TOW#529 — Educating the Facebook generation
The most common question I used to get as a university lecturer was: “Will this be on the test?” My response, “No, it won’t”, would be met with: “So, why are we wasting time talking about it then?” I would reply with the words of Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn: “I’m not testing you, Obi-Wan. Life tests you!” It was obvious that students’ intrinsic motivation to learn was non-existent.
Our education system was designed to produce a stream of compliant adults for work within the system of the industrial economy. The idea was simple: go to school — get a diploma — get a job — work until retirement. For more than a century our schools successfully trained people for a lifetime of productive labour.
But, the world changed: digital technologies are rewriting the rules of business; students should expect to switch jobs every 4–5 years; the retirement age is increasing and social security is weakening. The only unchanged segment of society is the education system.
We need an education system that will, instead of providing a clear road map to those students who are ready to follow it, spark curiosity in all students and enable them to take charge of their own lives:
Knowledge: What a person knows
Nowadays, specific knowledge becomes obsolete incredibly fast; 50% of what you learn in a management class will be out-dated within four years. As a result, the world of work is getting increasingly out of sync with the world of education. A university degree is no longer a guarantee of anything. The key skill is the ability to adapt.
Skills: What a person can do
Our education system is compartmentalised — the real world isn’t. To better prepare students for the digital world, we should improve their soft skills: communication skills, information literacy, critical thinking, decision-making, negotiating, and leadership. Teachers should put students face-to-face with real-life challenges, encourage teamwork and collaboration, and integrate technology as a learning tool, not as a replacement for effective teaching.
Values: What a person wants to do
The real issue for every teacher is not what should be covered in class, but what should be discovered. The role of a teacher is not to give obvious answers, but to ask challenging questions and foster students’ imaginations, so that they feel an intrinsic need to learn. As my parents used to say: “You’re not learning for the test. You’re learning for yourself.”
Practical example:
I was a referee for ‘Core Values’ at the FIRST Lego League Montenegro, a competition where primary school kids build and program a Lego Mindstorms robot to complete a task. The competition is not about learning what a capacitor does, but about innovation, problem-solving and team-building. My job was to identify whether teams shared FIRST core values. Having a robot complete the task wasn’t enough — without embracing values, a team couldn’t win. That was an important life lesson for the kids, and something we should all strive to learn.
Wishing you success with the changes to come,
Vladimir Vulić, Montenegro
(external associate)
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