Education in a Post Corona World
The History of our System
Let’s recap the history of our education system. Compulsory, public education was an idea that came about during the Enlightenment. It replaced the protocol of children working as laborers. This change was brought about by the growth of the idea that childhood. The history is elaborated upon here:
and in this link. To give a summary of the sources: education was developed upon the assumption that play is not conducive to learning AND that its primary purpose was to develop factory workers. It is shocking that education based on learning multiple facts and memorizing techniques was not meant to promote abstract thinking.
The Failings of the Current System
Education is currently behind the times. Before I get into this, I’d like to clarify one thing: I don’t think the education system is all bad. It has strengths that must not be overlooked when creating a better system. In hopes of showcasing the strengths, we must first increase delve into all the ways our systems are failing.
Schools have not deviated from the idea that education is meant to increase academic knowledge that may one day serve the student (as an employee)in solving a problem. The hope is that by teaching future carpenters, hotel managers, doctors, and programmers about calculus and literature is that they will take away skills such as mathematical and abstract thinking that will help them all in their lives. Basic courses in various academic fields are extremely important to personal growth. However, in a delicious twist of irony, these courses often supersede (and replace)education applicable to the human experience. While general education taught people that THE MITOCHONDRIA ARE THE POWERHOUSE OF THE CELL, it forgot to explain fractional reserve lending, personal financing, and inflation. Topics such as salary negotiation, conflict resolution, and mental wellbeing are generally ignored. Being taught how to think, spotting our biases, and introspection are relegated to TED Talks or self-help. As automation sweeps out a lot of white-collar jobs (doctors, lawyers, financial analysts, and other jobs are already being replaced), capacity for abstract thought will continue to become an increasingly valuable commodity. Solving the most complex issues of any time (climate change, discrimination, and animal/robot rights) requires the capability and willingness to engage in thought and evaluate different perspectives. This is not inculcated by the education system.
“MITOCHONDRIA ARE THE POWERHOUSE OF THE CELL”- Stranger I woke up at 3 AM
The traditional teacher teaching students model has one glaring weakness. It relies on the teacher to educate in a way that is compatible with the students. If the rise of Khan Academy and the comments section of Educational channels on YouTube teach us one thing, this model is failing in many institutions, across cultures. Students, in the same school, can have wildly different experiences with the material they learn because of this.
However, the most egregious error in our current system deserves its own bold heading (hold your breath). It is (cue the drumrolls) …
…The Internet (remember to breathe)
Humanity in a concentrated form
The internet is the collective unconscious that Plato and Jung conceptualized, given form. At it’s best it is the great equalizer, providing information across all socio-economic backgrounds. It allows users to connect with others of the same interests, negating geographical distancing.
Integration with the internet is for the most part ignored by colleges. Despite the rise in online education, schools use lecturers and in-person classes as the primary means of education. This carries the risk of being dependent on the teaching abilities of the lecturers etc. As outlined before, these factors can be hit or miss.
Therefore we must…
Remember the aforementioned existence of the strengths of the current system? Now would be a good time to discuss them.
Strengths of the Current System
They do exist
To design a better system, we need to incorporate the benefits of our current one. These include:
- Standardization and Accreditation: Our current education system standardizes both the kinds of knowledge that people gain (syllabi) and the evaluation of that knowledge (grades). This enables large scale and cross-cultural cooperation. The same certification applies to both a European middle-class child and a farmer in Malaysia, enabling global cooperation. Going to an established institution also allows students to leverage the networks that these institutions develop to get involved in other projects. The name of the institution acts as proof of competence.
- Guidance: The sheer amount of information on the internet is staggering. If someone were left to traverse the internet on their own, they would just stumble aimlessly, not being able to get into topics deep enough for them to be useful (especially if they are high in openness and low in conscientiousness). The education system provides a roadmap that guides people into learning concepts in a logical progression.
- Peer-Learning: One of the biggest selling points of any education institute is the strength of its students. Learning and discussions with peers have been documented as a major source of learning for many students. As Yuval Noah Harrari, award-winning author and professor, stated on Sam Harris’s Podcast, “Most learning happens in between breaks (from classes).”
- Extra-Curricular activities: Educational institutions provide more than just knowledge. They provide experience. They allow students to explore different interests, helping them learn skills such as time management and prioritization while also exposing them to other peers, creating more diverse social circles. In colleges, students also have the opportunity to engage in research with professors and their peers. This allows them to gain real-life experience in their fields.
- Professors and Personalization: As mentioned in the cons, there are a lot of bad lecturers/teachers. They can make fun subjects boring and turn you off a subject that you would otherwise enjoy. I learnt to appreciate literature and history from the various YouTube channels (and books) on these topics far more than I did in class from my teachers. However, on the flip side, meeting the right professor can change your view of a subject. My Probs and Stats professor, Jake, wasn’t the best lecturer. But his willingness to engage me in office hours, and give me questions only tangentially related to what we were doing. Those tangential questions helped me learn a lot of cool things, sharpened my skills, and (most importantly) helped me enjoy the subject more. The current system allows students that are more interested in a subject, to engage their professors and the subject in a way that’s missing with alternative means.
So what do we do
The $ 10 Trillion Question
It’s clear that the education system has its benefits. They must not be ignored while building a better system. But we also want to fix the flaws. In other words, we want to min-max the errors to benefits. To do so, we need to follow the following steps.
- Keep the basic standardization process. Following the same syllabus allows for a degree of uniformity enabling the cooperation that is only going to get more important as time passes.
- Invert the current teacher teaching students paradigm. Let the students learn the base of the concept over the internet, using video lectures, data analysis, and plenty of practice. The teachers help clarify concepts, provide additional practice material, or (as Jake did for me)provide interesting tangents to those interested. Add in plenty of data, so that the teacher knows what weaknesses they have to deal with. Don’t think this might work? Two Words: Khan Academy. Still skeptical? Watch this talk by Sal in 2011, elaborating on their experiment result (or read all that Khan Academy is doing currently).
- Incase any educators believe that they can provide better lectures than the ones available online, they can always upload their lectures online. The internet is the freest free market. If they are better, they will get more views. Either way, the market will decide.
- The other aspects of school ( facilities, extracurricular activities, work, networks, peers, etc) should be maintained and improved upon.
- Mandatory teaching of life skills such as personal finances, rudimentary economics, and basic physical and mental wellbeing. Teaching people how to better spot cognitive biases is non-negotiable. Education based on learning information leaves people more susceptible to pseudo-science and scammers. Take anti-vaxxers, who tend to be more educated and affluent, or the conspiracy theories about 5G. Education needs to change to teach people to think more rationally.
Such a system will allow us to maximize all the benefits of the current system while minimizing the flaws of the system. The video lectures will ensure that people receive high-quality instructions, regardless of their compatibility with a lecturer’s teaching style. The data will assist all parties in understanding the weaknesses they need to tackle. The presence of a lecturer also preserves all the positives of the current system.
Teaching basic life skills will create a more prepared worker. Productivity will shoot up if the employees are healthy, able to resolve conflict in a professional and mature way, and not worried because their paycheck always seems to disappear.
In Conclusion
The idea presented in the article seems revolutionary at first. But many places are already en-route to implementing prototypes of this system. It might generate some friction at first, but all change requires some discomfort. The virus has made in-person classes impossible. This time could be used to implement the basic structure to make this system online. This will allow for testing and ironing out the kinks of the implementations. We are at a crossroads. Will we continue to stick to a framework that has been largely static since the 1960s or will we tweak a proven, scalable, and far more effective model designed in and to benefit the modern world.
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