Education is now seating where the newspaper industry was seating 10 years ago. Things are moving. Jump on board or be left behind.
What’s the purpose of schools? I mean what is the goal of this governmental machine?
Well, every machine requires 2 things :
- An income, some raw material.
- An outcome, something that is produced.
During the Empires (British, Roman, etc.), school were built in order to create and form young people to manage the Empires in the various countries and part of the world.
In other words, there were taught the things they needed to know to run the show:
- Good writing skills. Because they needed to be able write letters that anyone could understand and read
- Good grammar. Because it was important not to make mistakes in those letters
- Calculus. Because they needed to be good at it in order to properly manage their daily tasks
Empire are now long gone… but we still teach our kids the same way.
Don’t get me wrong, schools have evolved… a bit.
The point is, we still teach like it was 1920!
We refuse to embrace new technologies. Mainly because they would change the way we teach. They would make us realize that we might have been wrong for the past 10 years.
Let’s go back in time once more. Precisely when the compass or the log table were invented. Did we discard these inventions? Did we refuse to integrate them in our education system? No. We simply decided to integrate them as part of our education system.
We realised how important they were. How they could help us go one step further.
Aren’t we able to realise these kind of things today? (And yes I’m talking about the internet here).
Things are moving, and they are moving fast. We need to recognize that our system needs more that just a few tweaks. It needs more than an amelioration. It needs revolution.
50 years ago we had to go to school because that’s were the information was. Now you can access pretty much anything from anywhere.
Let’s face it: it’s time to get creative.
So, what do we need in schools? What should be taught in classrooms (if they still exists in 10 years)?
Well, to be honest I don’t think I’d be able to create the perfect school program for the new generations. However it seems that a few smart people out there have agreed on a few things and guess what… they are probably right.
1. TEACH THEM TO BE WRONG
The biggest mistake that we are making right now is the psychology behind the school. As Seth Godin puts it: "We are taught since 1st grade to avoid mistakes. The goal is to do 100% on tests”.
We need to teach the kids how to think differently. How to challenge the status quo. Teach them to be curious and teach them to love to learn. Not just to avoid mistakes at all costs.
Let’s start teaching the kids to be wrong. To be creative. Creativity is just accepting to be wrong and that what you are doing might fail.
Plus, we’ve been teaching the past generations on how to fit in. Not to cause to much troubles.
“Fitting in is a short term strategy, Standing out pays off in the long term” - Seth Godin.
2. TEACH THEM TO BE HAPPY
By 2020 depression will be the highest cause of mortality.
We have the power to change this thanks to education. Just like anything else, happiness can be taught. Or at least studied. We can show our kids what it means to be happy, scientifically.
We can show them the psychology behind happiness so they can understand it better, deal with it and improve.
3. TEACH THEM TO BE LEADERS
“The primary function of school is to create workers that society needs. So let’s start doing this.” - Seth Godin.
We don’t need cogs anymore. We need people who think differently. We need workers that find new solutions to problems we have and new solutions to problems we don’t even know about yet.
Schools of tomorrow should stop focusing on knowledge and focus on skills . What kind of skills? Just to name a few: coding, selling, networking and so on. Street smart skills. Skills you can use in the real world to help people, to make money and to lead others.
We have no idea were the world is going and therefore, we need to give our kids a chance to change and create the world they want to live in.
Let’s not allow schools to be a trade off to fall back on just in case that things you are passionate about doesn’t work. Just in case you need a shitty job.
Let’s teach our kids to do what no one has ever done before.