And So It Goes

I have just read another scathing report of how badly we are fairing in the worlds ranking of Education Systems:

The problem with our education system is not that it is good or bad, it is that it does not, nor has never, worked that well. It was born of necessity when the need to educate the masses was the demand. The industrial revolution had taken hold and the need to create a work force who could read, write and compute was tantamount to the success of the country. The fact that until this point there was no other model which could lead the way, so it was demand which created a system.

Until this point there had been no need to have mass education as most of the population worked as laborers on tasks involving the needs of a feudal system. A general assertion I realise but accurate enough. Suffice to say there was little in the way of mass manufacturing at the turn of the 18th century. The system which educated the masses was created in the model of the factory rather than as a desire to allow any who wished to obtain a well rounded education in the area of interest in which they had a passion.

My grandparents generation finished their formal education at age fourteen and then went on to get a job in a factory. Some were lucky enough to become tradesmen and work an apprenticeship as a carpenter or electrician. The point of all of this is, the education system focussed on repetition of learning in a limited field of subjects so that a young man (typically) would the be able to work on repetitive skills in manufacturing.

Fast forward a couple of centuries and the world has become unrecognizable as far as this model is concerned, however the way in which we teach has remained pretty much the same. We still sit in desks in rows and we learn for the most part by rote. We have become so infatuated by trying to regain the leading foothold we had on the world stage of education that we have substituted results for learning and narrowed the field even more. If you are not a person who can learn by absorbing copious amounts of facts and figures you will surely appear to the system still in place to fit into the lower levels of the education system. Sadly many young people who would show to be just as intelligent (the definition of which is open to discussion) will be marginalized by this method of delivery of the education system.

Now fast forward fourteen years and my daughter just sent me a text to say that she just earned an ‘A’ in Physics. I’m thrilled, I’m a parent of course I’m thrilled, what kind of parent would I be not to be thrilled at a child's triumph? I would be even more thrilled if the same education system also nurtured her people skills that she so openly displays and her desire to make a difference in the world or to have classes in creative thinking and real world problem solving. How about a class in entrepreneurial studies or how to start a green business. All of these things still need all of the other subjects to support them, the difference is that the Maths and English would be attached to a real world reason for learning as apposed to ‘because the education system said so’ That reason is outdated and the youth of today don’t buy it any more. It’s time to revolutionize the education system and invent something exciting and current.

Live passionately, ask why!