Changing Times
It is incredible how much the world has changed. I was born in 1984, a year made famous by George Orwell book depicting a world of perpetual war, government surveillance and denialism. When you look at the world in 2020, we come to wonder more and more how something that was written 70 years ago could foreshadow the modern dangers of the world. The Western answer to wealth and succes has often been education. More commonly, reading books and tertiary education. Developing countries, like the one where I was born, and currently live, relied much more on spoken word and stories passed on orally from generation to generation. And often universities and colleges from developing countries don't offer the same options as the top tier Western and Ivy league institutions.
It has been very well documented that basic education tends to kill of creativity. While you will get crafts and drawing at a very early age in the school system, it doesn't count or is not considered of equal importance in the grading system. In a world where numbers rule the world, math has often been viewed as the most important subject in the early education proces. It is also clear why. In @artemislives' post a simple example proves how important basic math is do properly do your job. Not only that, a mismanagement of personal finances is often used as a reason why several households fail.
But times change. And the education system is changing as well. Every day, more practical courses surface on the web. While the school system has tried to provide more job and industry focussed courses, they can't keep up with the speed of which the internet now moves the information. The biggest problem, we can't go back. We can't put a lid on the information and start from scratch. So, in today's age, the education system is falling apart because of many different reasons, one of the biggest ones, trying to centralize knowledge to perserve the position of power. Rethinking the role of education is becoming a bigger topic each day. Which brings us to the discussion this article is based on:
How important is freedom of education?
Freedom - Personal Collection. Model: @ruthconstant.
Are we really free in our educational choices?
When I was a teenager in the 90s, there were only 3 respected options for study for Surinamese students. If you were a successful high school student, you were considered to go study abroad in the fields of Medicine, Law or Economics. Those three fields of study were head and shoulders above the rest and considered the dream of every parent for their child to succeed in life. Every other study and degree outside of Medicine, Law or Economics was on a lower tier and considered less of an achievement.
I personally went a completely different route. After High School, I took a gap year (which at the time didn't even know that such a term existed) and decided to study Leisure Studies at Tilburg University instead of Business Administration at Erasmus University a year later, based on the simple fact that I liked the first year courses listed in the overview of Leisure Studies better. A traditional parent would probably have freaked out, but my parents were totally fine. In the words of my dad, I just needed to study in a Western country to better understand how the world out there works and have a broader perspective on society. And boy, did I get my fair share of culture shocks.
In my life, I've enjoyed an extreme amount of freedom. In High School, I dropped physics just because I didn't want to break my head around the equations and decided that the only field of study that physics was needed for and had any interest in was architecture. So, I took a couple of days to think whether or not I really wanted to become an architect. Once I decided it wasn't on top of my wishlist, physics was dropped without further hesitation. In the end, that was a smart move. I mastered in European Urban Cultures and got to marvel many architectural landmarks, without ever having to worry how to actually built them. I did get upset with my school because I wanted to keep chemistry, but they felt it would create a scheduling conflict. That got me even more upset, because I checked my schedule with all other classes and saw that it was indeed possible, they just had to put me in another class for that particular subject. Something that is completely normal on a college or university level seemed too farfetched in High School. And at the time, as a 15 year old student, I really didn't have any power to push my case.
Similarly, when I wanted to minor in Film and Television Science, I was hit by a system were I decided the battle was too big for the reward. In hindsight, I might have pushed more. The rules of the University of Utrecht were quit simple. First the students of the actual field of study were allowed to enroll, secondly students from that faculty, after that people from the University and only if there were still spots left, they could be filled in by students from other Dutch Universities. There was also no guarantee that if would get in for one or more course, that I would get a spot on the remaining courses the next year. I opted out of taking that risk and minor in Organization Science, which featured a lot knowledge which is of use in my business today.
In the end, I still feel that I got the freedom to do what I wanted. Even if my professors got disappointed by my approach to Academics and choosing a topic for my Masters thesis which I found interesting over a topic that could have landed me a Phd opportunity. In reality, I wasn't a great scholar. I got my Masters degrees, because I could and not because I saw it as the only way to become successful in life. Matter of fact, I hated the politics behind it. And now as a lecturer I understand it even better.
In order to make it easier to grade, but also to make it more transparent, lecturers have to use predefined matrixes and scoring systems to determine whether or not a student has sufficient knowledge of a certain subject. This however unintentionally leads to students who are more aligned with the thinking process of the lecturer to getting higher grades than others who might be more knowledgable or have a better understanding of the subject, but are less aligned. In exact sciences, where the answer can indeed often be predefined, this problem might be a little less of a concern than in newer fields of study or for social sciences.
This problem (of fitting in to the one who has the most control) often leads to issues in work environments as well, as work performance is often measured based on specific tasks which are of value for the person in charge. The solution sounds easy. If you work for a company where the organizational culture is no match, you can leave. Similar to studying on a College/University that doesn't fit your style of how you'd like to be educated. But how often is that variable even considered. We sometimes see parents taking action and changing schools for a child that doesn't fit in, but it's a rarity at best.
The broken system
Like I mentioned earlier. I don't like the politics behind it.
I don't like the fact that non-EU student have to pay higher fees than European students to attend the same University.
I don't like the fact that students in the US end up with massive student debts and student in Finland enroll in University for free.
I don't like that Master students are being pushed to use theories, databases or even hypothesis for their thesis that are directly linked to the professors research
I don't like the fact the most theses end up in a drawer, never to be seen again.
But probably the biggest problem, University systems and Educational systems in general aren't necessarily built for the current fast pace and changing times. Also, Academic research can be scientifically solid but still be completely unpractical. My current line of work did not exist when I started studying. Neither did Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.
Traditionally, the school system helped children to better fit in with society, but as society rapidly changes, the educational system doesn't. And the mismatch is becoming more and more apparent. Being stuck in a 'factory model of education' that is rigid and largely unchanged for much over the past 120 years, just doesn't fit in current age.
The World Economic Forum included 'Emotional Intelligence' and 'Cognitive Flexibility' as two new key 10 skills in society today, but in most countries, teachers have never been taught how to encourage and develop these skills, let alone making it part of the curriculum. Creativity is even considered a top 3 skill, but any creativity based educational performances remain under the fold in elementary and high school and creativity is more often punished than rewarded in Academic assignments.
Freedom?
If there is one thing Covid-19 times have taught us is that distant working and distant learning are indeed very well possible. The problem with home schooling doesn't necessarily lie in the idea that homeschooling is bad. I personally think the largest part of parents don't consider homeschooling due to a lack of time available to actually spend with children at home and to focus on their education. Parents want to send their children to go to school so they have time available to work.
Most parents are so caught up in their own life, they completely trust the educational system to develop their child, because they themselves are unaware of the lack of freedom they had in their educational process. But with recent developments, both in the impact of the internet on job creation and the decentralization of knowledge, they just have to recognize the opportunities of our future generations.
For me, freedom in education means parents understanding that a 'real job' is a social construct created to fit in a system that is partly broken. That teaching your children the value of hard work, patience, self awareness and empathy creates much more opportunity for success than pressuring them into a field of study that is considered to guarantee success.
Real freedom of education is look in the mirror and realize you live in an age where life long learning is possible, information is instantly available and you are free to choose or change your own career.
It is also a social construct that we search for freedom in education in the broken system instead of realizing we now have complete freedom outside of that system to educate ourselves.