Picture this: My 12-year-old son, who goes to one of the best schools in the city, drags his feet every morning, dreading another day at school. He finds it boring, claims there’s nothing useful to learn, and doesn’t connect with his teachers. Sounds familiar, right? Well, this issue isn’t just about my son; it reflects the broader problem with today’s education system.
So, what’s going wrong in our schools, and how do we fix it?
First, lets make schools- and by extension, learning- fun! I used to think of my school as Count Dracula’s castle in Transylvania. That hasn't changed much, whether the school is big or small. Can we make it more colorful, more welcoming, more engaging? Bring some character into the otherwise lifeless building?
Can we also do away with the way we approach learning typically? You know, the one where the teachers come and go, lecturing, picking up on students, and the students sleeping with their eyes open? With dull classrooms, noticeboards hanging, everybody in a uniform (at least in my part of the world), the classroom seems more like a prison than a place to learn. Instead, let’s make our classes more open, bring some adventures in, change the way we seat the children, and stop confining them to the walls. These walls are growing in their heads too!
As we do that, tech can help. Learning is not reading through a textbook. Our children today have access to smartphones and tablets, and a host of learning resources. A focus on learning outcomes with students finding their avenues to learn is a fantastic way of creating independent thinkers.
More importantly, our obsession with protecting our children for the first 10–12 years and not letting them mature while they are yearning for it is really taking its toll. We are not preparing our children for their lives ahead! How about encouraging critical thinking, communication, Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) and life skills? Speaking of which, most of our students are handicapped at handling life on their own. Imparting soft and hard skills, like gardening or cooking, can help students learn much more, much faster than textbooks that put them into age-based boxes.
These age-based boxes are one of the biggest impediments of learning. Where in our practical lives, even at our homes, do we have our children choose their interactions solely based on age? In the professional world, two people may be doing the same job, but be years apart. In fact, a person more senior in age may be reporting to another one younger than him. We don't base our interactions in the outside world based on this. Why then do we create learning environments like this?
As we do that, let’s also remember that just as we are unique, our children are also unique. They will all not like the same subjects. Some will like math, others will like art. Some will love to read; others will prefer listening. And they will not all learn at the same pace either. By putting students into groups and expecting them all to learn the same thing at the same time, and then deciding who is a better student based on one test for all, defies the principles of justice, fairness, and equity. Instead, why don't we have self-paced programs with learning checkpoints, giving ample time to students to attain mastery, while enabling them to excel at what they do best.
For that, we need teachers who are better paid, more emotionally intelligent, and love what they do. Teachers who inspire, who bring life into classroom, who have the single agenda of making learning a memorable experience for their children are the ones I am talking about. For this, we will have to make teaching the profession of choice, well respected and well paid. We need to invest in our teachers so they can invest themselves in the learning for our future generations. And when they do, we will see learning becoming much more engaging, fun, and customized.
Educating our children in the ways of the past when the world has evolved into a completely new paradigm isn’t working. If we don’t do something about it very soon, we’ll have future generations with dumbed-down intelligences versus the ones we created artificially. Let’s make learning for our future generations our top priority, together.
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