What is the goal of education anyway?
What is the goal of education anyway?
We know the world is changing. We know the industrial model of education that has been around for about two hundred years no longer makes the grade when it comes to educating children. Education is no longer simply about teaching children to read, write and do ’rithmetic. In this era of massive and rapid changes in environmental, political, cultural, technological, and economic change, the way we educate children has to shift too.
My niece just started Grade One and I was once again struck by how much potential lies ahead. She is like a brand-new sponge, eager to absorb as much new learning and information as she can. Grade Ones arrive so excited and enthusiastic about school. They want to learn. And yet, all too soon, that enthusiasm is squished because their natural inclination to innovate and create is stifled by binary right and wrong answers, red pen crosses, and standardised moulds that they are meant to jam themselves into to be the “this-is-what-a-good-student-looks-like” fit.
Education needs to change. We need an approach to education that encourages innovation if we are going to produce people equipped to solve the new problems that are cropping up all the time. For us to foster children who are creative problem solvers, we need to encourage curiosity, innovation, resilience, agility, and imagination. The traditional education model does none of those things.
Totally changing the education system may seem a bit revolutionary, but the truth is we don’t have to completely disregard the previous way of educating. We just need to change it into a way that takes what did/does work, and adapts it into a new kind of education. An education that can cope with and prepare our youth for the rapidly changing, unpredictably unsettled world that now exists.
Education can no longer be thought of as linear or binary. The world is no longer organised, systematic, or predictable. There are many ways to reach destinations and as such our education system needs to be an open system – open to multiple solutions; open to multiple pathways; open to multiple modes of educating; open to multiples ways of learning; open to multiple types of learners and intelligences.
Students currently make up 20% of the population, but they are 100% of our future. And if we are to save the future, and our planet, then we need goodwill between nations and people because only that is going to save this generation from wars, revolutions, and planetary depletion. Education is the key!
Without the foundation of goodwill and social responsibility as the core of society, we will not be able to solve the world’s problems or save the planet. And honestly, what is more important than that?
In many countries education remains a political agenda, but we need to move away from the politics and face the fact that GOOD education needs to become an elegant engine of change. It really is so simple, and yet we can’t seem to get it right. The nucleus of saving the world lies in educating at individual and community levels. Education needs to be the force that unites people and nations and cultures for a sustainable, peaceful world.
The way we educate and the type of student we churn out of the system needs to be prepared for the likes of Corona Virus pandemics, and other disasters that may rear their ugly heads. The students need to be educated in ways that prepare them for the unpredictable. They need to love learning, they need to be engaged, they need to be emotionally intelligent and resilient, they need to prioritise mental health and understand the value and importance of collaboration.
A child who is only educated academically is an uneducated child. The goal of education then, should be to ensure the survival of our species and the planet, and it needs to do that by nurturing a love for learning, a persistent curiosity, tenacity and resilience, a sense of community and above all that, compassion.
If that isn’t the goal, then what is the point?
