What is the purpose of education and are we on track? #IMMOOC

After overhearing a conversation in the staffroom, I decided to join in with George Couros’ #IMMOOC. I’ve blogged in the past and found it to be a fantastic experience, but somehow I got distracted by other things and fell out of the habit. Not only is the conversation around Innovator’s Mindset and innovation in education right up my alley, I’m looking forward to getting caught up in a community of writers once more. This week, I am challenged to reflect on this topic:

What do you see as the purpose of education?  Why might innovation be crucial in education?

A few years ago ( and many times since) I read a great article by Elena Aguilar: Teacher Collaboration: When belief systems collide. Aguilar explains that often when teachers are struggling to work together, it’s because of a difference in underlying belief systems. I have very strong beliefs about the purpose of education and for at least twenty years I have wondered how we might do things differently. Taking a step back and acknowledging that not everyone makes the same assumptions about the purpose of education has helped me to be more patient when my colleagues aren’t as excited as I am about a new innovation. I think I am also more conscience about seeking out other teachers who might have similar beliefs so that if I am trying to make a change, I will me more likely to be supported, than blocked.

Aguilar describes six belief systems:

• Cognitive process
• Self-actualisation
• Religious orthodoxy
• Technologist
• Academic rationalism
• Social reconstructionism

I can kind of relate to all six beliefs about the purpose of education, but if I’m honest (and I’m about to be),
there are some that I am leaning towards much more than others. I’ve attempted to rank these beliefs systems to reflect my own thinking about the purpose of education:

I really believe that at the heart of it, education is about creating hope by shaping a future that is better than our past. We do this by empowering our students and guiding them to see that they can make a positive difference in our world. I believe that communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking should be the core of what we are teaching. Literacy and numeracy are useful skills that help us survive in society and allow us to make positive changes in our lives and the lives of others.

Coming from my viewpoint, the emphasis from external sources such as the government, media and sometimes parents on “back to basics” really misses the point. I truly believe that there is no correlation between early reading and future success. I think that over emphasising two things – literacy and numeracy – at the expense of everything else is creating stress for students and teachers and robbing our students of the opportunity to enjoy the kind of education they deserve, and the kind of education that will help them become the people they need to be in order to create a positive future for our planet.

Ken Robinson, in his now famous TED talk: Bring on the Learning Revolution, discusses the state of our current education system. He reminds us that the system we have inherited was not designed to encourage creativity (and collaboration), conversely, it was designed to achieve conformity. He suggests that what we need for education is not a small “evolution”, but a “revolution”. I would agree that it is time for a change. It is time to reflect on the purpose of school, consider whether this has evolved since the Industrial Revolution, and get creative about what schools of today that are looking toward the future might look like.

Too often, I feel concerned that the pressure on schools to achieve results in external testing for Literacy and Numeracy ends up as unnecessary pressure on teachers and students. Over the past few years I have witnessed many of my colleagues, experienced and talented teachers, become disillusioned with an education system that is intent on measuring and tracking students continually with a very narrow focus on a particular set of skills. The time to pursue children’s interests, to nurture curiosity and creativity and to provide opportunities for inquiry and discovery, has been stolen and replaced by disconnected teaching and learning of Literacy and Numeracy, and continual testing and measuring. Student-centred and constructivist approaches are replaced with explicit teaching, which is argued to be a more efficient method for teaching Literacy and Numeracy. This may well be true (as the research claims), but Teacher-centric direct teaching is not an effective way of developing the skills our students will need in the future: creativity, communication, collaboration and critical thinking skills.

Even if the pressure is coming from outside, as educators, it is time we stood up and made a case in favour of our students. Our children come to us full of questions and bursting with curiosity, but in a teacher-centred system with an emphasis on developing just “the basics”, this passion for learning is easily extinguished. Sure, there are pockets of innovation, but we need this to be the norm, not the exception. Every child deserves to go to a school where they feel excited about learning, and are allowed to develop the skills they need for the 21st century.

The education system of the past will not serve the students of today and into the future. The time for radical change is way overdue.