Modern Education Isnt Modern

[Applause]

modern education isn’t modern

this is what a car looked like 100 years

ago and this is what cars look like

today

this is what fashion looked like 100

years ago and this is what fashion looks

like today

this is one of the first ever computers

and these are what computers look like

today

now take a look at a classroom 100 years

ago

and take a look at a classroom today i

think that makes my point pretty clearly

most conventional educational models

haven’t changed significantly in over a

century

put simply modern education just isn’t

modern

now i think this is well put by stephen

king in a little quote of his

which eloquently underlines the need for

change sooner or rather than later

but in high school the business of

irrevocable choices began

doors slipped shut with a faint locking

click that was only heard clearly in the

dreams of later years

so i’ve broken it down into three main

sub issues

the wrong content is being taught it’s

being taught the wrong way and it’s

being tested the wrong way

now i’d like to quickly note that while

you may disagree with some of my ideas

on this topic i’m fairly hopeful

that at least one of these three pillars

so to speak may resonate with you and

indicate the change the need for change

in our educational systems

now firstly i think the content we’re

being taught is to an extent

not the right content and that’s for

various reasons

firstly there’s a lack of intrinsic

motivation in typical

conventional models to validate my ideas

i went ahead and spoke to

some of my own educators and i tried to

evaluate whether it was a legitimate

problem and to no surprise

they agreed that it was see most

conventional models follow an exam based

system

and because they’re so similar they have

similar detriments however

the finished school system is slightly

different and that they typically try to

spend the early education years

and building motivation and interest in

the subjects themselves

and this produces visible benefits as

can be seen when finnish schools

consistently perform above average in

numerous studies done by the program for

international student assessment or pisa

for short

done over the years they are

consistently performing above

average without exerting enormous

pressure on students or having excessive

exams

their system is known for being

particularly laid back and they give the

students the time

and resources to pursue their own

interests

rather than being overworked another

issue that i feel is often under

addressed is that sometimes the

relevancy of much of what we’re taught

could be questioned

there are some almost universally

applicable subjects that could be taught

but aren’t actually present in virtually

any curriculum

the best possible example of this is the

need for bureaucratic and financial

literacy

financial literacy is everything from

money management to doing taxes

and while not everyone may use history

in their career and others may never use

any of the arts

almost everyone is going to have to

eventually manage their money

and do their taxes this is evidently

lacking in school systems

just very recently this year the

organization for economic cooperation

and development

carried out a survey in partnership with

the previously mentioned program for

international student assessment pisa

where they engaged roughly 117 000 15

year olds across the globe

and found some fairly distressing

results while i won’t go into the

details of the report

i would recommend reading the short

summary if you find some time

funnily enough finland actually ranked

second on average

and that further backs my earlier point

about their more laid-back systems where

they focus on motivation

now personally however i feel the huge

lack of emphasis on soft skills is the

biggest fault in what isn’t being taught

in most conventional educational models

soft skills are a mix of intangible

skills like working well with people

having a good work ethic integrity

adaptability communication

problem solving etc and these soft

skills make you hugely invaluable to

employers

and are key to the success in the labor

market i went ahead and spoke

to the head of an apac outbound sales

team at google

and she told me a little bit about the

process of hiring people

and i quote her we look for the soft

skills

what people can do with their knowledge

makes them much more valuable

than the sheer volume of knowledge that

they actually have

this is best put by jack ma the way we

teach things

the things we teach today are going to

make our kids lose jobs in the next 30

years because all the things we learn

about

remembering knowledge calculations all

these machines can do better

a few years ago ibm actually carried out

a study investigating the most important

leadership qualities

and it was the largest sample of

one-on-one ceo interviews

involving over 1500 corporate heads and

public sector leaders

across 60 nations in 33 industries and

they found that creativity

was the most important leadership

quality amongst a series of other soft

skills

if the ibm study didn’t convince you the

world economic forum

wrote a report titled the future of jobs

back in 2016

where they attempted to evaluate the

most important qualities for employment

and they made their predictions for the

year 2020. in both lists they’re all key

soft skills often neglected in education

systems

the next big issue with our current

education i think is teaching the way

that we’re taught and this isn’t always

the educator’s fault as often

they can be forced to teach like this

due to the conditions of the system

one issue that i think is often

overlooked is the duration of class

marty lobdell a psychology professor

with over 40 years of experience did

a lecture on how long a student can

actually remain focused

and learning and he and he referenced

the study that found that

students can only typically retain new

information when doing an activity like

reading for example

during the first 25 to 30 minutes yet

despite this most schools have classes

that are 45 to 75 minutes long

next there’s the question of habit

formation students are often told to

revise to obtain good grades

practice specific habits to obtain

particular benefits

but this is a terribly inefficient way

of changing students behavior

as is noted by numerous psychologists

david ash the behavioral economist did a

ted talk

where he mentions there’s a fundamental

flaw in the way through which we try to

change people’s behavior

nearly everything and i quote is based

on the premise

that we behave rationally according to

him

everything is based on this premise if

you give me information i will process

that information in my head

and my behavior will change as a result

and he goes on to explain

how this is a false assumption this is

further backed again

by psychologist dan ariely who also did

a ted talk

on how to change people’s behavior and

he mentions giving information to people

is just not a good recipe to change

behavior yet we continue to give

information to students telling them to

revise to get better grades

or to practice a particular habit to

obtain a specific benefit

but that won’t change their behavior

better

research-backed practices should be

further investigated

and then implemented in system

furthermore in this day and age

information on virtually any subject has

become readily available through the

internet

tools like google quizlet and khan

academy have made this process

ever more efficient what this means is

that teachers roles as

educators must adapt accordingly to the

seismic shift and the availability of

information

i would even consider myself a case

study at this point

see i’ve taught myself programming and

i’ve managed to become a proper

front-end developer having worked on

real projects for

real companies in singapore and i

created a website for myself to generate

some credibility for myself which i

designed

using professional software all of which

i learn online

for absolutely no cost it’s not about

programming though because

at this day and age at this point in

time we can learn about virtually any

subject online for virtually no cost

i could spend my time learning more

professional skills like graphic design

and social media management or i could

go deeper into more academic subjects

like machine learning

and neurology the point here is that

there

is a huge availability of information on

the internet

and educators roles need to adapt to

this change and that hasn’t happened yet

i think most crucially and fundamentally

wrong though is that currently

testing is dictating the way that we

teach

the time spent in the classroom learning

exam technique is concerning and

unjustified and i think it should be the

other way around

what makes one successful is what they

can do with their knowledge

not the sheer volume of it and i touched

on this point earlier on

we should be taught how to think for

ourselves not what to think

using our brain as a processor not a

hard disk

moving on i think the way through which

students are tested is one of the most

largest

and recognized flaws in the system

personally i feel that it’s an

incredibly ineffective method

of measuring one’s capacities in most

orthodox exams

it doesn’t accurately reflect a

student’s intellectual capacity

nor their potential productivity in the

labor market it’s also been previously

noted by experts on the topic

that it may play a contributing role in

the disparity of performance between

genders

frederick j kelly was one of the

original inventors of standardized

testing in america

and that was a time when america had a

rapid influx of students and not enough

teachers so they had to pump out

students as fast as their industrial

assembly lines

he later went on to say that these tests

are too crude to be used and should be

abandoned

but it was too late and standardized

testing had been ingrained in western

education

sometimes these tests can be too

prescriptive

if you don’t write the word you don’t

get the mark other times it’s the other

way around and it’s too subjective to

the examiner’s moods and views

particularly in discussion based

subjects where answers are more

arbitrary

another issue is that exams are also

highly time pressured

which doesn’t always accurately reflect

the conditions

in the labor market i took a look at

some of the literature on this topic

and my findings consolidated my ideas

exam stress is toxic

one study took a look at the

particularly exam-centric

approach of the chinese schooling system

and it found that that approach can

stifle a student’s imagination

creativity and sense of self quality is

crucial

for a child’s ultimate success in and

out of the classroom

another study that i found took a look

at the relationship between test anxiety

and performance in set tests and it

found that test anxiety experienced by

students

may adversely affect the ability of

testing to measure the student’s

comprehension of course material

results support the relationship

hypothesized between test anxiety

and performance expectations at the time

of the final exam

these both further serve as testimonies

to my point

exam stress is toxic unfortunately i

believe that in most cases

educational models built around exams

end up in a toxic cycle of learn

test forget repeat looking forward

i think we need to come up with a

solution and implement it now

sadly i do recognize that most of these

issues are in the hands of the systems

themselves and outside of our immediate

reach

but i still think it’s important to

generate more dialogue around the issue

and more awareness perhaps schools

should pay more attention to student

learning types like auditory kinetic and

visual

because one size fits all just doesn’t

work perhaps school should also explore

more student-led learning

because it encourages students to build

their soft skills and it exhibits the

protege effect

which is essentially peer-to-peer

learning and that’s known to be an

incredibly effective method of both

learning and teaching

schools should help students pursue

their passions interests and curiosities

they should as much as possible provide

the means for students to do so

to explore out of their own genuine

interests

students should be inspired to learn and

pursue their dreams and curiosities and

passions rather than

maybe being made to fit into a mold

modern

education just isn’t modern and that

needs to change thank you