Learning inspired by curiosity and passion

Learning not educating....

Dr. Tassos Anastasiades

IB Principal at Genesis Global School. Genesis Global School, Noida is one of the best Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and International Baccalaureate (IB), schools in India

Education - redefined?

"One thing I realised about the curriculum is I wished it included more life skills, how to change a tyre, how to manage my finances, how to invest, whats a mortgage, things we actually USE and need in life. We need to learn these along on the way!

If only we were educated in school with things that make actually help"

Comment from a teacher who is now leading curriculum in an international school and has worked and lived across the globe.

What is the purpose of schooling?

If learning is about developing learners and empowering them to be able to apply new skills, effectively, leading to personal improvements as well as developing a deeper understanding of things, then what are the essentials of being educated?

If education is about developing a community of learners to learn, then how much emphasis do we place on learning with and from each other?

If learning from birth is inspired by curiosity and is passionately enjoyable then what emphasis do we put on learning as a passion?

Education

The term "education" is traditionally loaded with assumptions of what young people need to know, understand, and be able to do, and we as educators are guided by curriculum models and standards.

There is still a global assumption that students are not likely to learn about these things unless we make them compulsory and insist that they that they are important to them or they will fail. We also place high value that they need these results to get them a good job, it is a measure of a good education, and they need this to go to the best universities.

Being Educated

The term being educated, is evolving. The world is changing more rapidly than ever in history. Our young people are exposed to changing global matters daily - almost everywhere on the globe. They are exposed to a rapid-fire environment where they are empowered to make decisions daily, with the rapidity of technological software, decisions that are effecting their well-being.

If educating is about preparing our learners with the skills to lead themselves in this environment, then consciousness, personal capability, sensitivity, and a cultural understanding then perhaps become more important elements of being educated than the prescribed curriculum...?

The world we live in and the world around us is full of changing global-economic issues and environmental well-being matters. It is going through exponential change - and norms are challenged globally

Curriculum - learning?

If our aim is that the prescribed curriculum models empower our learners, what have we learnt over the last two years as the world emerges from the most data driven pandemic in history is how we view the curriculum offered to our students.

There are challenges in preparing our teachers and learners to navigate against daily real life issue which still include taking away personal freedom, where coexistence in quarantined environments has become part of the global alphabet...

There is still talk in schools of learning loss, even though there is still a global plethora of personal awareness of how humanity is vulnerable and challenges this individual freedom.

How a virus can lead to instantaneous change that effects personal well being, personal economy, what personal education looks like. This is real, here and now with chapter 2 to follow.

As educational leaders it is time for us to evaluate on how we deliver the curriculum to what education for life could really look like .

Our Role as Educators

If our role is to enable young people to engage with the world and to reflect personally on how it impacts them, then the role of personal "thinking" becomes elevated.

As educators we struggle with the practical challenges in the classrooms - perhaps the overused word "differentiation", the recognition that all individuals have unique skills, outlooks and personalities and how to make sure that they all attain... with still no global clarity on what progress looks like - its the mark at the end that matters most.

We all know that learners are different, we all know that they have different abilities, different strengths, different personalities - they all have a different way of understanding things. Our curriculum and assessment model is aimed at producing single outcomes based on a number or a grade by which success is measured. A time to reflect...!?

What is education about?

Perhaps an aim is to "cultivate the minds and the hearts of each person and engage them emotionally, so that they can become the drivers of raising their own achievement.

Human rights statements recognise and reinforce that all individuals are born free, with their own fragile dignity, their own personal rights, and that their concept of personal freedom really matters. And emphatically their own cultural beliefs.

If education is about developing respect for each other then, this becomes an important human value that should perfuse any curriculum model.

If we recognise that in a classroom learners have their own cultural beliefs then the learning environment provides schools with an opportunity to preserve cultural identity and celebrate it providing students with a passionate voice, to promote cultural understanding and as a result personal tolerances .

Classrooms environments become enriched with opportunities through respectful recognitions to celebrate diversity with the underlying ethical aim to promote coexistence and enrichment. The emphasis on celebrating each others cultures, practices, traditions has never been more important as all classrooms become not only more international, but wonderfully more multicultural. This is such an opportunity!

Can skills be transferable and global?

With globally transferable skills, education and the learning environment provides empowerment opportunities for individuals to become economically aware and responsible and more independent with opportunities to make decisions for themselves.

The global environment has changed so profoundly and continues to do so at an ever-quickening pace with decades of previous learning disappearing being rapidly replaced by advancing technologies, the meta-verse..!?

Perhaps this is a time to change the paradigm from teacher domination of talking the curriculum, to passionate learners being provided with the opportunity to achieve the learning objectives, curriculum driven using their own talents and transferable skills - language not being seen as a barrier but a strength?

We Educate....

If learning is empowerment for our youth to navigate this ever-changing economic landscape - then we must connect students with their own personal unique talents and interests so that young people can become intricately involved in real life experiences, and begin to get a better understand of the what we now call "innovative careers", which actually are just the norm - with many of our educators needing to re-learn that the jobs we grew up with just no longer exist - and never will do again!

Self-regulated Learners

If self regulation means that our learners become active, compassionate driven, passionate about working -then empowerment of individuals is about learning from real life experiences. Our students need to be provided opportunities to actively lead, become proactive in their learning and develop a deeply rooted respect for each other with the underlying concept of democracy through providing them with real-life democratic challenges. Thinking skills are truly elevated in any curriculum model.

Curriculum as a Learning Tool that Motivates

The division of curriculum into subjects in many curriculum models suggests that they are not only all separate from each other but also that a hierarchy exists placing a higher value on mathematics, sciences, and lesser so on creativity, arts, languages and real life skills and experiential learning.

We know that the truth is that conceptually mathematics is a combination of types of knowledge, processes, skills, and methods that are transferable to the arts, music, economics, real life matters such as budgeting, arranging flights, bank accounts and day to day living. The division becomes even more problematic if assessment is by subject knowledge and value is based on the core subject examination results that matter most.

It is inspiring to see how many education models have evolved to recognise student success with an increasing value on the journey rather than the result. Still, we have a long way to go.

Learning Paradigm

Learning is fluid. We all know this. All areas of learning merge with the realities of real life, for example a writer uses skills of reasoning, literacy, critical thinking, application of knowledge, a doctor develops an almost innate understanding of their patient based on empathetic skills, a clear understanding of what well-being means, and also the ability to use knowledge in a more personalised way, updating with latest research of what works well for different patients through the availability of lightening speed information at their fingertips.

Curriculum planning and review will be more successful if the adaptation of environments empower learners with the readiness to engage in the economic, cultural, social, and personal challenges, driven by continuous embedment and experiential learning.

The curriculum drivers then become personal curiosity, the freedom to be creative, the recognition that criticism is about evaluation and improvement. Understanding and application of knowledge becomes more meaningful when there is recognition that effective communication comes in many forms and is also about hearing each other.

The learning experiences in every classroom provides all learners with opportunities to collaborate, be compassionate, and understand each other and solve real life problems - learning for what is to come where the stakes are higher.

An impactful curriculum using standards becomes a guide, a compass, driven from the beginning of a student’s learning journey.

Never before in the history of education, do we have the technology available for every learner to collect and celebrate evidence of their own personalized learning experiences.

After all they are the experts when using Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and teaching us all about the Meta-verse!?

Education Is a Passion

It has never been a more exiting time to be in education, as we reframe our leadership of education to a leadership of learning, from a top down curriculum model with a teaching emphasis, to empowering our youngsters with the passion, the self-belief, the self-confidence, and the self esteem to make decisions, create their own well being environments. take actions, through our guidance, challenge, provision of moral compass and our recognition and celebration that each unique learner is in possession of incredible jewels of talent.

Truly - what an opportunity we have to reignite education to become a passion!

Dr Tassos Anastasiades