What Should Be Required In Schools
Education in the 21st century and beyond needs to be more individualistic, self-directed, and interdisciplinary.
The quote above truly states what the educational system of the 19th and 20th centuries has been designed as, as well as the major reason why most people hate school.
When you Google search “school makes me…” guess what pulls up?
Well, at least someone wants to commit!!! (pun intended!)
In a TIME magazine article I read in October, November, or December it’s been documented according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that 3 million adolescents ages 12 to 17 in the U.S. have had at least one major depressive episode in the past year, and the percentage of U.S. adolescents that has experienced depression has increased from 7.9 percent in 2006 to 12.5 percent in 2015 (That’s an alarming 90 percent increase!). Girls are far more likely to experience depression than boys, with 19.5 percent of girls experiencing it in comparison to 5.8 percent of boys. In addition they state that 6.3 million adolescents ages 13 to 18 have had an anxiety disorder in 2015, which represents 25 percent of the teen population. While girls on average are much more likely to be anxious than boys, 30.1 percent of girls in comparison to 20.3 percent of boys, boys are more likely to be anxious than depressed.
Why are they so anxious and depressed?
The school system as we know it has failed us, that’s why. They are anxious and depressed because they are constantly being expected by parents, teachers, and society to meet impossible expectations and standards, to get the best grades, the best scores, and the best jobs. School isn’t preparing us for what we really need to know. We waste our time learning a lot of subjects that are separated into individual classes that could easily be combined into interdisciplinary classes incorporating all those subjects, leaving less time for many of the subjects we need to know as well as the ones we want to know. I know from personal experience with the societal pressures. There were many classes I felt I needed to take that I didn’t get to take and many I felt I wanted to take that I didn’t get to take. I’ve been there for sure. The reason is that our education hasn’t been updated to fit the current global realities.
If you take automobiles 100 years ago and automobiles now, there’s been a great change and vast improvement. If you take airplanes 100 years ago and airplanes now, same thing. And the same thing with the printing press, shopping, etc. Yet with our education system it is still stuck in the same model as it was 100 years ago!
Traditional schooling has been much more focused on rote learning, memorization of facts, and theoretical understanding of concepts rather than application of hands-on kinesthetic learning. Classrooms were originally designed for centralized control, which relied on learning only taking place in the classroom with the teacher being the sole arbiter of lessons and knowledge. Students sit passively in front of the teacher learning things by rote while teachers are isolated from each other by artificial rectangle boxes and not allowed to go into each others’ classrooms and learn from each other and often repeating the same exact curricula each year with no innovation. Libraries only contain books and not other resources of information. Standardized tests have been the main measure of the quality of education for more than a century.
In short education is stagnant and desperately needs a reboot.
While there have been technology classes in the past where people go into a computer room, or the internet or certain kinds of technologies have been banned from classes, such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones, these notions are completely outdated. The 21st century is going to need to place technology at the center and as the primary medium of education, not as a supplement. We need to learn to use technology in order to function and participate in our educational systems. Schools need to have Wi-Fi and allow the use of the internet in the classrooms. Schools also need to have teachers collaborate and learn from each other and mutually improve their teaching styles, and not just collaborate locally but nationally and globally with the advancements of the internet and social media, constantly improving and updating their craft. Libraries of the 21st century shouldn’t just contain books but they should also contain co-working spaces with digital resources, so that libraries can be a place to read, relax, get advice, access powerful devices, edit videos, music, 3D print, code, and tinker for example. While performance still needs to be measured in students, grading and standardized testing should be completely eliminated.
What subject areas I think should be required in schools in addition to what we’ve already got in the traditional subjects(this isn’t in order of priority, this is just a random number list! Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments!):
- Financial management (earning money, budgeting, balancing a checkbook, savings, investments, retirement, credit and debit, interest rates, taxes, etc.)
- Woodworking, welding, soldering, sewing, cooking, tinkering, art (painting, sculpting, drawing), creative writing, and other hands-on and creative classes
- Entrepreneurship, Self-employment, and Freelancing
- Relationships (conversation, friendships, family, romance, sex/sexuality education, conflict resolution, personal responsibility, self-love and self-care)
- Critical thinking (logic, reasoning, debate, philosophy, self-awareness)
- Website design, programming, graphic design, digital media, how to adapt to the world of technology, and other technology classes
- Sustainable living (how to be environmentally friendly and good to the planet)
- Applying for a job (cover letters, resumes, portfolios, interviews) and in addition to that classes for specific types of jobs people want to do
- Government, law, politics, geography, history, human rights, and civic engagement(because those are always going to be critically important)
- World religions, theology, spirituality, secular humanism (for inter-religious understanding)
- Self-defense
- Foreign languages, linguistics
- Open communication
- Resourcefulness
- Writing classes
- Creative thinking
- Personalized professional development
I also think the the current K-12 education system should be greatly condensed from 12–13 year into only 4 years, which I will go into more detail about in a future article. The 4 year time slot would focus on all the academic learning covered in that 12 to 13 year time span and would be considered general education. Then I would have another 4 year time slot completely devoted to specializing and practical skills and figuring out your purpose in life and giving counseling to students as far as what kind of career they want to pursue based on their passions, skills, interests, and abilities and laser focus on making it crystal clear. Then I would devote another four years to an apprenticeship in your passion career with several mentors who have experience in such a career and would help hone your skills to complete mastery and either get a job or start your own business or freelance in a field that you’re passionate about. I would eliminate the need for grades, standardized tests, and requiring people to go to higher education in order to get a good job (people should only pursue higher education if they want to, not as a rite of passage).
The concept of Finland not having school subjects is something I don’t fully understand yet but it is something I’d like to do much more research on (as in looking at peer-reviewed research, not just news articles) to see how effective it would be in both a Finnish and non-Finnish context. However from what I have heard about the blurring of boundaries between school subjects in Finnish schools it seems like a very plausible idea that could be implemented worldwide. Again though, I’d need to do more research before I come to an educated evaluation. What Finland does now is it is planning to arrange classes not by school subject but by school topic by 2020, which they call “phenomenon” teaching, which involves blending several subjects together in a class. For example, more academic subjects such as a class on the European Union would include economics, history, languages, and geography and more vocational subjects such as cafeteria services would include math, languages, writing skills, and communication skills. Finland also uses its education system to adequately prepare people for a working life. Finland also advocates co-teaching to allow input from more than one subject specialist. Finland is also embracing “playful learning” for younger children in preschool in collaboration with the video game industry.
In conclusion, despite the current trends of teenage and young adult anxiety and depression from the traditional model of education being broken, there are alternatives such as the example of Finland being developed. The maker movement is yet another alternative to the traditional model coming into shape. I have also made my own arguments however eloquently I hope to articulate them concerning the future of education based on my own experience, learning, and opinions, as well as the current trends towards an automated future. Education needs to be self-directed, individualized, and interdisciplinary.
I shall conclude with the old Latin proverb:
Non scholae sed vitae discimus.
(We do not learn for school but for life.)
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