Are schools becoming irrelevant to today’s society?

Are schools becoming irrelevant to today’s society?

Are today’s schools special enough to survive in the 21st century digital landscape? Will they be immune from the transformative forces that are radically shifting every single other information oriented sector of our society, asks leading international educationalist, Dr Scott McLeod.

He put this and many other thought provoking issues to an audience of over 60 Canterbury educators last week as he opened the 2011 CORE Education Breakfast Seminars. McLeod is an American professor and currently a visiting Canterbury Fellow at the University of Canterbury.

“Can we continue to pretend we live in some sort of bubble? Are we not going to have to radically reshape what we do, otherwise schools will disappear, to be replaced by something which is better built for the needs of the today’s era,” he says.

Schools, like so many other sectors which disseminate information are being threatened and challenged by the seemingly innocuous changes in how we use digital technologies and the internet. McLeod believes many occupations are under threat as the average citizen now has the same access to tools and information once used exclusively by professionals. “When was the last time you used a travel agent? Every time you book a flight, a holiday or accommodation online, you partially eliminate somebody’s job”

This example is typical of the many disappearing occupations in certain market sectors – all of which revolve around information. McLeod says every single one is being or has been transformed by the information revolution we are now living in.

“Are our schools so special they will be immune to this? Schools were designed for one thing but are now required to deliver something else.”

Picture the average classroom – the teacher at the front is the focal point, desks are arranged in rows with students working primarily in isolation, and occasionally somebody goes to the front and shows their work at a chalk board (just maybe it’s a smart board!).

“Most of our classrooms look like this and how is it different from a classroom of 1890?” questions McLeod. “Is this educational paradigm still sufficient for the demands of today?”

The employment landscape has changed and schools are educating students for jobs which may not exist yet. Much of what happens in the workforce is based on cognitive, non-routine tasks which requires creative thinking and collaboration. “These are very different skill sets from a lot of what we are teaching. In the United States 80 to 85 per cent of daily work done by students is low-end cognitive work.”

Across the developed world, mid-level jobs which are often low skilled but well paid, are disappearing as software replaces people. This leaves us with low skill, low wage jobs or high skill, high paid jobs. If we squeeze too many of the disappearing middle class into the lower end of the spectrum, we will create lower wages. When they are pushed to the other end and are higher skilled, we lift the nations productivity and earning power.

Great expansion

McLeod says we are living through greatest expansion of human expression in all of history. “We are not tied down to desktops or offices anymore. We can do everything from the devices we carry around in our pockets.”

However the mindset is still one of living in a consumption landscape. “We think and act like the internet is a place we g to pull down information that someone else puts up. But what digital natives get, in their gut, regardless of what age they are, is that it’s a participatory landscape – it’s a social landscape and it’s interactive. It’s a place where you go to do, to make and create.

“Many parents and teachers still think of the web as a consumption landscape and this is a huge barrier which needs to be broken down, he says.

In today’s world, we all have a voice. “For the first time ever in human history, individuals can have the same audience reach previously reserved for major media companies or governments. We can also easily find each other. We live in communities of interest not just communities of geography. And more importantly, we can now easily work together. It is as easy to work with people half way across the globe as across town.”

All of this seems harmless at an individual level, but when you aggregate it all together, it’s actually destroying major segments of society. “In the US, all major newspaper chains are facing bankruptcy, the music industry is facing major changes and many of us would rather watch kittens on You Tube than the major commercial TV channels.”

We have to stop educating our children for jobs and industries that are disappearing, he says. Students need to be entering the workforce empowered to use effective thinking, be problem solvers, work collaboratively, creatively, and be able to be analytical and adaptable.

“It’s a classic line, but we are preparing our students for jobs that don’t yet exist. They need higher thinking skill sets. The most important thing they can have is to be adaptive. But we are teaching them to regurgitate, not adapt.”

McLeod believes the convergence of skill sets across jobs is astounding these days and asks how can we prepare our kids to be adaptive?

He does not believe many schools leaders are looking at the big picture “The long term picture is not being discussed.”

Community transformation

The transformation needs to begin with whole communities. “We need to get the average citizen to wake up. They need to be aware of the stuff we are talking about.” He explains that parents have expectations of schools based on their own experiences and if schools push the use of digital technologies too far without the support of parents, they could find those parents voting with their feet and taking their children to different schools.

“I believe this is a bigger barrier than the resources at hand. It is our community mindset, parents look at what school looked like 20 years ago and project that forward.”

What is the solution? Schools have to become marketers and try to influence the wider community.

“We need to start talking to parents and communities about how the world has changed, how education has changed and what our children are facing when they leave school. To adopt new ways of teaching, we have to move the old ways over. This is a major hurdle for schools who are already dealing with standards, disadvantaged populations, literacy and numeracy levels. “The bottom-line is the remedial work is important, but it doesn’t grow your economy. We have to design education for the employment sectors that will grow us as a whole. Getting control of that conversation is very difficult.” McLeod adds nobody wants to leave the under achievers behind, but we need to look at the big picture and need to teach for growth.

Become a risk taker – he urges all school leaders. “Empower teachers to be risk takers, but manage that.

“The future is already here and the challenge is synchronisation. The people that are in charge of leading schools are often some of the least knowledgeable about 21st century technologies. They aren’t users of the tools and they don’t understand the employment forces out there,” McLeod says.

And if the leaders don’t get it, then it won’t happen. He adds there are many innovative teachers trying to use digital technology in the classroom, but without support from their school leaders they will run smack into a brick wall”.

The challenge for leader is not just managing the process, but giving teachers permission to integrate new learning and teaching concepts around technology. But, of course these very teachers need the skills themselves before they can teach the kids. They need to be using and understanding how the digital world is now our real world.

“It’s very hard to envision what online learning communities look like if you are involved in them ourselves.

“Students can have a lot of voice. They expect to and do have it in other settings and they are active participants and content producers out there in the world. Then they come to school and we expect them to sit quietly. We devoice them.

“Our kids can do amazing things if we turn them loose with appropriate tools, guidance and resources.”

Schools are making incremental change but we are living in a revolutionary world. “Would you have believed someone a decade ago if they had told you we would have what we have now? What does the next decade have in store for us?

In 12 years time, our five-year-olds will be leaving high school - can we predict what their life will be like when they leave?

Again we must ask - are our schools becoming irrelevant in today’s society?

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