On the crossroads of schooling
About two weeks ago, I went back to school after a hiatus of 6 months instead of every 8 weeks as it was planned for 2020. INSEAD - the business school of the world, reopened its campuses across the world. Alongside my classmates, we made it back to the Fountainblue campus following the new guidelines and protocols that universities need to follow to be physically activated again. Folks from other cohorts of my class across Singapore and AbuDhabi resumed too, with their own version of country-specific protocols.
I was on campus for 6 days. As always, it was exciting, fun and filled with tremendous learning. This time it was also dramatic - avoid bigger groups, minimize extracurricular activities and of course no hugs! But, most important - new modalities of learning! Always on masks, distanced seating, a mix of in-person + zoom students and professors. Everything added to the new perspective of the way forward.
Nearly the same time, last week, my 4-years-old resumed his school in Madrid after a similar 6 months break. He was equally excited to see his friends in person as I was, despite realizing it will not be everyone yet, conscious that the operating rules are no more the same. Our teachers, administration and staff had been working hard to start the new session and school year what is no more just another cycle.
During these months both of us experienced enough hours of pure-digital education that we were desperately longing for in-person bonhomie. Between the two of us, we are more than 3 decades apart but the way forward for schooling and learning has jumped forward too quickly across ages and categories from kindergarten to universities.
Being fortunate to experience and watch the transition at the same time for both of us, I feel very excited and anxious about how the generations will fork away on the dimension of education and learning.
While the idea of pure-play digital making education more democratic against legacy models of education seems enticing and the threat to shatter the walled gardens is commendable. The dependence on high-quality technology access is a compounding risk to the growing digital divide - a topic for another day.
For my generation, the organic nature of in-person relationships or the lack of it in a digital relationship and thus peer learning or horizontal learning seems unlikely to be filled in by mere digital delivery any time soon. But for the generation in early years of schooling now, digital-first may well be their choice given the new mental wiring they will grow up with.
While my little one starts taking more comfort in his new routine from this week and my classmates continue in-class learning this week with the courses of their choice, I look forward to being on one of our campuses again soon continuing the journey. The future of education and learning has not been this exciting for decades.
For now, Ed-tech seems poised to disrupt boundaries and while digital leaders leapfrog to grab the opportunity, "hybrid" might be the near future over the next few years. Both physical and digital distributors of education will encroach into each other, the former being the case for now. It Will be interesting who moves faster - universities becoming digital learning hubs or digital pioneers establishing in-person opportunities. Globally spread de-centralized universities. In the process, hopefully, learners should benefit in all scenarios.
When I joined the school again for the executive program at the end of 2019 after so many years of online tinkering, I did wish this to be an exciting journey. Exciting it is to compete with my 4-year-old to learn how to learn!