The future of education

Debi Broderick, executive head of Dalpark Independent Educational Centre, writes by email:
Simply put, where is education going and are things ever going to revert to traditional learning and teaching, and would that be the best move to make?
Ironically, most people would say yes, let’s just get back to the way things were before Covid.
The stress levels will decrease and education can finally take place.
We would all breathe a sigh of relief!
Well, let’s look at traditional education and appreciate that the methodology and vision of this method were created for the Industrial Revolution, 150 years ago. The purpose was to train children to respond to a bell indicating start and finishing times, uniforms and a system of listening to instructions.
The beauty or curse of the system is uniformity and linear thinking.
We are still developing and nurturing children to understand that subject content and textbooks are the way to learn, adding to that, the content or textbooks
are up to date, factual and relevant.
We are way beyond this era, and education needs to be appropriate for the generation it serves as well as the development of the social needs for that period in time. Hence, education should, in theory, be evolving to the needs of the people during the given era.
Let’s look at education today. Let’s look at the requirements needed to develop a society of adults who can assist in the development of this country.
Let’s look at the needs, people, what is redundant and what the new kid on the block looks like.
It would take a sensible person a few minutes to realise this country is looking for entrepreneurs – creative people who have a vision, desire and energy to create and develop new jobs for those without the same creative ability and passion.
Looking at the future, one must acknowledge that the workspace in many companies has altered.
Working from home, in most situations, is the new reality.
As I could imagine, this does not lend itself to building more infrastructure for offices or shopping.
Online shopping facilities are recreating our shopping experience. We are in the process of evolution on all fronts, and whether we like it or not, it’s happening.
Knowing all this, why are we still demanding a traditional education, which is simply a regurgitation of book knowledge?
Why are we still pursuing the old beast, instead of seeing the writing on the wall, or should I say, on a laptop?
Looking at education in the future, I see a strong need for creative thought, the ability to collaborate effectively and understand and empathise with people.
Further to this, we need to help children use technology wisely.
I expressly say, wisely because this global means of education comes with daggers and thorns.
I don’t have to expand on the negative aspect of social media or any of the platforms available to break down, lie and corrupt children (and adults), as we are all aware of it.
This technology, however, is not going away. Better we understand the beast and teach the correct usage than leaving it to chance.
We have as educators have seen the drastic attempts of the schooling system to expedite learning and teaching online as one of the viable options during lockdown.
The question is: Have we solved the educational problem or exacerbated it?
This is possibly a good question to ask schools who could actually go online, which sadly creates concern as to what has been understood as a 10% connectivity in the country. Shocking!
Be that as it may, we have found that the average older learner or young adult (in general) who are institutionalised into the traditional way of learning and thinking are generally finding online education very difficult to adapt to as they are not able to think independently, without the assistance of teachers. This once again highlights the negativity of traditional education.
Education should be about growth, seeing potential, opportunity and fundamentally being able to use previous knowledge in solving new problems.
Mathematics should be one of the best problem-solving applications; however, it has become one of the biggest thorns in our educational system.
Elon Musk stated it better: “Don’t confuse schooling with education. I didn’t go to Harvard but the people working for me did.”
Let’s look at solutions rather than problems. We, as educationalists, are spending many hours conferring with fellow educationalists both national and international. The trends are most definitely online as either an aid or a necessity.
The emphasis, however, as mentioned previously, is people-orientated. We are and should be in the process of realigning staff and equipping them with the tools and skills needed to teach the millennials in a different format.
Skills such as the ‘flipped’ classroom, which empowers children to explore subject material for themselves via the internet and prepare to teach their peers in the form of a presentation.
Responsibility for one’s education is vital in the senior and FET phases. Collaboration is essential for understanding, explanations and public speaking.
Further to this, it allows for creative thought and open discussion.
Why are we not personalising education for learners when we have the ability in the online platform, differentiation within the classroom is a wonderful tool to assist all learners regardless of the level of their understanding of the subject.
This is particularly important during these catch-up times where children have missed out due to lockdown.
Adaptation has been identified as the single most important skill to develop to thrive in the 21st century.
This adaptation may be changing our educational pedagogies in addition to understanding the challenges of online teaching as a means of assisted education.
It should become a reality in all schools. We need to remember that memorising all learnt work is not as important as understanding the concepts behind
the knowledge.
Children understand Google or use other search engines as a fact-finding tool, and we as teachers need to take advantage of this skill for our own teaching purposes.
Let’s look at the dropout rate of learners and realise that, as a country, we are losing an enormous amount of potential.
What should we, as educators, be doing about that?