To me Yesterday’s schools, especially as we move towards eastern Europe sometimes, dare I say, resemble more to geese fattening farms than that of institutes. Spoon-feeding pupils, praising them for regurgitating ideas, and scolding for deviation – would be something of an abrupt gist of such schools. But is this really just a thing of the past? – Sadly it is not, and it would be wishful thinking to expect so, because in many institutes yesterday’s school is indeed alive and well.
In the late 20th century – and taking into consideration some pioneering thinkers like Jean Piaget and Carl Rogers even in the mid-20th century – a new trend has emerged orienting towards a more ’student centred learning’ policy. As psychology became less of a witchcraft taking its place in the elite disciplines, some notable thinkers began to realize that „without insight into the psychological structure and activities of the individual, the educative process will be haphazard and arbitrary” (Dewey, 1987)
Furthermore, the shift from the behaviouristic approach to the cognitive approach and research gone into cognitive psychology has unveiled certain findings that has not only given the basis of education but rather a shift in its paradigm.
Indeed we have come a long way from John Lock’s ’tabula rasa’ (1690), Rousseau’s ’Emilé’ (1762) and Gall’s Frenology (1810) through Galton’s ’Hereditory Genious’ (1869), Wilhem Wundt’s ’Gestalts’, experimental psychology and making psychology as an independent field of study (1879) to Pavlov’s massive research into classical and operant conditioning (1897) and Alfred Binet’s ’human intelligence theory’ (1910).
Continued by Piaget’s massive research into exploring the development of a child, stating that children developed best in a classroom with interaction. Piaget, being the great pioneer of the ‘constructivist theory’ explains that there are certain schemata (previously conceived ideas) in a child. When acquiring ‘new knowledge’ the child either assimilates to these schemata – that is, integrates ideas, or accommodates – that is, modifies his or her ideas.
Hebb’s ‘optimum level of arousal’, Skinner’s Shaping, Watson and Rayner’s Conditioned emotional response (1920), Wolfgang Kohler’s ‘insight learning’, Deci’s self-determination theory, Martil Seligman’s learnt helplessness, Maier’s ‘two-string problem’ (1931), Bandura’s research on modelling aggression, altruism and gender roles, Raymond Cattell’s fluid vs. crystallized intelligence, Charles Spearman’s G-factor and S-factor, Howard Gardner’s ‘theory of multiple intelligences’ (1983), Daniel Goleman’s ‘emotional intelligence’ (1995), Joy Paul Guilford’s convergent and divergent production and Ellice Paul Torrance’s very recent research on creativity has triggered the need to rethink education in a revolutionary way.
In addition, we not only need to rethink education in terms of its psychological roots and consequences but also in terms of its economic impact and suitability for today’s society. Sir Ken Robinson points out in one of his famous books Creative Schools (2016) that the reason for doing so is that the current education system was conceived in the late 18th century and therefore, not surprisingly, it was designed and structured for that age; the Age of Enlightenment. The problems further cumulates by the very obvious fact that it is no longer sufficient to prepare kids for today’s ’rules’, as it may or may not exists or be relevant by the time they grow up.
We have ended up in a world with a bewildering array of information, choice, opportunities and technical developments changing at an unprecedented rate that we are no longer capable of following and keeping up with. Eddie Obeng, a professor at the School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, would be someone who endeavours to call our attention to this phenomena:
„Somebody or something has changed the rules about how our world works, and it happened at midnight while we were asleep, but it was midnight 15 year ago! You didn’t notice it? Well, basically what has happened is someone has switched all the rules round so that the way of successfully running a business, an organization or even a country has been deleted! There is a completely new set of rules in operation. The real 21st century around us, is not so obvious to us, and we are responding rationally to a world that we understand and recognise but which no longer exists. You don’t believe me, do you? ” (Obeng, 2012)
“…the only possible adjustment which we can give to the child under existing conditions is that which arises through putting him in complete possession of all his powers. With the advent of democracy and modern industrial conditions, it is impossible to foretell definitely just what civilization will be twenty years from now. Hence it is impossible to prepare the child for any precise set of conditions. To prepare him for the future life means to give him command of himself; it means so to train him that he will have the full and ready use of all his capacities.” (Dewey, 1897)
Change has become the new scale. We undoubtedly have to adopt to it, and have to teach students to do so. Therefore, adaptability has become a 21st century skill. The ability of keeping pace with developments, the ability of discarding obsolete knowledge replacing it with the relevant ones instead of cramming it into pupil’s heads. As far as my personal experience goes this would be one of the most difficult challenges teachers encounter. Decades ago they have learn how to teach, they have learnt what to teach and they made a routine practice out of it finding it ever so challenging to get rid of . It has become hardwired in their teaching genes no matter how obsolete their methods are.
In my opinion, tomorrow’s teachers have to be able to re-think their methods, they have to be able to reflect upon themselves and view themselves as part of an on-going, organic process rather than that of a lineal.
Thus, in this sense even the concept of ’literacy’ has to be re-thought. In tomorrow’s world factual knowledge might not count, but the ability of integrated learning might just come handy. This is what the idea of trans disciplinary approach is aiming for: to build on a more holistic view of the different disciplines. Still, this is one of those areas in education that is causing many debates over its efficiency.
Picking up on the ideas of Jean Piaget, I also need to mention the constructivist approach which goes completely against John Locke’s idea of a child being a ‘tabula rasa’. Research has proven that this is not so as there are certain schemata (previously conceived ideas) in a child. When acquiring ‘new knowledge’ the child either assimilates to these schemata – that is, integrates ideas, or accommodates – that is, modifies his or her ideas. According to the constructivist approach, as teachers, we should always build on children’s previous knowledge of the subject, even if it does not resemble reality. Kids always have a previously conceived idea about the world around them and educators should use it as building blocks in facilitating their development.
“The teacher should not interfere with this process of maturation, but act as a guide. Knowledge is constructed by students …. and the lecturer is a facilitator of learning rather than a presenter of information.” (O’Nielle, McMahon, 2005).
Thus, this leads us to one of the main roles of a teacher: the facilitator and the resource.
“The teacher is not in the school to impose certain ideas or to form certain habits in the child, but is there as a member of the community to select the influences which shall affect the child and to assist him in properly responding to these influences.” (Dewy, 1897)
Additionally, student-centred learning gives ‘choice’ to children, by making them decide based on their interests, what they want to learn and gain a deeper understanding. Therefore, an increased responsibility and accountability will be needed on the part of students.
In student-centred learning the teacher lets students work on their own or in groups rather than following the teacher-centred learning of frontal education. This allows students to be actively engaged in the subject-field with their peers, interacting with one-another, explaining their own ideas and teaching one-another, which is not only one of the most productive ways of learning but it is the aim itself, as learning is rather a social engagement and a process than only acquiring knowledge.
(The Learning Pyramid)
“I believe, therefore, that the true centre of correlation of the school subjects is not science, nor literature, nor history, nor geography, but the child's own social activities. (…) I believe that education cannot be unified in the study of science, or so-called nature study, because apart from human activity, nature itself is not a unity (…) I believe that the school is primarily a social institution (…) a process of living and not a preparation for future living. (...) I believe that much of present education fails because it neglects this fundamental principle of the school as a form of community life.” (Dewey, 1897)
However, let me stop here to explain my concerns. In the paper Student-Centred Learning: What does it mean for students and lecturers? – the authors quote a main concern as follows: „many institutions or educators claim to be putting student-centred learning into practice, but in reality they are not” – and basically throughout the paper they are offering a solution for this problem. As for me, being a practicing teacher, I would probably be struggling with the implementation if I have never seen a class conducted in this fashion. Not a single visual guidance is provided. So I embarked on a YouTube surf to find out more how this really takes place in practice. To my greatest surprise, there weren’t many videos demonstrating student-centred classrooms, only sequences, and many many videos describing what it should be like.
I am convinced that if teachers themselves are not shown real-life examples and are not taking part in real-life classroom activities conducted in this manner and are only made to read methodology as such, it would be no different from wanting to learn dancing from a book.
Another 21st century survivor skill would be Divergent thinking as opposed to convergent thinking. Divergent thinking is not the same as creativity, though they are interrelated. Divergent thinking is considered to be a method used to generate creative ideas by coming up with many possible solutions, instead of just seeing one answer.
“Activities which promote divergent thinking include creating lists of questions, setting aside time for thinking and meditation, brainstorming, keeping a journal, creating artwork, and free writing.”
Divergent thinking is what fuels innovation, this is what the economy, the environment, basically humanity so desperately needs for survivor. New, creative ways of solving many many problems in basically any field and in any walks of life, say, climate change, global warming, ozone depletion, overpopulation, deforestation and bio-diversity loss, non-renewable energy resources, vivisection, nuclear-waste, war, China eating meat challenge, litter, acid rain, sea-contamination, animal extinction, fossil fuels and of course we need creative ideas to promote public education.
On the other end of the spectrum, if we take a closer look at what is going on in yesterday’s schools today we would come across “there is one answer and it is at the back, and you can’t look” (Ken Robinson) sort of attitude.
So, how do we go about doing that? How do we churn out a fluency of ideas from our students? How do we get the future generation to actually do this? As for John Dewy he believes
“that interests are the signs and symptoms of growing power. I believe that they represent dawning capacities (…) I believe that these interests are neither to be humoured nor repressed. To repress interest is to substitute the adult for the child, and so to weaken intellectual curiosity and alertness, to suppress initiative, and to deaden interest. To humor the interests is to substitute the transient for the permanent. The interest is always the sign of some power below; the important thing is to discover this power. To humor the interest is to fail to penetrate below the surface and its sure result is to substitute caprice and whim for genuine interest.”
Daniel H. Pink would cast his vote on motivation, throwing away the whole concept of the reward vs. punish doctrine. He found that as long as the task involved used only mechanical skills, the higher the pay the better the performance. However, once the task called for rudimentary cognitive skills a larger reward lead to poorer performance. – How can that possibly be? It goes against economics and defies the laws of behavioural physics. He believes that rewards nail our focus and restrict our possibility.
On the other hand if employers, or teachers, want to see engagement they should let self-direction take place. These studies that Pink presents to us show that people are propelled more by purpose than that of profit arriving to a conclusion that if we start treating people like people and not horses we might as well make the world a better place.
These findings indeed have a massive overlap with the teaching profession, sending us a clear-cut message that we should rethink the current educational paradigm as we have encountered striking anomalies that no longer fit into yesterday’s school.
A Supporting System – The Curriculum
A set of subjects, content, programme of studies, a set of materials, sequence of courses, a set of performance objectives, a course of study, everything that goes on within a school, a series of experiences undergone by learners in school are some of the chunks of definitions that come up when one wants to describe curriculum. There is no one right and clear-cut definition, however there are a few categories that can guide us along the way and form our concept.
We need to think of Curriculum as a Content that emphasises the content to be transmitted, Curriculum as a Product that focuses on the settings of instructional or behavioural objectives, and last but not least, we also need to take into consideration the Curriculum as a Process according to which curriculum is not seen as a physical thing, but rather the interaction of teachers, students and knowledge.
However, this system should be built upon and reflect the needs of tomorrow’s generation, tomorrow’s economics and society. That was the reason why I have put much emphasis on explaining the psychological and economic backgrounds and why it is important to re-think and re-evaluate what we are doing on a regular basis. The curriculum, as it is planned and applied, should support all these values and approaches mentioned above, that is why it is called the Supporting System. Since no matter what good intention teachers approach education as such, and would wish to apply certain methods, if there is no Supporting System available that will reassure them in their work and back them up, the concept and the intention itself will, most definitely, be impossible to implement in the long run.
Resources:
· John Dewey: My Pedagogic Creed by, 1987
· Eddie Obeng: World After Midnight (TED speech)
· Geraldine O’Neill and Tim McMahon: Student Centred Learning: What does it mean for students and lecturers?, 2005
· Daniel H. Pink : Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us
· John Arul Phillips : HQOE 1, FUNDAMENTALS OF CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH IN EDUCATION, 2008
· Sir Ken Robinson : Changing Educational Paradigm, Creative Schools
· Eduard de Bono: Lateral Thinking, 1970