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The Globe And Mail
The 21st century will belong to those nations best at adapting, discovering and inventing. In the age of globalization, it's innovate or die.
So what is Canada doing to ensure we produce future generations of bright- minded people who will be the source of the kind of revolutionary ideas that will allow us to remain a player in the global scheme of things?
Not much, as best as I can see.
I don't think the challenge of developing people who think differently, who see the world in a way that allows them to approach problems from non- traditional angles, is even on the minds of politicians and education leaders in this country.
And it should be.
Kieran Egan, a professor in the department of education at Simon Fraser University, believes we can wait no longer to address the issue. And he's convinced the only way we are going to start
And I mean radically.
Mr. Egan has written 15 books on education policy and philosophy and has a new book coming out entitled The Future of Education: Re-imagining the School From the Ground Up. It looks at the
Mr. Egan is not a fan of the K-12 system as it exists today in Canada.
He is certain it is failing far more students than it is helping. He also believes, correctly I think, that the idea of "imagination" in education today is seen as a somewhat frivolous concept disconnected from the hard work of learning.
"Our schools today try and do three things at the same time," Mr. Egan says. "They try to socialize kids, you know, set them on the paths of getting jobs; they do the academic thing, make their minds
"But each is mutually incompatible with the other two so they are constantly undermining each other."
In Mr. Egan's school of the future, giving students the skills to integrate effectively into society - the socializing functions - would be separate from the job of helping a student amass knowledge - the academic functions. In fact, the two functions wouldn't even be taught in the same building.
In the so-called socializing school a student might learn to write résumés, pick up computer skills and be taught the basic requirements for any number of jobs. It would include courses offering the basic math skills you need to survive today. This side of the school operation would be subject to testing and students would advance - or not - based on the results.
The academic side of the school would look completely different from how it does today. It would mainly be a place of discussion and exploration and idea exchanging. It would also be ungraded. There would be much more choice about what a student felt like exploring or learning about, to better jibe with his or her natural interests.
Along these lines, one project that's been developed at Simon Fraser's Imaginative Education Research Group, of which Mr. Egan is a part, is something called Learning in Depth. Each kid coming into Grade 1 at a participating school is assigned a random topic: railways, dust, leaves, the beetle, anything. For the next 12 years students amass knowledge about their assigned topic.
"So each kid by the time they leave school knows as much as anyone on earth about a certain subject," says Mr. Egan. "This would transform a number of things; it would change our children's understanding of the nature of knowledge and it would make schools these places of expertise in a way they aren't now."
While Mr. Egan's notion of not grading academic learning will no doubt be heresy to many, the idea of removing the mental straitjackets we place on students in today's education system has a certain appeal. There has to be a way of teaching kids to pass tests but in a manner that engages them emotionally and imaginatively.
Perhaps the route to produce a generation of Mike Lazaridises, Canadian inventor behind the BlackBerry, doesn't require the dramatic overhaul of our education system that Mr. Egan envisions. But we do need to do something that allows the imagination to thrive in our schools in ways it does not now.
Other countries are well on their way to looking at this issue. We need to start, too.
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| Last Updated May 21, 2008 |
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