Glass half cool

Introduction

We live in an ever-developing world, where the progress of technology, swift changes in cultural trends, and rapid shifts in social norms cannot help but leave each individual with a feeling of confusion and, in some cases, encroaching ignorance. No matter our chosen field of expertise, or how broad our proverbial horizons seem to be, there will always be a constantly growing mass of unobtainable knowledge looming beyond the edges of our comprehension. This is an unfortunate and unavoidable consequence of the fact that humanity communally builds on all previous knowledge, and, since the advent of the internet, is able to share most of this knowledge with others, virtually instantly. So, why do we, as a society, look at education as a process that traditionally lasts, at the longest, until our late twenties?

To answer this question, we should state the fact, that, due to the ever-evolving nature of knowledge, no one can ever know everything there is to know, even about a singular subject. The majority of future careers have no basis in current education since most of them are yet to be developed. This leads to the conclusion, that there can never be a singular expert in a given field, no matter the time and effort invested in their education and training. And due to the interconnected nature of our modern society, there are ever fewer instances of a single brilliant person causing leaps in our technological, or societal progress. Most contemporary discoveries are attributed to teams of scientists or thinkers, which share their ideas with the world, so that their colleagues, and often even experts from different fields, can take those ideas, perfect them, and bring them into reality.

All of these reasons lead me to believe, that our current schooling system (which relies heavily on memorization, equal curriculums for every student, a “frontal” form of instruction, and which has not seen any major overhaul over the last few hundred years) desperately needs to be redesigned. Since everyone nowadays carries significantly more computing power than NASA had when they put the man on the Moon in their pocket, and we can access any (non-hidden) tidbit of human knowledge virtually in an instant, the skills that we should be developing in our children and adults alike are problem-solving, group work, and at least a basic understanding of how to use these new powerful, world-changing tools.

The evolution of formal education

One of the first issues that I would like to write about is the personalization of education. In many modern studies and pilot programmes, the curriculum is built around every student. Students (and people in general) differ in preferences, strengths and weaknesses, biological traits (like biorhythm), and prior knowledge. Which is why it makes sense that each student progresses at a different pace for each different subject. But building a separate curriculum, monitoring and grading their individual progress, and at the same time maintaining some feeling of cohesion in the class is a daunting task indeed.

Thankfully, due to the use of ICT in education, some of these problems have been solved or at least mitigated to a substantial degree. In the Netherlands for instance, so-called “Steve Jobs schools” have the students deciding for themselves which are the subjects that they would like to work on, and at which time (the students still attend the school for the entire day). Even more, most of their work is done on iPads, which are provided by their school, whereas teachers take on more of a coaching than teaching role.

These types of programmes are in their infancy, and only time will tell if they are more successful than their more traditional counterparts. In my opinion, the inclusion of tablets and free choice alone is a step in the right direction, since no two children have the same goals/ambitions, and they realistically have much more interaction with touchscreens than blackboards in their day-to-day life (if that is a good thing deserves a separate article in itself). Of course, attending such a school will mean that students will have very variable skillsets and levels when they graduate from the programme, which brings on a whole different set of problems, which have not had time to present themselves yet.

This is just one of many different new approaches to education. They vary in how drastic the changes to the traditional system are. There are minor changes to the scheduling on one side, to radical changes to the way we look at the schooling system on the other.

Informal education in the 21st century

So far I have only written about formal education, which usually ends with the student graduating from university (at whichever level they decide to finish their educational path). But the world, technology, sciences, culture and societal norms do not stop changing because someone has acquired a diploma. That is why I am writing about, in my opinion, a more important aspect of education – informal education. I am not trying to downplay the importance of formal education, if done right, it should equip a person with the appropriate skills which one will need in their professional careers in their chosen field. But realistically, since (as mentioned earlier) most jobs of the future do not exist today, we should covet the knowledge obtained outside of schools, during and after our education, a lot more than we currently seem to. So, how does one continue to learn and acquire new skills? One way is to return to formal education, and take up new courses which is shown to have a positive effect on general cognitive abilities later in life. But due to the availability of (often free) online resources, and the widespread of ICT (information and communication technologies), informal learning is easier than ever.

Thanks to the internet, any skill or topic can be learned from the comfort of your home on your own time. The efficacy of such education is heavily dependant on the intrinsic motivation of the individual, but as long as there is a desire for learning, anyone can expand their education, and even get formal recognition (like an actual diploma) for doing so.

But in my opinion, staying curious, subscribing to various internet news sources (podcasts, YouTube channels, subreddits, scientific journals, etc.), and actively seeking out new information, is virtually the only way of staying at least close to the bleeding edge of our respective fields.

Gaber I