents gave away their children to the tribe chief.
And it is going on ever since. It has changed types and forms continuously, but it was never eradicated. And as long as inequality exists, it will continue to plague our society. I am no Marxist, so believe me when I say that inequality can never be eradicated.
In today’s society, it is disguised as systematic slavery where you can’t leave your job because the system is made this way. You ought to pay bills, right? If you are not a job provider or freelancer, you are most likely a slave of one or the other type of system. Of course, everyone in the system is not a slave. And I am also not saying inequality will end soon — because it will not, all I am saying is not everyone dies as a slave. but most do.
Pre-colonisation India:
In pre-colonised India, education was an inseparable part of the culture. The medium of instruction was Sanskrit, which was considered a sacred language. Technical knowledge — especially in relation to architecture, metallurgy, etc. — was passed hereditarily. As the population grew, so did the diversity in talent. And this came in the way of innovation. This must-have led to the creation of a system where people didn’t love what they had to do.
Another shortcoming of this system was that it barred women, lower castes and other underprivileged people from accessing education. The emphasis on rote learning was another impediment to innovation which was passed on to the British system as well.
Slavery, however, still existed apart from this system. Both Islamist and Christians slaved each other. The British, however, didn’t export slaves from India but they used them for menial work( plantation, factories etc).
Colonial education:
After almost 1000 years of slavery (9th to 19th century), the British were the first to end the slave trade by the ‘Slave trade act of 1807’. They also abolished slavery — by slavery abolition act on 1 August 1833 with exception of India because a large number of slaves were still required to maintain and run huge colony.
They, however, abolished slavery in 1843 by the Indian Slavery Act but a large number of people were still required to do the subordinate jobs and run such a large colony. So, the British introduced a new system of recruiting labourers by offering them good wages.
Since they required trained personnel to do the subordinate jobs, they came up with a schooling system which prepared people, well-versed in their ways, for such jobs in huge number every year.
Macaulay System of Education: Macaulay’s Minute on Education was presented in the British parliament as
“We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions who we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinion, in morals, and in intellect”
This was the political aim of British education which changed the direction and course of the education system of India. The powerless people simply accepted the British policy of education. The Hindus appreciated and welcomed British education in terms of form (i.e. institutional education, and medium of instruction) and substance (i.e. knowledge based on scientific empiricism and secularism). The Muslims partially accepted British education in terms of form and substance. Though some Muslims denied English as the medium of instruction, yet they introduced science education and integrated it with religious education.
The colonial government aided the spread of modern education in India for a different reason other than educating and empowering the Indians. As discussed before, to administer a large colony like India, the British needed a large number of employees to work for them. It was impossible for the British to import the educated lot — needed in such large numbers — from Britain.
To solve this problem, the English Education Act was passed by the Council of India in 1835. Consequently, the colonial administration started schools, colleges and universities, imparting English and modern education, in India.
In 1842, the first convent school — St. Pattrick Junior College was established at Agra in India. Thus, started a system of education based on a fixed curriculum that prepared trained subordinates to run large British companies in India. Britishers, however, also provided education to the underprivileged and marginalized sector, thus dismantling the social roles which were impeding India’s growth.
In 1854, Wood’s educational despatch was introduced. It advocated English to be the medium of education at a higher level. Universities were established in Bombay, Madras and Calcutta in 1857. The colonial government expected the section of educated Indians to be loyal to the British and act as the pillars of British Rule. They had initiated the best developmental activities during this phase, but after this period the policies reared their ugly head.
The system soon turned into a system that produced Babu culture. The schooling system became more like a factory manufacturing labourers for the British colony with the illusion of freedom and progress in their mind. However, there was poor or almost nil orientation of children based on their talent or choice of work. Low salaries, large hours of work, vast inequality( in salaries of women) was prominent. And the worst aspect of this system was that it emphasized compliance and conformity over creativity.
Since some system is better than no system at all, there was no running away from this system for Indians. And soon enough, conformity and compliance were ingrained in their minds as the only way of living.
The British created an educated Indian middle class to meet their own ends but sneered at it as the Babu class. That very class, however, became the progressive intelligentsia of India and played a leading role in mobilising the people for the liberation of the country.
In the post-colonial period, education was commercialized and the academic certificates became valuable for career and social status. In the present world, however, this system has not only become irrelevant but also a system responsible for the evil and miserable life of 21st-century kids.
More of the same kind of education will only compound our problems. This is not an argument for ignorance but rather a statement that the worth of education must now be measured against the standards of decency and human survival. It is not education, but the education of a certain kind, that will save us.
Contemporary World
Our Society is changing rapidly but our schools remain lethargically stuck with the system which was developed in the 19th century. Schools teach obsolete skills that are not needed in the digital era. They are producing millions of high-school graduates every year without imparting a minimum set of required cognitive and non-cognitive skills to them. The entire curriculum, exam and grade system is based on pre-digital age tech.
“Education, in other words, can be a dangerous thing (…). It is time, I believe, for an educational ‘perestroika’, by which I mean a general rethinking of the process and substance of education at all levels, beginning with the admission that much of what has gone wrong with the world is the result of education that alienates us from life in the name of human domination, fragments instead of unifies, overemphasizes success and careers, separates feeling from intellect and the practical from the theoretical, and unleashes on the world minds ignorant of their own ignorance.”
Not only students but also teachers are stuck with a highly outdated curriculum. This century-old system is creating millions of labourers every year when most of the labour intensive and boring work is already being done by machines.
The old system was never focused on the talent and character bent of an individual. It killed creativity, but in the information age — where anyone can literally become and do anything that they want to — lack of creative bent of mind creates a mess for the world. The dynamism of the human mind and nature remain unused which in turn breeds a society suffering from intense misery and emptiness.
A mere technological overhaul isn’t going to solve the problems of the system. The system needs an immediate transplant, yet all that our government is doing is akin to applying band-aids.
“An attempted use of computers to improve the obsolete system is akin to using the jet engine to improve transportation by attaching it to a stagecoach” -Papert and Markowsky, 2013
Problem with Contemporary Education System:
In his book ‘Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon?’, educational thought leader Yong Zhao warns, “National standards and national curriculum, enforced by high-stakes testing, can at best teach students what is prescribed… As a result, students talented in other areas never have the opportunity to discover those talents. Students with broader interests are discouraged, not rewarded. The system results in a population with similar skills in a narrow spectrum of talents. But especially in today’s society, innovation and creativity are needed in many areas, some as yet undiscovered.”
There are millions of student who stay at school only to be bored by the whole process because they don’t have any other choice. Let’s forget being bored for a while and ask what to do with the students who are low achievers? Einstein was also a low achiever at school but that didn’t mean he was less than any other students. We need to ask the right questions if we want to find out the real problems with our education system. For example, How to re-engage young people who are either failing in school or have pulled out of it?
The problem is not so much with the students as it is with our system. Our system is failing our kids. Dropping out or failure is a symptom of a deeper problem in the system.
Here’s a list of few problems I see with the Modern Education System:
1-One size Fits all — With the growth in population, the diversity in character and talents of an individual also grew. The chances of more and more vibrant souls being forced groomed in the old ways by the decade-old one size fit all system grew exponentially. As a result, today 250 people compete for one corporate job. Thus, today I can confidently say that One size does not fit all anymore.
2-Creativity not fostered: Rote culture is still intact and is creating skilled labourers which are unskilled and unfit for the modern world. Creativity and imagination are not encouraged in any scenario. As a result, a child who has exposure to the vast possibilities of the world through social media and paparazzi culture ends up considering the power of thinking a curse. Having no idea how to think and carry the train of thoughts to a logical end, they end up having random thoughts which lead to over-thinking and anxiety. In my opinion, over-thinking is not a curse, it is a blessing. That’s how dreams are born — by thinking beyond the normal standard of thinking. Thinking, however, where one has no control over the train of thoughts creates havoc.
3- More emphasis on grades: Recently, Elon Musk said he will hire people without any degree. Let’s get real like he is, for the future generation, there is no relevance for degree anymore. It was relevant when 5 out of 100 had it. Now 5 out of a hundred do not have it and they turn to be the best talent in the market. Case in point: Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Coco Chanel. The grading system is failing to find the best talent in the market. All it does is give birth to a huge population with narrower interests and talents.
4- Old career path: Career guidance is still almost nil in developing countries like India. Due to peer pressure, herd mentality is encouraged and followed. Parents cannot be totally blamed for this because they themselves don’t know any other career paths other than the conventional doctor, lawyer and engineer.
5-Disengagement: Students today lack motivation for studying via textbooks. With more entertaining sources around, giving time and energy to books seems difficult and sounds boring. More and more students are questioning the old learning methods. Their boredom is justified. Parents often blame the child for the lack of concentration, when the system and the environment is the real culprit.
Students should not be blamed. When they can learn the same skill or lesson through an entertaining Youtube video or via a mobile game, they are bound to get bored and de-motivated with old methods.
Motivational Speakers selling the answer to the wrong question:
Motivational speakers earn a lot of money by making videos that promise to motivate students to study. They put adrenaline-pumping music in the background of the video and students are attracted to it. However, once the video is over, the effect wears down fast and so does the motivation. They are selling the answer to the wrong question and all the students are continuously buying it.
The question should not be HOW to get motivated to study. The right question which should be answered is WHY are they not motivated to study.
And the answer is the curriculum and ways are outdated and heftily boring. Students today live in a society where they do not have to hustle for anything. Want to go somewhere, they have vehicles. Want to eat, they can order food at their fingertips. Want to find some information, they don’t have to wait for the next morning so that they can ask their teacher. Teacher more knowledgeable than any teacher in the world is right in their hands.
Old methods make little sense to the students today. Since they are brought up in a system that breeds compliance and obedience instead of questioning and revolt, they keep quiet and try their best to comply. Their subconscious mind, however, knows the truth and thus they feel bored and unmotivated. Why memorise facts when you can access any of them 24/7 with your hand? They know they can’t remember all the things from the last grade, then why again go through the trouble to learn things that they are bound to forget?
The more dynamic personality a child has in the 21st century, the more likely he is to fail in this obsolete system. The system has no pathway to help them explore and sharpen their hidden skills. Schools are clinging to the obsolete system and methods because changing the whole system requires unprecedented effort at the end of government, schools and parents.
Our world is changing rapidly and we are failing to prepare students for the right response to this rapid change.
Skills I wish 12+ years of schooling taught me
In the 21st century, new skills are required at all ages in life. Knowing how we learn, how to turn information that is accessible and ubiquitous into knowledge by filtering legitimate data from the false one, how to document and analyze life-long learning, and analyze the effectiveness of our own learning are essential in the 21st century. 19th or 20th-century people might not have needed these skills, but for the people of the 21st century, lacking these skills becomes a leading cause of difficult and miserable life:
1- Emotional intelligence: also known as emotional quotient or EQ is the ability to understand, use, and handle our own emotions in positive ways to release stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict. Our world is more connected than ever. And we need to understand, handle and process our emotions properly to be more empathetic and compassionate.
Students with higher levels of emotional intelligence are able to better manage themselves and relate to others around them. This can help them improve self-motivation and develop more effective communication skills — which can help them become more confident learners. It’s the first step in realizing their true potential.
They, however, are taught not to cry and that crying makes them weak right from childhood. They have no idea how to regulate emotions, handle heartbreak, rejection, failure, setback or any other dejection which is part and parcel of life and which is bound to bring emotional turmoil.
“Cry and release your emotions to persevere instead of denying them to lose your mind.”
2-How to love oneself: Every child must be taught about self-care. They should know how to reframe negative thoughts and boost self-esteem by self-direction and self-discipline. They should be taught to express themselves without fear. Moreover, how to identify and break bad habits and how to foster good ones must also be taught in the early days of school.
3- How to make informed decisions is one of the most important skills required today. A child must know that it doesn’t matter if the decision turns out to be wrong as long as it was an informed decision and not an influenced one. How to make a decision in a critical, emotional and dangerous situation and When and How to seek an expert should be taught at a very early age. Planning, sorting options, drawing a line between good and possible bad ones, listening to gut are all important skills needed to make a decision. They need to be told that decisiveness grows with each decision and decreases with every indecision, so making a decision on their own is very crucial for their character development.
4- Personal Finances: How to manage money-Nobody taught us how to make money to make more money or how to do taxes. Financial literacy is the most crucial skill required in the 21st century. With more than ever products and services to buy, and aggressive marketing campaigns, making an informed financial choice at every step of life is very important.
5- Tolerance and liberation: Every child must be taught how to encompass other’s point of view and why is it important for their own liberation and peace of mind. This is required to imbue adaptability in their minds. How to walk away from anyone who thinks they are arguing every time they express themselves and at the same time how to respect other people’s right to disagree with them must also be taught.
6-Questioning without concluding-Skill of reasoning, Maintaining a balance between living-in-the-moment and future planning, Interrogative questioning and looking for an experience rather than bookish answers must also be taught in school years.
7-Finding the right book — other than those mentioned in the curriculum to learn about other peoples’ point of view/approaches on a topic is something every child lack. Parents and teachers must help them find taste in literature and help them understand its role in building the character of a man and of society as a whole.
8- The importance of mental health must also be taught at a very young age. This includes teaching about the benefits of yoga, mindfulness, meditation, reading good articles and books every morning(as if exercising parts of the brain) and the importance of sleep. Additionally, how to remove oneself from a mentally toxic and exhausting environment must also be taught.
9- Importance of physical health- How to personally give attention to personal health must also be taught. Exercising, sports, gym or any other type of physical activity should become an inseparable part of a person’s life in the 21st century.
10-Finding passion- Having a sense of purpose, making a balance between work and life, the importance of side-hustle in building confidence and a financially secure future should be taught to every child by an expert. They should be made to understand that no matter how much they love the work they do or how much they earn — if they lose total control of their time and freedom to express themselves creatively, they’ll end up miserable.
11- Sex education: Every teenager goes through bursts of sexual energies which if not properly channelled results in distraction and sudden outburst at the wrong place. How to handle sexual arousal and distraction must be taught to every teenager.
12- Character education- Personal traits and attributes such as responsibility, perseverance and empathy can be easily ingrained in the minds of a child if character education is provided from an early age. This is important to build a progressive and safe society as well.
13-Citizenship: Knowledge of global issues is important for 21st-century citizens. Development of respect for other cultures, involvement in sustaining humanity and environmental preservation is also necessary today. NGO visits, Civic, ethical and social justice literacy can help in the development of respect for diversity. When this is done, students become acutely sensitive to individual differences, and then they can easily accommodate and respect the diverse viewpoint.
12-Gratitude- Practising gratitude is necessary to prepare the child for the tough times. If done daily, they start seeing how privileged they are even when things go wrong.
Skills needed for deep learning
13- Critical thinking-Critical thinking must be developed in every child because it helps in problem-solving and making effective decisions.
14-Communication and collaboration- The ability to communicate effectively and actively listen to teachers must also be developed from an early age. Finding and collaborating with people having the same skill and interest is crucial so that they do not feel left out. Working in teams, learning from and contributing to other’s learning and collaborating with diverse individuals should be part of each subject.
15- Creativity and imagination: Considering and pursuing novel ideas, leading others and undertaking entrepreneurial activities should also be taught from a very early age. Curiosity should be praised, the importance of imagination and innovation must also be taught in schools.
16- Learning to learn: How to learn is a question often ignored in schools. Students must be taught how to learn and how to take ownership of their learning and behaviour. They must know how they affect the society around them so that they can engage in meaningful social learning as well.
“The message is clear. The better skilled you are, the lower your chances of being replaced by a machine”
Reforms: What India Needs to do to become an Information Economy
“21st-century kids are being taught by 20th-century adults using the 19th-century curriculum and techniques on an 18th-century calender”- Tom Hierck
Traditional Schooling Crisis
“Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time”
Only school-based reform will not suffice. Young people today lack opportunities outside of school to practice skills. In the modern workspace, they are presented with real-world problems where they need to learn and apply what they learn rather than simply reproduce the information in tests.
Traditional schooling is experiencing a credibility crisis that neither government nor parents are ready to acknowledge. Students are failing to live a happy life once they pass out and juvenile delinquency is also on the rise. They are still not being prepared to face the challenges introduced by the combined forces of globalization and technology.
“If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow”-John Dewey
The decade-old system cannot be transformed until school leaders engage their communities( parents) and other stakeholders in a dialogue about the 21st-century competencies needed to be embrace in the schools. It requires a change in pedagogy, curriculum, assessment and policies.
A cycle of continuous improvement is the bare minimum to help our students match their performances everywhere.
Schools who think they don’t need to teach reason, logic, argument and speech should read comments of their pupils on social media.
So, rather than trying to insert knowledge into our kids’ heads as in the past and then trying to measure how much of it has been retained via countless tests, today’s teachers need to find ways to create 21st-century citizens who parrot less and think more.
Let us look at some of the reforms that are need of the hour:
1- Phenomenon based teaching: Scraping teaching by subject in favour of teaching by topic or Phenomenon teaching is a much-needed reform. The underlying philosophy of phenomenon-based learning is to prepare the students not for the next grade or job but for life.
For example, In Finland, The English School in Helsinki conducted a phenomenon week that centred on the concept of time. The English School’s entire student body from pre-school to grade six participated in the phenomenon-based learning event. Students approached it from many angles: First and second-grade classrooms learned about Finnish clockmakers and then constructed their own grandfather clocks out of cardboard. Third-grade students created calendars from different cultures throughout history. Fourth and fifth graders projected the future of their city by designing blueprints and maps. Sixth-grade classrooms used the phenomenon of time to create visual itineraries for their annual class trip to England. Every single project was the result of questions posed by students. Students’ inquiries about time motivated and directed the learning process.
Thus, typical features of teaching and learning by phenomenon is putting curiosity, imagination, and creativity at the heart of learning. The main idea is to pursue the happiness and development of every child.
2- Project-based curriculum: Schools in the 21st century should be laced with project-based curriculum for life aimed at engaging students in addressing real-world problems and issues important to humanity.
For example, Upper high school student may decide to study tourism vocational course that could include elements of maths, languages(needed in the tourism industry), writing and communication skills.
A project-based curriculum helps students address real-world problems, and issues important to humanity. The departure from the factory/company model of education, text-book driven, teacher-centred, paper and pencil approach is need of the hour.
3- Question hour: In order to improve communication skills, at least an hour should be set aside where the teacher engages in communicating effectively with the students about their life. Helping the students communicate their silly doubts, deepest fears and feelings without being judged is necessary for today’s world. This can be done by developing an inquiry-based question around a topic — that begins with either a “how”, “why” or “what if?”
4- Personalised learning and AI: The 21st-century system should not require students to fit in the system. Today apps can be customised with the help of AI towards student-centred learning leading to learner-centred education.
AI can help a student discover the passion or skill they are born better at. Then parents and schools can encourage the students to build confidence to cultivate that skill by helping them practise and providing the required information and material.
We need to use more flexible ways of personalizing teaching and learning by using technology to better target individual’s current levels of achievement and learning needs. Thus, flexible learning arrangements need to be adopted for students’ individual growth. For that, a change should start from students — what they need and how we can give it to them.
5- Teaching based reforms: The countries like Finland, Singapore, South Korea, Japan which have demonstrated excellence in teaching and learning have ensured to raise the status of teaching as a career so that it is not seen only as an option when one’s career reaches stagnation. These countries engage teachers to set their own teaching and learning targets. These countries:
- enrol high ability graduates for teacher training courses- Singapore, Finland, Japan and South Korea enroll graduates from the Top 10% to 30% cohort.
- control over the number of students undertaking teacher education courses
- pay high salaries to teachers
- use a rigorous process to select entrants to teacher education.
Thus, teachers become not only delivers of the curriculum but also developers of learning. They should be able to go beyond covering the curriculum and teach to instil a passion for learning. We have to make learning and student engagement as central and promote connectedness across subjects.
My Opinion
a) A new role of teacher-Lead learner
A teacher’s role in the digital era is that of a lead learner. The quality of the teacher is the key determinant of students’ success. They need to regularly update their well of knowledge, understand the role of tech in the new learning process and integrate it in a way that promotes learning without it being a distraction. Yesterday’s lecture-centric, one size fits all approach cannot prepare students for tomorrow’s challenge.
In the 21st century, teachers should be equipped to prepare virtually every student for higher-order thinking and performance skills which were once reserved for only a few.
It’s okay to know less than students
Teachers should be a guide rather than a provider of information. Students already have access to better resources of information. Only filtering useful from useless information is to be taught by the teacher.
Teachers and students need to work together in new forms of partnership in which students do whatever they are good at — like using technology to find information and teachers do what they do best — like asking the right questions, putting things into the proper context and measuring quality and rigour.
b) Identifying low achieving students: The learning trajectory of low achieving students need to be identified so that students at risk can be identified early on and their problem address. This can also be used as an opportunity to identify their talents and interest, and then send them on the way to sharpen those instead of making them do what they hate.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
Conclusion
“Schools ask students to write an essay in not less than 3 pages while the companies ask them to explain a topic in less than 3 minutes”
The mismatch between what students learn at school and what the global economy and 21st-century lifestyle demand is a big issue that needs to be addressed. The irrelevant curriculum and teaching/learning process contribute to the widening gap between educational institutions and the world of work. And this precisely is the cause of workforce which is highly paid but miserable.
“We are applying band-aids to an education system that is in need of a blood transfusion”
Forget about winning, we can barely survive the future with the education of the past. No matter how innovative programs to improve literacy percentage may appear, it is money being flushed down the drain.
Critics of standardized curriculum argue that we can change almost everything about the system — schools, leaders, teachers, number of hours and days of instructions, and still not provide an education that interest our students and gets them deeply engaged in their own learning and what they need to be successful in the 21st century. We need to change what we teach and how we teach it completely and right away.
“The educational medicine most prescribed today-the test scores-driven and results-rewarding, it is not the right way to educate our children, even if it teaches whatever goals they set, because it treats the wrong disease”- Prensky, ibid
Why modern working youth is not happy with work-life?
Modern youth has more than ever exposure to the happenings of the world via social media and entertainment sources. This discovery leads to the birth of the basic desire to have, consume or experience new things as it is the only way to put out the fire of desire in them. But because of slavery-like work-life, they neither have skills nor time to experience them. Hence, accumulated desires create a deep well of dissatisfaction and unhappiness.
If you’re unhappy with your job and you didn’t leave it( which is a thinly veiled can’t), then you are also a modern slave.
Rest should not be a reward for working 5 days a week
Life is too short to be sad 5 times a week in exchange for 2 days of freedom. We think rest is a reward rather than a right. Since we are trapped in this 9–5 Monday to Friday lifestyle, it is bound to produce miserable adults in large number. It’s not entirely our fault. Our education system trained us to live for the weekends right from the beginning. Saturdays and Sundays are nothing less than a pill given every weekend to forget the miserable weekdays.
Are we really free if we cannot escape this ‘living for weekends’ lifestyle?
To be happy, freedom is the foremost requirement. As discussed before, one must be free to work any time and from anywhere, free to travel, free to sleep and wake up any time and most of all free to do or experience every new desire.
Money and success alone won’t make us happy. We need time and peace as well. There is a mistaken belief that economic growth alone might result in a happier society. But current inequalities in economic development — resulting in a huge gap between the rich and the poor across the globe, as well as within the nations is a source of tensions and practical problems.
Final Opinion
Modern education is very sound, but it seems to be based on a universal acceptance of the importance of developing the brain — which has now become its major drawback.
Since not enough attention is given to the development of the person as a whole, and to encouraging uniqueness, we are continuously producing highly unproductive human machines with similar skills. And for these machines, being human is a curse because over-looking emotional unwellness is practically impossible for humans.
It is important to address a moral question related to the whole life of an individual as well. Emotional wellness is necessary for humans and we need to prepare our children for the same. All the burden of responsibility to introduce the children to the benefits of basic human qualities — such as love, kindness and warm heart, and to the importance of emotional wellness lies on the shoulders of parents when we know quite well they themselves never had unbiased and quality education about the same. How can they impart something they are themselves are not clear about.
“An agitated mind usually provides some physical imbalance. Younger generations have a great responsibility to ensure that the world becomes a more peaceful place for all. This can happen so long as our modern educational system involves educating heart along with the brain”- Dalai Lama
I, as an individual, cannot do much to force our governments to change the face of the old education system overnight. But one thing I can surely do. I can at least start the debate.
I can be the first one to raise the voice. And that’s what matters.
