Education shapes the way of formation, delivery
and evolution of information, knowledge and wisdom to a large extent, which
directly influences people’s mind and abilities and even defines the future
development of society. Human beings' development can't be achieved without education, nor will our society.
So is our educational system really effective? To better our world, should we simply spread the current education system to developing countries or should we stop and think about a dramatic reform?
Professor Ken Robinson really brought me a shock when he addressed the talk of "How schools kill creativity". There is an illustrative example of a girl who can't concentrate on classes without moving her body. Her teachers said that she had disabilities in learning and advised her to go to see a doctor. Fortunately, the doctor she met with was an excellent person who totally changed her life, because the doctor managed to see her unlimited talent in dancing and encouraged her to develop it. At last, a superstar in dancing emerged who worked in collaboration with Andrew Lloyd Webber in the famous musical play "Cats".
By analyzing this real story, Robinson threw light upon his belief that "We grow not into creativity, but out of it." Children are born artists but few children survive after being "comprehensively nurtured" by our education.
After watching this video, a thought gradually formed in my mind that in the century of social innovation and entrepreneurship, we must reform our hundreds-of-years-old education system both in contents and ways of presenting.
First, in terms of the contents of education, I think we should provide contents that really cater to students' talent, interest as well as the most urgent social needs in local areas.
For example, the XO laptop for children doesn't force children to learn,but pull and motivate them. A child would see a question appear on the screen asking" what do you want to be?" instead of "what you must learn". In fact,in the slums of Rio De Janeiro, lots of students drop out of schools and start drug business because schools are too boring to attract their attention. So instead of pushing students into our current education system, it would be better to pull the students' intrinsic motivation and provide them with things they exactly want and need.
Apart from this, according to Charles Leadbeater's talk, addressing the most urgent social needs in local areas is also important. As we all know, there are numerous villages in Africa with hundreds thousands of people desperate for food, water and energy. At this point, teaching students there about economic theories may not make sense at all. Instead, the main focus of education there should be helping students to acquire most needed knowledge and abilities about survival.If you have seen the video about an African teenager named William Kamkwamba who built a windmill out of debris to provide electricity to his village, you would find it easier to understand my point.
As a result, spreading the exact British or American education system to other parts of the world especially developing countries may not be effective, because these systems may not be useful in different situations.In conclusion, a personalized and localized education may be the right direction.
Second, ways of presenting. At present, Internet technology has brought so many creative ways of teaching, like Massive Online Open Courses(MOOC), online one-to-one tutor system and Khan Academy, and the "one computer per child" goal of many social enterprises also brings many hopes and inspirations to education development in poor areas. And more excitingly, these technologies also enable us to design and adjust education contents without too much cost. With more accessible, affordable and interactive means of education, combined with personalized and localized contents, our education system in the future may change the world beyond everyone's imagination.
Of course, it's easier to come up with a thought than a successful implementation. This destructive education reform would receive lots of resistance and encounter many difficulties due to limited resources and depressing conditions in poor areas, but that's where social innovation and enterprises arise, right?
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