Are we memorising our kids into poverty?
Recently Dr Yaw Adutwum, the Ghanaian Education Minister said “you can’t memorise your way out of poverty, but you can critically think and innovate out of poverty. That (traditional) education system will not transform Ghana. That kind of education system is not going to give us critical thinking individually, especially since we are in the 21st century with education 4.0 and the industrial revolution.’’
His statement connected with me on every level. But his statement — we cannot memorise our way out of poverty has a much deeper insight when we reframe his thoughts. I asked myself if we are memorising our children into poverty?
Over the past 100 years, the world has exponentially changed with groundbreaking innovation across many industries while the education sector has largely stood still. The education system is not fit for the 4th industrial revolution and the methods utilised to deliver education to children today is outdated.
How we educate all children is not just a problem for developing countries but a global issue for every parent, child, teacher, government and industry. In recent weeks both my daughters Mackenzie and Issabella are revising for their GCSEs and memorising answers from cue cards they have created as advised by their teachers. I flippantly said to Mackenzie, “memorising your way into poverty and her response was no dad to get 9 into my GCSEs, then I have no clue.”
I wrote an article back in 2017 “can we avoid anarchy” about the 4th Industrial revolution, and it’s well documented that in the next decade many of the jobs children are learning for presently in school, college and university will not be available.
The rate of innovation is scaling exponentially and the rules of the internet are being rewritten. If you did a simple prediction of what the world will look and feel like in 2032 and then predicted the educational journey of an 11 year old today and what this child needs to learn for a good life, it will show you their education is inadequate.
If we are totally honest with ourselves and listen to what the Ghanaian Education Minister also said, “I speak with the students and when I finish I ask them ‘do you have any questions for me?’ no hand goes up…we have tamed the children. We just want them to write down what we tell them and on the day of exams, they should put down what we have told them [then] we say you’re the best student the country has ever known..”
He’s right, they will never achieve improvement by building more schools to deliver the education in its current state. It will take forever to train teachers and build the quality required of an already outdated method used by developing countries. There is a faster and better way to solve the challenge for developing and developed countries when it comes to education. (Africa became mobile first and skipped our developed countries legacy banking system.)
We can change this outcome and look beyond the expectation that the government will respond (which is not anytime soon)….
What does education look and feel like if we had a blank canvas for education?
You’re now saying in your heads we don’t have a blank canvas. Yes that’s correct but we at Kabuni for the past four years have continued to push bold and radical thinking into designing a next generation education platform in the Metaverse using Web3 protocols to reshape how we learn at school and home. Prof. Ger in a recent podcast I host, Elevate Life, said “85% of children have to go to school and what if we changed that emotional feeling into I want to go to school.” Yes, be honest here if you are a parent reading this, how many breakfast table moments a week do you hear your child say “I don’t want to go to school today.” We then find the best possible answer each time and push them out the door.
If a child is not getting the best out of their education journey — we must listen and act. Nina Jane Patel, our head of research and co-founder recently wrote that it takes a village to raise a child even in the Metaverse.
Teachers are superheroes. What they don’t have is super powers or freedom to reimagine how they teach.
Kabuni continues to innovate and set new frameworks in pedagogy for delivery of immersive learning, supported by rigorous research. Co-designed and co-produced with learners, educators, parents, caregivers and world leading education experts, Kabuni provides an evidence-based methodology for children to enter the Metaverse, prioritising the safe, responsible use of emerging technology. We are committed to robust and rigorous research to integrate immersive experiences into the classroom and at home.
Grounded in innovative pedagogical approaches to deliver specific and targeted immersive experiences to elevate key areas of academic and experiential outcomes towards better retention, engagement, speed and health.
We have more questions than answers but it is vital that we don’t memorize our kids into poverty. The challenge is enormous and we must act now to find the answers. We are building our village of partners to unlock the design potential of every child and elevate life, please join us.
