Not Another Brick in the Wall!
“We don’t need no education…all and all you are just another brick in the wall…we don’t need no hard controls” — Pink Floyd “Another Brick in the Wall”
Have you ever listened to Pink Floyd’s song “Another Brick in the Wall”? What were your initial thoughts after having listened to it — fascinating? Sad? Confused?
No, the initial emotion I got right after watching the song’s music video was “shock”. The song was released in 1979, certainly not a time period in which people are used to straight-forward and direct expressions of rebellion. I was dumbfounded by the displayed spectacle the video exhibited- children were becoming sausages! How ridiculous, yet shocking?
This song, as the title and the lyrics imply, is about formal education in the 1970s (food for thought: what is so significant about formal education and its background history that makes people talk about it all the time?) The song sends a critical message to the audience that teachers represent the government and students are the people; the government doesn’t let the people do what they want and controls each and every individual, and so do teachers.
The song symbolizes how static formal education is as well as its coercing and unengaging nature. And the song implicitly throws the fact into your face that this kind of education serves as yet another piece of brick that composes the “wall” — which is a metaphor for the psychological barrier — against the world, making students detach themselves from the outside world.
And the unique factor that distinguishes this song from others is that its chorus calls the audience to action: the chorus urges the audience to protest and rebel against the undynamic, oppressing education system (or, thought control) which has a negative influence on students, like impeding creativity.
Yup, in the past, we all looked forward to an education system without the oppression and constraints, as depicted in the song. And the hopeful news is that we are now in the phase of transition in terms of the educational system!
Just as the song’s underlying meaning urged the audience to do, people have been wondering what a truly good education should look like. And now, education is 180° different from what it used to look like in the past, in the 70s.
Now, you might wonder what’s caused all this shift. And the answer is here: Big Data is behind this significant change from the industrialized mass production of graduates to create and interactive classes of real education. (Meet me in the next article to know about online interactive classes, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), and about Prof. Andrew Ng, who developed Coursera.)
“Big Data shows the degree to which this approach is as archaic as bloodletting.” — from the book “Big Data: The Essential Guide to Work, Life, and Learning in the Age of Insight”
But how? here are the three reasons.
1.We know more about individual differences since we can track student performances better — in a continuous way.
2. We can tailor the lessons to the particular needs of each individual, not the general and overall average which no single individual really belongs to.
3. We can learn something new about what works best in educating so we can improve the way the instruction happens when teaching.
Data enables a feedback loop that educators can act on to improve the quality of education. The result of the implementation of Big Data is very exciting: now, education is one of the most significant areas where Big Data will make its mark.
Big Data not only can improve education quality — which would, of course, improve society as well as economic prosperity — can also improve students’ self-esteem, since advanced analytics and Big Data can reshape how students learn and teachers teach, as well as what they should teach.
Right now, the usage of data and analytics applies to only a small part of the education system such as on standardized tests; this leads to filtering in education, slotting students into educational tracks from which it is challenging to deviate.
However, further implementation of Big Data analytics can help each individual have a better opportunity to reach the individual potential. Since humans possess some characteristic qualities that machines lack — such as creativity, originality, and the ability to radically break with the past — we can get aided by Big Data to integrate those distinct qualities into the existing education system.
To do so, trust is essential. Trusting the data subjects and committing to use data responsibly is critical and important because we do not want to obstruct the use of data in education.
Education has gone through so much change since the release of “Another Brick in the Wall,” as if the song predicted this change and inflamed, boosted the change. However, there is still more of the road left on the quest to better education, and until then we all need to head towards the goal with the help from Big Data, which enables us to reexamine all the past practices that have lingered around the schools and make changes by reflecting on the past.
Yes, hopefully, society can learn from the song as well as Big Data analytics, impressed just by how its most valuable resource can become even more valuable. What have YOU learned? Isn’t this a great time for you to stop another brick from getting thrown into the wall?
Key Takeaways:
- The song “Another Brick in the Wall” by Pink Floyd is about the devastating impacts of formal education on students.
- Now is the transitional period during which the educational focus shifts from mass, industrial production of graduates to quality teaching of human characteristics such as creativity.
- Big Data is the hidden driving force behind this shift, and it analyzes vast amounts of data to read each individual’s needs and notice the trend necessary for quality educations.
This article is based on the book Big Data: The Essential Guide to Work, Life, and Learning in the Age of Insight.
