WWhy is Education so resistant to Change/innovation/disruption?
Why is Education so resistant to change/innovation/disruption? So many have tried many different ideas .. why do they always fail and we go back to the old reliable (chalk/marker and blackboard)? ?
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1. The university system is designed to attractis chalk/market and board so bad.....
For me the problem lies in higher education and not so much with th primary education. I won't so that the primary education or even the secondary education is not without problems. The school system has its set of problems but I have noticed that more to do with interpersonal policies and less with the education itself.
It is actually the higher education or the university education that is the problem that needs to be immediately dealt with. Perhaps the rules of triage applies here too. We need to first deal with the most critical problem.
The fact is that university education is multi billion dollar industry that is rotten to its bones. Most of the students never ever work in the field that they study in nor the courses they taught hold relevance to their future profession.
The inertia and this resistance to change emerges from many places. Here are a few of them:
1. The university system is designed to attract with a promise of future. Delivering on the promise of education is secondary
2. The university management is made up of old academicians that are uot of touch of the modern context of education.
3. The scientific community is more worried about accolades than true education
4. While a school teacher stands for his the whole day and teaches class after class, the university professor get one or maybe two lectures a day and teaches for only two or three days a week.
A system that is run my lazy men and women is very difficult to change
You have a good point there..
Every part of education was built
for a purpose, to serve an idea.
Primary gives kids the basic skills they need to begin to relate with the world we've built, sorta like learning our language .. The alphabet, the numbers we use .. etc ..and then they teach em how to manipulate these alphabets and numbers to do different things ..
this gives them the gateway into understanding the rest of our our world. All the stuff we're gonna teach em for the rest of education depends on this foundation (very crucial, doesn't meet disruption)
Secondary school is where we introduce them to more and more ways to manipulate those basic numbers and Alphabets (languages we represent things with here on earth) to do waaaay more than just basic things,
this is advanced manipulation of those representational languages we're teaching them and ways to use them for a ton of functions in the flow of daily life on ze planet.
Then we also want to give general knowledge, about everything, expand their database.. Biology, Physics and all its laws, chemistry, and tons of stuff
(Also crucial, doesn't need much change .. probably some additions but overall its on the right track)
The secondary education teaches the kids what we gave em those foundation languages for, the alphabet and numbers .. it teaches em the advanced manipulation of those languages .. the advanced ways we manipulate them to do the more complex things in our lives.
Like say in primary school you were taught to write, nd then how to write a sentence. In secondary they then build on those two to teach you how to use complex blocks of sentences to achieve an aim for example a letter or a story or a poem or a report.. Its about advanced ways to manipulate those languages (alphabets and numbers) to do many of the things in our lives.
Then it also teaches em about the system theyre in (the planet earth) nd the laws that guide the behavior of the system they're in (physics, chemistry, biology, geography)
And also General knowledge... it aims to stack up a mini library of information up there that you can count on to navigate your world.
(These purposes are also crucial and dont need to be disrupted, they might need additions but not much disruption)
But the University is where there's an issue ..
Its purpose was supposed to be .. preparing kids for choosing what path in life they wanna take .. and this is where there is an issue .. this is where the mess is ..
There's so much more to live for than a Job now, and that was what it was optimised to prepare people for.... . its not that its outdated, its only that it was always limiting, we never realized it because the world was also limited .. until there became so much more to live for than jobs (now its become obvious that our school system isn't optimsed to prepare us for the so much more to live for)
And what our kids are desperately screaming for is that we expand it and let it prepare them for that more
Perhaps simply because it's the most effective way of teaching!
In life, we should always try new things and new methods, teaching included, but we should never implement change for change sake.
If a system ain't broke. It don't need fixing! but never stop trying to stay on a course of continual improvement.
The key point in education is the teacher and how they get across their message to their pupils. The teacher is the key to learning anything in life and all they really need are their mind, personality and voice to get a message across.
Sometimes, simple is best!
Interesting question, thank you :-)
I definitely agree with "if it ain't broke dont fix it" .. and change for change sake is what most of our 'digitization and computers in education' activities look like to most teachers .. :)
I think we innovators always get excited whenever the word 'disruption' is heard .. so we come over thinking letz apply it on education and we're shocked when it doesn't work or doesn't catch on..
.. most of us dont get it, cause we've never taught before and we've never been in a school administrative position before, we can't understand the feel of the territory the way they do
There's always something we're doing wrong that escapes our sights but is so glaringly obvious to teachers and people who are in it everyday..
Sometimes I think if any kind of disruption will happen in education... it will be the teachers and students right there down in the classroom that will do it, they're the only ones with the necessary insights to adjust what they do and react to the feedback instantly. If they like what they create, they keep it.
We should probably just tool em up (equip them) and let em come up with their own ideas themselves