How to Educate in the Digital Age?

Thousands of years ago man was living in forests and small settlements. The world had still not progressed enough to have towns and cities. Kids used to be free to play for the whole day. Only for few hours a day they had to assist their parents and elders to find food and other necessities of daily life. Learning was always on the job. The jobs were mostly related to finding food, clothing, safety and shelter. There were no books and no formal schools. This was the age when kids were free.

As society progressed we began to have formal learning and handwritten books. We progressed so much that specialised learning was needed. Slowly some forms of schools and universities began to emerge around the world. Up till 20th century books, schools and universities were the main ways to get specialised knowledge.

Our genes have changed only a little but the environment around our kids has changed dramatically over last few thousand years. Kids still want to play, listen to stories, make things, sing songs and dance around. The environment around them demands them to read and write. Society demands them to sit in formal time tables with preset paths. There is a constant mismatch between our genes and our environment.

Kids need to learn the society’s way. The kids need to walk down the straight path set by the education system. Slowly kids begin to close their mind and start walking the preset path. They start confirming to the school and college so that eventually they can confirm to the company which will give them the job. Then one day the companies like Amazon and Paytm demand them to create their own path.

I was in a conference hosted by Amazon Web Services where the Chief Technical Officer (CTO) said that how can you get people who can think freely when for whole life people are taught to walk on a preset path. Proactive companies want employees who can create their own path but still manage to work in teams.

Books and lectures should be like a vaccine which prepares a person for the whole life with just minimum input. Hands on education should be like staple food which a person needs to eat daily to be healthy.

When you study standards like Common Core State Standards in USA and National Curriculum Framework 2005 in India you get the feel that curriculum is designed with this in mind. Nowhere does the curriculum specify that only books and lectures will be used for teaching. Teachers are free to use various media and materials to teach the kids. If you study the work of Lev Vygotsky, Jean Piaget, Howard Gardner, Seymour Papert, John Dewey and Maria Montessori you feel the same.

Unfortunately somewhere while executing on the ground the education system messes things up. The curriculum is good. Things can always be improved but my research into school curriculum around the world tells me that curriculum is not the reason for the state of affairs in school education. Governments and educators have been proactive and have always tried to give the best they could provide.

Money is also not the biggest problem. Even the government of a developing country like India spends more than USD 50 billion a year on education. Worldwide education (both private and public) spending is more than USD 3.5 trillion dollars. Thus even money is not the reason for poor education. Yes more money is always helpful for improving the infrastructure but had money been the only issue then all the students in good schools would have been been ace students.

I had the good fortune to study in one of India’s best schools. We had a computer club in our school way back in 1992. I had a friend who was very wealthy. He lived in one of the most expensive mansions in New Delhi. Today the price tag of his house is more than USD 25 million. He studied in the same school with me. He had all the luxuries which wealth could provide. He had chauffeur driven Mercedes in those days when most of India did not even have a small economy car. He had educated parents. Yet he did not like studies. Once he got around 150 marks out of 500 marks. I asked him the reason of his poor performance and he told me that he just used to open the book at home to show his mother that he was studying and then used to get lost in his thoughts. Marks were only a symptom of a bigger problem he was facing.

If money could improve education then clearly his example cannot be explained. Yes money is a factor but the root of the problem with education is really something else. The real problem with him was that he was finding education boring. He did not like to study. He was a normal kid who just got bored of books and lectures.

Education is not like the data in a pen drive. Till a student does not absorb learning you cannot teach him or her. Jean Piaget had shown this many decades ago. Many parents and teachers still believe that kid can be educated by sending him or her to a big school or college. What is needed is a way to make kid reach a state of flow while studying.

Kids can reach flow state if we give them autonomy, competence and relatedness. Digital age demands a redesign of education. Education has to be made fun for kids. I will be sharing my thoughts on this topic in next few blog posts.