THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION…

Some interesting ideas regarding education are given in this video. The most important ones are:

It is necessary to change the educational system and find new methods that arise motivation and leave Bancal Elementary School behind since, as stated in the video, ‘Education is suppressing skills and talents of students as well as their motivation to learn’.

We should give support to new generations in the development of their imagination, since this is the only way to provide them with the necessary resources to solve their social and personal problems.

It is essential to make school more interesting in order to get that students attend classes with enthusiasm and motivation to learn since in this way, we will promote significant learning.

Without downplaying the significance of most valued subjects, it is necessary to encourage and develop others, as for example visual arts or music.  

Teachers should encourage students to study what they really like, since new creative and motivated young people are needed. (Schools have the obligation of motivating students).

We were surprised by the objectives defended in the video, according to which education, from nursery to adult school, should have three objectives as a general rule:

Economic  : Someone who has studied will have a better chance of getting a job. This will help the country economy.

Cultural:  Education is expected to help people.

Personal:  Education is expected to help us to become the best version of ourselves, learning our talents and skills. Education has failed in this regard because many people finish their studies without knowing their skills and talents. They go to school and then they end up thinking that they have no talent at all.

Another key part of the video is when the child speaks. We have reflected on what he says and We have reached the conclusion that we must evaluate students individually to be able to approach them and learn their interests with the objective to use the appropriate methodology. This is a very important factor because many students could get bored and fail at school.

At this point, it is important to mention Neill because we agree with him in many aspects of his teaching and if some of his ideas were applied in schools, these would be more interesting and students would be motivated and eager to learn new things.

Alexander Neill (1833 – 1793) was a Scottish educator who, being dissatisfied with  conventional education in his time, decided to develop an educational theory based on freedom.

This theory was put into practice at Summerhill School, a boarding mixed school founded by Neill in 1927.

Neill starts from a basic premise that we will summarize in a simple way. According to Neill, educational methodology is not more important than the environment where the educational process is developed. Why? Because, for better or worse, we have found out some new areas of knowledge in spite of educational methodologies. However, the education of our emotions, principles and values defining us, is strongly influenced by the environment, but the conventional environment ignores these abstract aspects creating resigned human beings dissatisfied with life.  In short, the psychological and emotional development deserves priority over the intellectual environment.

Under this ‘precept’ Neill developed some principles at Summerhill that strengthened personal performance and the freedom acquisition process. For example, a boarding school student is not bound to attend classes because he/she is not obligated to study. In that case, learning would be useless. However, when people are motivated to learn whether for their interest in the subject or the achievement of a personal goal, they will be able to accomplish whatever they wish to do.

According to Neill’s experience at Summerhill explained in his books, even though many students did not set foot in a classroom for a long time, they finally attended classes and most of them obtained the certificates required by the English Government.

Why did they finally attend classes? Every student reached a point where they were interested in studying or motivated to attend classes. 

At present, there is no doubt that education needs a revolution that brings about a whole change,  motivating students and leaving traditional boring actions behind. In this way, we will be able to get an accurate education of the 21^st century students who will have nothing to do with those of the previous century. 

The educational system is undergoing a series of innovations that will take the current system to pieces. Therefore, as future teachers, we must be prepared to guide and support our students in the use of new technologies.

The idea laid out in this network program, is the same as the one analyzed in the previous video. It is about children with a wrong diagnosis of attention deficit disorder. They may not be paying attention in class just because they are getting bored.  Therefore, we should find something that they really like.

The problem is not that students cannot pay attention. People are wrong when they blame children for not keeping attention for very long. The reason is that students decide not to pay attention.

If we choose a group of students who don’t usually pay attention in class and we invite them to see a 3-hour film that they like, they will be attentive to the very end. The same thing would happen with a videogame or any other thing that is attractive for them. However, they cannot easily pay attention when learning the old-fashioned way.

Children can spend hours on end with things they like, so we should change the current educational method and motivate students getting them eager to learn by making school interesting.