Imagineering the education system

Published in

Designerd

5 min readNov 21, 2016

”If your plan is for one year plant rice. If your plan is for ten years plant trees. If your plan is for one hundred years educate children.” — Confucius

Imagine a world without school as we know it. School, the institution creating a production line of employees. A system which asks you to give the “right” answers yet asking the “wrong” questions.

Imagine a time when you are no longer made fun of, because you asked a question that wasn’t in the syllabus. Instead you are praised for thinking outside of all boxes. A place where the syllabus is revised and adapted yearly to best equip each student for the future. A place in which continuous improvement of the system is the system in place.

Imagine school was a place, which produces innovators and inventors

Where you are mentored and coached instead of being told what to do. A place where you are no longer bullied into choosing a job based on salary. Because money wouldn’t matter. Each learner would be turned into a self sufficient Omnipreneur no longer an order-following-Employee.

Imagine being taught in the way you would best understand. In the language you grew up with. Where each type of child is nurtured to their full potential. Each lesson accessible to everyone, available in every style, Visual, Auditory, Tactile and Kinesthetic. All would be learning effectively. And most importantly all would understand clearly.

They’d learn faster, efficiently retaining knowledge and there’d be no limits to their potential. They’d apply the knowledge practically to see how things work and why they work or don’t work.

Each project, Teachers would ask: How might we contribute to fixing this problem effectively?

Imagine a time where experimentation daily at school is the norm

Lessons would be enjoyable, practical and would have purpose. Where teachers are passionate and lead your children. Students and teachers, joyfully coming to school each day to share their knowledge and to inspire change.

Imagine an institution of learning and creation. Where everyone is taught through play and collaboration. Building together. Where Maths, Art, Design Thinking, Strategy, Science, Engineering, Environmental Protection/Agriculture, Social Responsibility, Human Computer Interaction and Business are the main disciplines.

Where all are helped to grow into a form similar to Da Vinci. Pioneers in their own right. Each would leave there, a multidimensional Engineer. With a love for nature, humanity and technology.

They would be fluent in the Art of Science and the Science of Art

Each instilled with a deep desire to learn and to never stop learning. To continue improving with each year to follow. Improving themselves, their communities and the world around them. With hearts so big, they care for all. They would pursue work which will help others.

Imagine children taught to care for the earth, the aged, the sick. To protect the earth and respect it by educating them on how to grow their own food. Imagine children taught how to build their own homes, start their own business, learn to code, impact social change from an early age, by finding ways to improve their own communities. Taught all mediums, strategies and methods, so they are equipped to know which is the best tool to use to solve each problem which arises.

Imagine a world filled with Conservationists, Engineers, Artists and Scientists and more…

Imagine waking up everyday in a world like this. Where each person is fully equipped with the skills they need to be self sufficient. Able to create anything. Advanced beyond any generation to be able to finally create that Utopian society previously written about, dreamed about.

A place where each has a personal responsibility to help sustain the earth and to use their skills in service of others

A place where each feels the next person is as close to them as a brother. Treating everyone with respect. Each community realising they are part of a bigger community. And every little deed has a greater impact. Each changing the world, one small act at a time.

This knowledge would no longer segregate but rather elevate. Each would be proud to just be part of a “Creating” human race. No other race would be classified. No other distinction to separate them. The world would be transformed from commercial mediocrity. All consumers morphed into creators.

Imagine, to learn, not with the focus of making money in order to survive adulthood. Money would have no use in this world. Each would barter skills. Each would share with whoever lacked. So that all would be satisfied. To learn in order to create, for yourself and for those around you and for those who are yet to come.

Imagine being fully equipped once completing school with all the tools and skills you need to build something awesome?! Big or small.

Imagine if “innovation & usefulness” was the only real measurement for grades

Projects would never be pointless, they would be real life applications. Projects solving real issues. What if, Week 1: create an integrated social entrepreneurship business model which focuses on alleviating poverty, using technology to do so. What would they be creating by week 52?

Imagine if real life situations could be applied as early as primary school. What kind of thinkers would be leaving those institutions after high school?

There’d be real problems being solved daily, globally, until all problems like poverty would be completely eradicated like a historic virus which was cured.

Imagine then, what the world would be like?

Now imagine, instead, that you are a student from that school

Equipped with all the tools you need. What if that future is yet to come? What if the experts in the rooms running sprints, started asking questions about society and the human condition?

What if agile methodology was used for implementing social change on a broader scale? What if many methods tried and failed, repeatedly tried and failed.

But then,

what if…

one day

it actually worked?