As a trainee teacher, the education system will and is becoming one of the focuses in my life. And something that many don't realise unless you're in the business, so to speak, is all the educational politics of the current education system.
For instance, does our current education support creativity or is it becoming more about processing children based on numbers and grades? Sir Ken Robinson, who is an expert around this are particularly, makes a very interesting stand in this direction.
Some may argue that this school of thought is completely radicalised and the current "Victorian Educational System" that some may refer it to, has worked for many upon many years; so why does it need to change now? And quite frankly, this is a fair, strong point. It has worked for many years and many of the most creative, successful minds of today come from this "Victorian Educational System". But I would question, surely as the newer generation of kids come through our schools with generally different norms, values and skill sets, surely a change in education is a step into the right direction?
We all probably know at least 1 toddler who knows their way around a phone, tablet, the new craze of "phablet" as you will, more than what you and I would've have known at their age. At it's the dawn of the tech age which is forever changing into bigger and greater things. We now have children who have never experienced life without technology. Technology that you can play with, interact with and do next to everything you ever need on it almost instantaneously to the extent where a second too slow is a second too long. This leading to low patience and attention span for our children of today. So does the current Victorian Education System need a modern twist?
For example, look at the work place before the Industrial Revolution. We had factories and mills full of workers who did all of our manual labour. But since the introduction of the new technology that took the form of machinery, the work place had to change in order to adhere to the Industrial Revolution. The work place no longer needed workers with manual skill sets such as weaving as we had machines who could do that for use and several speeds faster. So the work place changed just like how I believe the education system should change.
I personally don't think completely uprooting the education system is necessary as there are a lot of good things about our education system but certain changes with the right intentions can surely only benefit the children as their the main consumers of our education system. We have schools for children which can sometimes be hidden amongst labeling children, grades and target levels which is a debate in itself for another rainy day.
The current education works and they say you shouldn't fix what's not broken. But then how do we improve and make the way we do things better, efficient, and worthwhile?
I'm not expecting an overnight miracle of a change but a gradual one where we have the children's best interest at hearts. After all, they will be the one's running the planet in years to come.
