This presentation by RSA on the views of Sir Ken Robinson highlights some of the key issues with our education system. Some of the highlights of the presentation are :-
1.) How the current system has led to CHAOS" ?
2.) Analysis of Education and it's relationship with Industrialization and age of enlightenment.
3.) The depiction of pitiable state of modern students.
4.) Thoughts on Divergent thinking and Creativity.
The presentation talks beautifully about the problems of current system but barely touches on the solutions. How can we make the paradigm shift ?
The presentation also doesn't consider the recent developments in education where a lot of these issues have been addressed already. It also neglects a lot of other challenges.
Nevertheless, this really make a very impactful and useful presentation. Let us keep this discussion on and take things beyond ideas and concepts.
(More on Sir Ken Robinson soon)
Thursday, 31 March 2011
Stop Experimenting on Children
Scientists experiment on rats to prove or test their own ideas. Teachers, Politicians, Corporate leaders, so called educationalists and school management do exactly the same if not worse kind of experiment on our children in school.
The hard unaccepted reality is that we don't know much about children, how they learn, how can they truly grow as a complete and good human being ? (Actually, the biggest thing we don't know is how to define a good human being in first place. )
Just do Google or whatever research you want to do on following two topics -
1.) How to grow our children ?
2.) How to sell a product ?
The number of researches, number of people involved and our knowledge for question number 2 would be far far more than that for question number 1.
All the so called "Alternative schools" or "Alternate Education" are also nothing but experiments of different kind.
[caption id="attachment_48" align="aligncenter" width="435" caption="Educational systems experiment on kids just like scientists do on rats"]
[/caption]
A.S. Neil said -let their be freedom and kids were tested on it.
Rudolph Steiner said - let there be more role of other subjects like art, apart from 3 Rs of education and kids were tested.
Maria Montessori - proposed certain other elements and a different type of environment for learning - these Montessori labs are all around the world.
Like this we've have many other educators or so called experts who've recommended a new method of education based on their own experience and perspective and the world followed it WITHOUT ANY CONSENT FROM KIDS.
The only reason these methods became so famous is : our existing system of education is so stupid that anything would just be better than it. I do not doubt the sincerity of these educational thinkers but we need to realize the limitation of individual perspectives and experiences and weigh it against lives of our children.
Of course there are researches available, there are branches of other sciences like psychology and philosophy that deal with children and education but just look at the importance given to it and number of really intelligent people involved in it and it'll appear like one of those most neglected topics.
If we accept that education is one of the most important factor that shapes our reality and creates our future and present - any sane society would invest much more time and energy to really find a way of right education for our children.
We need to stop experimenting on our children and approach the problem of education more scientifically and holistically.
The hard unaccepted reality is that we don't know much about children, how they learn, how can they truly grow as a complete and good human being ? (Actually, the biggest thing we don't know is how to define a good human being in first place. )
Just do Google or whatever research you want to do on following two topics -
1.) How to grow our children ?
2.) How to sell a product ?
The number of researches, number of people involved and our knowledge for question number 2 would be far far more than that for question number 1.
All the so called "Alternative schools" or "Alternate Education" are also nothing but experiments of different kind.
[caption id="attachment_48" align="aligncenter" width="435" caption="Educational systems experiment on kids just like scientists do on rats"]
[/caption]A.S. Neil said -let their be freedom and kids were tested on it.
Rudolph Steiner said - let there be more role of other subjects like art, apart from 3 Rs of education and kids were tested.
Maria Montessori - proposed certain other elements and a different type of environment for learning - these Montessori labs are all around the world.
Like this we've have many other educators or so called experts who've recommended a new method of education based on their own experience and perspective and the world followed it WITHOUT ANY CONSENT FROM KIDS.
The only reason these methods became so famous is : our existing system of education is so stupid that anything would just be better than it. I do not doubt the sincerity of these educational thinkers but we need to realize the limitation of individual perspectives and experiences and weigh it against lives of our children.
Of course there are researches available, there are branches of other sciences like psychology and philosophy that deal with children and education but just look at the importance given to it and number of really intelligent people involved in it and it'll appear like one of those most neglected topics.
If we accept that education is one of the most important factor that shapes our reality and creates our future and present - any sane society would invest much more time and energy to really find a way of right education for our children.
We need to stop experimenting on our children and approach the problem of education more scientifically and holistically.
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