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Rethinking the Curriculum
BY
Sijia Ng
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page
1
by Sijia Ng
“Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught,” Oscar Wilde once famously said.
How many people in today’s Information Age would agree with that statement made in the Industrial Age?
Would you?
A re-evaluation in focus — from the production of physical goods in the Industrial Age to the manipulation of information in today’s Information Age — has enabled global economy to progress, with the public school system mainly responsible for priming the workforce. But it is necessary to question if such an education system, which came into establishment in the 19th century to meet the needs of industrialism, is still relevant in today’s society and beyond.
21st-century educational institutions have done well to incorporate facets of Information and Technology Age into their systems. For instance, virtual educational programs and distance learning make use of the Internet and the World Wide Web to educate today’s generation, through online lectures organised by Harvard Law School amongst many other universities.
At face value, it seems like a wonderful system of preparing workforces required by rapidly changing economies around the world.
Or is it?
Closer investigation uncovers an alarming problem. Set in centuries with different social, economic and political states, the education system in the 21st century is actually not much different from that of the 19th century, with the goal of education in both eras being starkly similar: To churn out armies of worker bees. The 21st century is simply equipped with different vehicles for driving education across to students. It seems inconceivable that such a factory-like system should still be implemented in today’s age.
In the current knowledge-based society, there is a need to produce graduates who are able to transform information into new knowledge. It is a skill that requires creativity; a particular skill strangely left out in many schools and god forbid, should it exist. A vastly different future is almost guaranteed and it is safe to say graduates of today are not equipped with skills for the future, which demands innovating on a daily basis and competing on a global scale.
Take a flip through the employment sections of newspapers and keep count of the number of advertisements from companies looking for people who can ‘think out of the box’ and ‘come up with new ideas’. It is common knowledge that academic inflation exists in recent years where a bachelor’s degree is no longer of significant value. Data provided from the Ministry of Labour in Hungary revealed the unemployment rate of graduates to be around 4 % of the total unemployed population, or more than 15,000 people. To counter the horror of the situation, more graduates set out in pursuit of master’s degrees and beyond in order to secure a job. This should serve as a hint to the radically changing view of academic intelligence. Today’s education system has a handicap in handling the situation as it is a change within the job market that happened in recent years, and which calls for a complete overhaul of the education system.
Companies are no longer looking for workers. They are no longer looking for ‘doers’ but ‘thinkers’; people who can come up with innovative ideas and drive change. Take a look at Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and Steve Jobs, the man behind the wildly successful Apple Inc. Both entrepreneurs have one point in common. No, not that they are multibillionaires, but that they both dropped out of college. It would seem the education system was dissatisfactory to them and they went on to thrive without it. This is not a suggestion for you to rush to hand in the ‘Withdrawal’ form at your respective college now. It is simply food for thought on what drove both of them amongst other entrepreneurs such as David Geffen, founder of Dreamworks SKG (who incidentally also flunked out of college), to such great heights without going through formal education.
The answer lies in creativity. This is a concept that can be loosely translated as having minimal fear of being different and having the courage to try new things. Do keep in mind that a college drop-out + creativity ≠ instant multibillionaire. There are many different ways of becoming a multibillionaire but that warrants another essay altogether.
In order to better prepare the next generation for the demands of the future, it is imperative to reform the current education system. A surefire way is to introduce creativity into the system by encouraging the growth of arts in academics. Sir Ken Robinson, senior adviser to the President of the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles, could not have put the message across louder when he said, “Creativity today is as important in education as literacy.” An established man in the field of leading innovation, he believes in the power of creativity and the importance of harnessing it. Surely, Queen Elizabeth II must have thought the man’s opinions to be worthy before she chose to knight him.
He added, “Children are creative because they are not afraid to make mistakes. They’re born creative, but we educate them out of it with systems that make them afraid of making mistakes.” No doubt, institutions provide learning to eager-minded students but there are people who emerge from the system poorly-educated. Sir Robinson’s comment implies a fault in the current education system where students are consistently marked for mistakes made. In effect, the gamble of risk-taking has inhibited adventurous explorations in new things, creating a culture of fear in the shame of failure. It would seem the current system has produced generations of graduates who seek not to question but to accept in silence.
In order to rectify this problem, it is essential to encourage students to experiment, regardless of mistakes made or not. Thomas Edison, did not believe he failed 10,000 times in his creation of the light bulb − he simply found 10,000 ways that did not work. Students of tomorrow should be trained with this attitude in order to face the future. In this aspect, educators play an important role and a different class of them should be developed to assist this change. Leading futurist Paul Saffo puts it, “The idea that a person stands in front of the room stuffing information into learners like grain into a duck is changing to the idea that teaching is about being a wise companion and adviser.” Indeed, the re-education of teachers is as important as the re-evaluation of the education system.
For those in the dark, China is no longer a country for students with extraordinary memory powers who are able to regurgitate information on cue. Recognizing the need to train students for tomorrow, it rolled out its New Goals reforms, a system of re-educating instructors to tutor students in communication skills rather than fact-absorption. Avant-garde teaching methods have been employed, which would be deemed radical even by Western standards. For instance, students are given the authority to evaluate the quality of classes conducted. Such an approach would be unthinkable in the past especially for a nation such as China. Nonetheless, it is a start and if China, a communist country, is able to implement such a forward-thinking system, it is difficult to imagine why other countries are not following suit.
Different ways of thinking should be inculcated in students to broaden their perspectives. It is a technique that would aid tomorrow’s generation with the necessary skill to view problems from different angles and to recognize there are, in fact, many ways of solving tricky situations. In order to achieve that, it is vital to train young people to think critically about art, culture, life, etc. Subjects related to these issues include literature and philosophy. It is not about teaching students to differentiate a Caravaggio from a Monet but to develop new thought patterns and independent thinking through studies in these fields. It has been proven that early exposure to subjects such as art nurtures inventiveness, develops greater communication skills through better understandings of human experiences and facilitates creative problem-solving. With these in mind, it is a wonder that arts should remain on the bottom in the academic hierarchy through all these years.
Ever applied for a job and had to go through a battery of tests, including personality tests set by the employer? One famous example would be the Myers-Briggs personality test, developed in line with work done by the renowned psychiatrist, Carl Jung. The Myers-Briggs test is just one of the many personality tests used by employers to filter out people deemed unsuitable for the applied job positions. It is accurate, but as with all other things, only to a certain extent. Nonetheless, it does provide a window into the different aspects of your personality.
This would appear to be an exercise in reverse engineering, and a highly unsuccessful attempt at that. Personality tests should have been taken in school, where a person’s character traits and type of intelligence are recognized and encouraged to develop. There is no point in forcing a square peg into a round hole. Individuality should be celebrated instead of viewed with disdain. Walter Lippman, an influential American journalist, perhaps summed it up best in a winning statement, “Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.”
There are indeed institutions that have taken this approach such as The University of Sydney and The University of Liverpool. Nonetheless, there are still ethical issues when it comes to personality tests, such as the invasion of privacy. It is a fine line, which has to be treaded carefully in order to achieve the most ideal results.
Certain academic institutions have in place effective education systems in cultivating creativity in students, such as the Sudbury Valley schools and the Montessori schools.
The Sudbury Valley schools, located in Japan, Denmark and other parts of the world, are non-compulsory academies where students are free to spend their time as desired. In place of traditional classrooms are general purpose rooms where students are unrestrained from seeking out instructors to speak on any topic. By handing trust, responsibility and flexibility to its students, the operative philosophy employed by the Sudbury Valley is freedom.
One could imagine total anarchy in such an institution but the reverse holds true as there are no fixed rules to rebel against. Students are encouraged to think for themselves; in effect, it nurtures creativity.
The famed Montessori method needs no further introduction. By focusing on the needs of pupils and using hands-on approaches, learners are encouraged to develop their observation skills and cultivate their natural curiosity.
Design education should be advocated as a discipline in the general curriculum, especially in the early years of education. To further develop this issue, it is necessary to question what design is exactly about. Being a vast integration of many disciplines, including technology, art, language, science, business, culture, one can easily imagine design to be a broad-based subject. As Paul Rand, a pioneer in graphic design, enthusiastically put it, “Design is everything. Everything!”
Regardless of the many disciplines within design itself, design is essentially about formulating ideas and testing them through well thought-out processes. It is also about accepting failures and successes. It leaps across disciplines and brings about great breakthroughs such as the amazing optical illusional works of art by Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher. Who would have ever thought that mathematical equations could play such a significant role in the creation of his mind-blowing artworks?
Thomas Friedman, the best-selling author of The World Is Flat said it all, ”Kids also must learn to think across disciplines, since that’s where most new breakthroughs are made.”
If design education is implemented in elementary and secondary schools, the innate ability of young students in questioning is further enhanced. Problem solving skills and communication skills (vital aspects taught in design) will be imparted to the students. These are skills that will stand them in good stead, no matter the career paths they choose to pursue in the future.
Design is also about being aware of the larger context of things, for instance, a painting in a room, or a house in a city. The children of today are already global citizens, what more of the children in the future? By being more culturally aware, and possessing a heightened sense of social, economical and political situations through design education, it is safe to say they will evolve to be better beings in the process.
From an Information Age, we are fast moving to a new age. Several predictions have already been made, especially a notable theory by Peter Russell, a British author popular for his role in analysis of the future. He outlines the possibility of development in inner growth to exceed the rapid advancement of the information industry, which will bring about a shift from the current Information Age to a new Consciousness Age. Implications of the Consciousness Age will involve unlimited growth limits and a revalued view of unemployment amongst others.
It is interesting to note his theory as a view of development of the self, something which is not far from creativity. Self-knowledge and creativity are intricately linked to each other, each playing important roles in human and social survival. His theory is but one of many that advocate the need for creativity in society, whether directly or indirectly implied.
With these issues at hand, it is high time we rethink our education system.
SIJIA NG
Junior Assistant Editor of TAXI Design Network
..........................................................................................................
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Read ARTICLES on THE DRIVER SPEAKS
When Knowledge is the Real Luxury
The Evolution of Creativity is Underway
Design in India: The Progress
..........................................................................................................
© 2003 - 2008 by TAXI Design Network. All rights reserved.
“Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught,” Oscar Wilde once famously said.
How many people in today’s Information Age would agree with that statement made in the Industrial Age?
Would you?
A re-evaluation in focus — from the production of physical goods in the Industrial Age to the manipulation of information in today’s Information Age — has enabled global economy to progress, with the public school system mainly responsible for priming the workforce. But it is necessary to question if such an education system, which came into establishment in the 19th century to meet the needs of industrialism, is still relevant in today’s society and beyond.
21st-century educational institutions have done well to incorporate facets of Information and Technology Age into their systems. For instance, virtual educational programs and distance learning make use of the Internet and the World Wide Web to educate today’s generation, through online lectures organised by Harvard Law School amongst many other universities.
At face value, it seems like a wonderful system of preparing workforces required by rapidly changing economies around the world.
Or is it?
Closer investigation uncovers an alarming problem. Set in centuries with different social, economic and political states, the education system in the 21st century is actually not much different from that of the 19th century, with the goal of education in both eras being starkly similar: To churn out armies of worker bees. The 21st century is simply equipped with different vehicles for driving education across to students. It seems inconceivable that such a factory-like system should still be implemented in today’s age.
In the current knowledge-based society, there is a need to produce graduates who are able to transform information into new knowledge. It is a skill that requires creativity; a particular skill strangely left out in many schools and god forbid, should it exist. A vastly different future is almost guaranteed and it is safe to say graduates of today are not equipped with skills for the future, which demands innovating on a daily basis and competing on a global scale.
Take a flip through the employment sections of newspapers and keep count of the number of advertisements from companies looking for people who can ‘think out of the box’ and ‘come up with new ideas’. It is common knowledge that academic inflation exists in recent years where a bachelor’s degree is no longer of significant value. Data provided from the Ministry of Labour in Hungary revealed the unemployment rate of graduates to be around 4 % of the total unemployed population, or more than 15,000 people. To counter the horror of the situation, more graduates set out in pursuit of master’s degrees and beyond in order to secure a job. This should serve as a hint to the radically changing view of academic intelligence. Today’s education system has a handicap in handling the situation as it is a change within the job market that happened in recent years, and which calls for a complete overhaul of the education system.
Companies are no longer looking for workers. They are no longer looking for ‘doers’ but ‘thinkers’; people who can come up with innovative ideas and drive change. Take a look at Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and Steve Jobs, the man behind the wildly successful Apple Inc. Both entrepreneurs have one point in common. No, not that they are multibillionaires, but that they both dropped out of college. It would seem the education system was dissatisfactory to them and they went on to thrive without it. This is not a suggestion for you to rush to hand in the ‘Withdrawal’ form at your respective college now. It is simply food for thought on what drove both of them amongst other entrepreneurs such as David Geffen, founder of Dreamworks SKG (who incidentally also flunked out of college), to such great heights without going through formal education.
The answer lies in creativity. This is a concept that can be loosely translated as having minimal fear of being different and having the courage to try new things. Do keep in mind that a college drop-out + creativity ≠ instant multibillionaire. There are many different ways of becoming a multibillionaire but that warrants another essay altogether.
In order to better prepare the next generation for the demands of the future, it is imperative to reform the current education system. A surefire way is to introduce creativity into the system by encouraging the growth of arts in academics. Sir Ken Robinson, senior adviser to the President of the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles, could not have put the message across louder when he said, “Creativity today is as important in education as literacy.” An established man in the field of leading innovation, he believes in the power of creativity and the importance of harnessing it. Surely, Queen Elizabeth II must have thought the man’s opinions to be worthy before she chose to knight him.
He added, “Children are creative because they are not afraid to make mistakes. They’re born creative, but we educate them out of it with systems that make them afraid of making mistakes.” No doubt, institutions provide learning to eager-minded students but there are people who emerge from the system poorly-educated. Sir Robinson’s comment implies a fault in the current education system where students are consistently marked for mistakes made. In effect, the gamble of risk-taking has inhibited adventurous explorations in new things, creating a culture of fear in the shame of failure. It would seem the current system has produced generations of graduates who seek not to question but to accept in silence.
In order to rectify this problem, it is essential to encourage students to experiment, regardless of mistakes made or not. Thomas Edison, did not believe he failed 10,000 times in his creation of the light bulb − he simply found 10,000 ways that did not work. Students of tomorrow should be trained with this attitude in order to face the future. In this aspect, educators play an important role and a different class of them should be developed to assist this change. Leading futurist Paul Saffo puts it, “The idea that a person stands in front of the room stuffing information into learners like grain into a duck is changing to the idea that teaching is about being a wise companion and adviser.” Indeed, the re-education of teachers is as important as the re-evaluation of the education system.
For those in the dark, China is no longer a country for students with extraordinary memory powers who are able to regurgitate information on cue. Recognizing the need to train students for tomorrow, it rolled out its New Goals reforms, a system of re-educating instructors to tutor students in communication skills rather than fact-absorption. Avant-garde teaching methods have been employed, which would be deemed radical even by Western standards. For instance, students are given the authority to evaluate the quality of classes conducted. Such an approach would be unthinkable in the past especially for a nation such as China. Nonetheless, it is a start and if China, a communist country, is able to implement such a forward-thinking system, it is difficult to imagine why other countries are not following suit.
Different ways of thinking should be inculcated in students to broaden their perspectives. It is a technique that would aid tomorrow’s generation with the necessary skill to view problems from different angles and to recognize there are, in fact, many ways of solving tricky situations. In order to achieve that, it is vital to train young people to think critically about art, culture, life, etc. Subjects related to these issues include literature and philosophy. It is not about teaching students to differentiate a Caravaggio from a Monet but to develop new thought patterns and independent thinking through studies in these fields. It has been proven that early exposure to subjects such as art nurtures inventiveness, develops greater communication skills through better understandings of human experiences and facilitates creative problem-solving. With these in mind, it is a wonder that arts should remain on the bottom in the academic hierarchy through all these years.
Ever applied for a job and had to go through a battery of tests, including personality tests set by the employer? One famous example would be the Myers-Briggs personality test, developed in line with work done by the renowned psychiatrist, Carl Jung. The Myers-Briggs test is just one of the many personality tests used by employers to filter out people deemed unsuitable for the applied job positions. It is accurate, but as with all other things, only to a certain extent. Nonetheless, it does provide a window into the different aspects of your personality.
This would appear to be an exercise in reverse engineering, and a highly unsuccessful attempt at that. Personality tests should have been taken in school, where a person’s character traits and type of intelligence are recognized and encouraged to develop. There is no point in forcing a square peg into a round hole. Individuality should be celebrated instead of viewed with disdain. Walter Lippman, an influential American journalist, perhaps summed it up best in a winning statement, “Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.”
There are indeed institutions that have taken this approach such as The University of Sydney and The University of Liverpool. Nonetheless, there are still ethical issues when it comes to personality tests, such as the invasion of privacy. It is a fine line, which has to be treaded carefully in order to achieve the most ideal results.
Certain academic institutions have in place effective education systems in cultivating creativity in students, such as the Sudbury Valley schools and the Montessori schools.
The Sudbury Valley schools, located in Japan, Denmark and other parts of the world, are non-compulsory academies where students are free to spend their time as desired. In place of traditional classrooms are general purpose rooms where students are unrestrained from seeking out instructors to speak on any topic. By handing trust, responsibility and flexibility to its students, the operative philosophy employed by the Sudbury Valley is freedom.
One could imagine total anarchy in such an institution but the reverse holds true as there are no fixed rules to rebel against. Students are encouraged to think for themselves; in effect, it nurtures creativity.
The famed Montessori method needs no further introduction. By focusing on the needs of pupils and using hands-on approaches, learners are encouraged to develop their observation skills and cultivate their natural curiosity.
Design education should be advocated as a discipline in the general curriculum, especially in the early years of education. To further develop this issue, it is necessary to question what design is exactly about. Being a vast integration of many disciplines, including technology, art, language, science, business, culture, one can easily imagine design to be a broad-based subject. As Paul Rand, a pioneer in graphic design, enthusiastically put it, “Design is everything. Everything!”
Regardless of the many disciplines within design itself, design is essentially about formulating ideas and testing them through well thought-out processes. It is also about accepting failures and successes. It leaps across disciplines and brings about great breakthroughs such as the amazing optical illusional works of art by Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher. Who would have ever thought that mathematical equations could play such a significant role in the creation of his mind-blowing artworks?
Thomas Friedman, the best-selling author of The World Is Flat said it all, ”Kids also must learn to think across disciplines, since that’s where most new breakthroughs are made.”
If design education is implemented in elementary and secondary schools, the innate ability of young students in questioning is further enhanced. Problem solving skills and communication skills (vital aspects taught in design) will be imparted to the students. These are skills that will stand them in good stead, no matter the career paths they choose to pursue in the future.
Design is also about being aware of the larger context of things, for instance, a painting in a room, or a house in a city. The children of today are already global citizens, what more of the children in the future? By being more culturally aware, and possessing a heightened sense of social, economical and political situations through design education, it is safe to say they will evolve to be better beings in the process.
From an Information Age, we are fast moving to a new age. Several predictions have already been made, especially a notable theory by Peter Russell, a British author popular for his role in analysis of the future. He outlines the possibility of development in inner growth to exceed the rapid advancement of the information industry, which will bring about a shift from the current Information Age to a new Consciousness Age. Implications of the Consciousness Age will involve unlimited growth limits and a revalued view of unemployment amongst others.
It is interesting to note his theory as a view of development of the self, something which is not far from creativity. Self-knowledge and creativity are intricately linked to each other, each playing important roles in human and social survival. His theory is but one of many that advocate the need for creativity in society, whether directly or indirectly implied.
With these issues at hand, it is high time we rethink our education system.
SIJIA NG
Junior Assistant Editor of TAXI Design Network
..........................................................................................................
 | Jay Taylor graduated from the University of Central Lancashire, UK in 2005 with a BA(Hons) Illustration degree. In the short space of time following, Jay has worked for a number of high profile clients in advertising, editorial and new media sections. Jay is part of creative collective We're Still Alive, with whom he regularly exhibits work.
Click on his picture to read more about him. | |
| Creative UK Contributor |
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Read ARTICLES on THE DRIVER SPEAKS
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© 2003 - 2008 by TAXI Design Network. All rights reserved.