What’s the problem with current education system?

We are so used to the contemporary way of teaching, when in fact the actual education system was developed during 18th century based on ideas of John Amos Comenius, which were quite progressive for his time, but in this education system the child is treated as an object, not a subject of education. 20th century schools inherited main function of 18th century education – creating the unified members of society, socially well-adapted citizens, which are quite simple and convenient to manage. Because industrial society did not need many poets, artists and philosophers – the countries needed farmers, conveyor workers and accountants. Modern society is going through a very important transformation, we are learning to be ecocentric not egocentric, we are learning to respect nature and other living beings, we are learning to re-connected with our true self. By these means, instead of re-educating people after they graduate, we might just help them foster their individuality and creativity during school years.

Usually when something is in a certain way, and it’s the only thing we know; we tend to normalize it, but as the matter of fact that things are made in certain way doesn’t mean they should be like that; Creativity is as important in education as literacy is, and we should treat it with the same status. If we are not prepared to be wrong, we will never come up with anything creative, and by the time we are adults, most of kids have lost this capacity. We stigmatize mistakes. Today education national systems teach that mistakes are the worst thing you can make, and the result is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities (Robinson, 2007). Pablo Picasso used to say that “Every child is an artist. The problem is to remain an artist once they grow up”.

However, unfortunately nowadays no matter where you go in the world, every education on earth is always the same: at the very top you have Mathematics and languages, then humanities and at the bottom you have arts. Intelligence is diverse, intelligence is dynamic, is interactive, intelligence is distinct. Creativity could be defined as having original ideas that have value. Contemporary education systems are shaping children into the same specific pattern, when in fact, there is so much more than just one type of intelligence and while school can make you more academically intelligent, it can teach you mathematics, languages, it is diminishing the children’s creative intelligence. It is teaching them to think in a certain way, to follow a certain path in life. (Zhong, 2015)

We have to rethink the principal fundamentals in which we are educating our children. The problem is, education initiatives are going in the wrong direction, there are 3 principles in which human life flourishes, and they are contradicted by the culture of education in which most teachers have to labor, and students have to endure.

1.- Human being are naturally different and diverse. Education is based on no diversity but conformity. A real education should give equal rights to math, arts, humanities, physical education. Today education system is based on a culture of standardization.

2.- Curiosity, if a child is curious, he/she will learn without any further resistance. Children are natural learners. Curiosity is the engine of achievement. Teaching is a creative profession, Teachers should stimulate, mentor, provoke. Education is a learning process, if there is no learning,
therefore there is no education going on. The work of a teacher is to facilitate learning. And the dominant culture of education system is focusing and testing, and not in teaching and learning. Testing is important, but tests should not be the dominant culture, they should be just a diagnose.

3.- Human life is inherently creative. That’s why human cultures are so diverse and dynamic. We all create our own life depending on all the different possibilities (Robinson, 2013).

• REFERENCES:

– Robinson, Sir Ken [TED Talks]. (2007, January 6th). Do schools kill creativity?. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY

– Robinson, Sir Ken [TED talks]. (2013, May 10th). How to escape education’s Death Valley. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX78iKhInsc&t=152s

– Morris, R., K. (1954). The Blind Spot in Education (Volume 4 – [4]). Retrieved from: https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/wiley/the-blind-spot-in-education-0I00sYIaxi

– Miner, C. [TEDx Talks]. (2019, October 14th). A new way to get every child ready for kindergarten. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtzumV-GwOQ

– Zhong, Eddy [TEDx Talks]. (2015, February 6th). How School Makes Kids Less Intelligent. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Yt6raj-S1M