(This blog is a guest-submitted post.)
The education system has remained unchecked and un-updated for a pretty long time, and we have just witnessed the consequences of our carelessness. Yet, more is to come and maybe more drastic if we still not act and rather sit thinking everything is fine.
We have always thought that the tech-savvy education model will solve the problems. However, like every other thing, it has also its limitations, and we have already witnessed them during the last few months. But its limitations can be mended, and therefore can be narrowed to a circle of smaller radius. For so, we need to utilize our resources properly, and wisely.
Indeed, technology has opened up endless opportunities and made everything accessible to the touch of a finger. The walls of classrooms are no more a boundary for creativity or collaboration like it used to be a few decades ago. Tech has made everything efficient, and learning is no exception. But still, it takes half an hour for a 7th grader to find the explanation why (a+b)2 = a2+2ab+b2, and the explanation is in a youtube video which is barely any longer than 10 minutes. And we call this modern and efficient education.
Many of us have mistaken that modern education is about learning on our own, but the truth is it has never been anything near to it. A tech savvy model was never about replacing teachers with computers or moving the whole classroom to online.
So if moving classes to the internet or putting a bunch lot of computers in the classroom or distributing pads to 5th graders in the name of digital education is not the education defined with tech then what is it in real? The first answer is the correction of thought. It’s about Education powered and backed by Tech, not any other way around. To make our education system compatible with the modern scenarios and also incorporate tech in it, what we need to do is to update and modify the syllabus for the modern needs, and most importantly how will we be delivering those bits of knowledge.
No parents will feel happy seeing that their kids are returning home with the same easter egg worksheets which they used to have decades ago. Things have changed a lot, and so the education system needs to. Correcting a grammar error in the name of revision isn’t syllabus updating. Putting up speeches of some renowned modern CEOs of modern tech industries doesn’t do any good. Neither putting a subject named on Crucial life skills will do the solving part. Because in the end it will be treated like every other subject has been treated, and eventually be a complete disaster.
Though we have moved the books to the internet, added the computers with internet in the classes, replaced the whiteboard with a 90 inch LCD, and made few so-called changes to the curriculum, things haven’t been any better. Because, it is still the same class with 40 students, all taught by one teacher, with a complete lack of creative thinking, collaboration, and cooperation.
We have to not only work on the pieces of knowledge which we will be delivering but also have to work on how we will be delivering them with perfect efficiency and without making things harder in any way for any student of any background, and most importantly making sure the students are learning.
