The education system we all have gone through is the number one reason for the majority of our misfortunes, failures, and related stress. It’s all about change, and if you agree that the style and concept of education needs to be changed to benefit the future generations, there is something each of us needs to do.
We should never leave such matters that affect us and the future of our children entirely in the hands of the government and educational authorities. The attitude should not be what can they do for us”, rather, it should investigate what we can do for ourselves. A community that has joined hands for any project or initiative has always found success in the long run. There’s so much you can do by getting involved with the school and local authorities to bring change into our education system.
I have personally taken the initiative to build such schools in Ghana from the proceeds earned from the sales of my books. The first school is now under construction in Accra, and should be ready to commence operations in 2018.
Besides providing the best available education, the school will have a finer arts facilities to include classes in modern and traditional music, singing, painting, nutrition, health, drama, speech, and dancing. It will also be equipped with studios for visual and performing arts, and have facilities for tennis, basketball, hockey, soccer, and athletics. The primary goal will be to create a new generation of citizens of the Universe in an environment that takes care of their holistic development from childhood, and evolve them into not just ordinary, but extraordinary adults.
Every child has a unique inborn talent, generosity, and love in his heart. True education means to help children discover these virtues in an atmosphere of joy and fun with activities that engage all of their five sense modalities. The focus will be to teach and create a conducive environment that fosters creative thought and action, and to hone their inherent talents to optimize their best potential. For example, if a child is good at singing, besides providing the best available education, the primary focus would be to whet the child’s vocal skills to become a good singer. Likewise, if someone is good in sports, drama, accounting or business, they will be trained and educated to become professionals in those spheres. Imagine, if each of us were an expert in our professions, what could be the quality of services and products available to everyone?
Ken Robinson, in his eye-opening book, *Creative Schools’, highlights the problems faced by our schooling system and suggests adequate changes to make education work in the right manner. He gives an example of a formula that was applied in a school in Atlanta with the lowest academic performance in the district. The most remarkable application the principal and staff made was to make students feel valued, by dealing with each of them according to their needs and interests. They felt it was important to have a good curriculum, but the interest of each student was far more important than that. If football was what the student was passionate about, they weren’t going to give precedence to math or science over the sport, as they wanted the education to be passion driven rather than following what conventional curriculum demands. When they began taking this approach and the students saw that the school valued what they valued, they started giving them back what they valued.
Once they began building relationships by focusing on what the child wanted, and the same child may not have liked English or science, there was no way he would let his teachers down. So the students put an extra effort to do well at purely academic syllabi too as they realized that the school was focusing on making them excel at what they were truly passionate about, be it music, drama, sport and the likes.
This unique approach was completely different from the model of education coming from the state and federal authorities, but it began doing wonders for the school and students. There was a student who failed the sixth grade, but was a good athlete.
The school agreed that athletics was the most important thing in his life. As they encouraged and helped him to become a better athlete, he began to pass every test. Another student whose father had died when she was in the fourth grade, could not pass the sixth grade. The chorus teacher saw a unique talent in her and gave her a solo song to prepare and perform. Once she did that, she showed drastic improvement in her studies, and got all A’s for the rest of the year. The teacher said that you have to see what is important to the child, and all this girl wanted was to sing. When they gave her what she wanted, she began to give them what they wanted. Test scores of the school went up by sixty percent in every group, and the school was named the Georgia Title 1 Distinguished School and the 2011 MetLife Foundation-NASSP Breakthrough School. The principal, Laurie Barron, was named 2013’s MetLife NASSP National Middle Level Principal of the year.
This is what the essence of education was in the ancient times, and this is where we need to return. Teachers have to closely work with their students, see what they want and observe them carefully to discover their unique talents and help them individually. As the path-breaking formula applied in this modern school in USA worked so profoundly, it becomes evident that when a child is helped in his interests, the grades in other subjects are also bound to improve. It’s not as if a student who becomes a professional footballer, athlete or a singer, will not complete schooling with an overall development in other subjects important for his growth and evolvement. Rather, when the school helps the child to become what he wants to be, the performance in other subjects improves exponentially.
Ken explains that the current system of mass education came into being in the 19th century with the dawn of the industrial revolution, and the principles of manufacturing were applied to it. For example, in the manufacturing sector, similar types of items are produced in accordance with preset standards and specifications. The same formula was applied to education to make students compliant to certain standards. While producing goods the value of the relevant raw materials is generally overlooked, and the focus is rather on the products being produced.
This is what happened with our education system. The focus is entirely on curriculum, teaching, and assessment, while the real talents and interests of students, which are the actual raw materials to work with, are overlooked. We should not forget that human beings are not products manufactured in factories and one formula cannot work evenly for everyone, as each individual is different and unique in nature and characteristics. This system of mass education does nothing to help students discover their talents and true capabilities, which ultimately leads to a sense of lack and frustration in their lives, work, and relationships. Frustration in the sense that most people spend their whole life living ‘someone else’s life’, implying that they haven’t ever followed their heart and found their true calling in life. The lives they live and the work they do is what the education system has prescribed to them.
The school authorities, governments, and regulatory agencies don’t realize the damage being inflicted on students through this industrial standardized mass education system. We all have different strengths and weaknesses, different talents and capabilities. Personalization means teachers taking account of these differences in how they teach different students and tailoring their teaching methodology in cognizance with the student’s unique disposition. It also means allowing for flexibility within the curriculum so that in addition to what all students need to learn in common, there are opportunities for them to pursue their individual interests and strengths as well.
You should read this wonderful book by Ken Robinson to realize the transformations that are required at the grassroots level and what each of us can do. I’ll personally take a lot of ideas from his writings and possibly seek his help and guidance, when setting up the system of education in the up-coming school in Ghana. A school that will be known as ‘Healthy Mind International-A school of the future, for the children of today’. This school will have classes beginning from Kindergarten to High School, and 25 percent of the seats will be reserved for children from under-privileged families who will have access to free education.
Due to this modern system of mass education, we have been gradually losing touch with our real self, but the time has now arrived for us to go back to the basics. There’s nothing you can do about the way you were educated, but if you believe you are a child of God or a Creator, then who are you really? For example, a child of a dog is called a pup, but then, it’s his destiny to grow up and become a dog one day. Not the same dog like his father or mother, but a dog in his own right, and nothing can stop that process of nature.
Likewise, if you are a child of God or a Creator, it’s also your destiny to grow up and become a God or a Creator one day.
Not the same God or Creator you may be worshipping and holding in high esteem, but a God or Creator in your own right, and nothing can stop this due process of nature.
