de

del

Eduardo del Buey
Foto: Rodrigo Díaz Guzmán
La Jornada Maya

Martes 19 de junio, 2018

Recently, a friend and former diplomatic colleague, Darren Schemer, told me that he had attended a panel on the world of work where U.S. commentator Van Jones noted that in preindustrial societies time was perceived as circular, and mastery of a fixed body of knowledge was valued, whereas in industrial societies, time was perceived as linear, and planning for the future was valued. Now, he states that in digital societies, the future is perceived as coming at us, and adaptability to rapidly changing circumstances that are beyond our control is valued.

Two centuries ago, Charles Darwin observed that it is not usually the strongest species that survive but those that are the most adaptable to change.

So, what are we doing to prepare our youth for this new world?

Well, although massive, disruptive change is what our youth is facing, we continue to arm them in many cases with 20th century tools to face 21st century challenges. One reason is that since the economic crisis of 2008, governments have run up huge deficits to support the global economy and, in this context, reducing government spending is seen as a panacea to many problems. Yet to prosper in the 21st century economy, people will need access to better education. How else can we overcome the insecurities that many believe arise from globalization, immigration and generally being ill-prepared for a future that they do not understand?

As a result, in countries such as Poland, Hungary, the Philippines and others, people are electing governments that are moving them from liberal democracy towards more illiberal forms of government and, increasingly, protectionism not only in economic terms, but also in cultural, educational, and ethnic terms. Rather than open students to new ways of thinking and looking at the world, they seem to prefer to revert to the simpler times of the past when cultures and societies had little contact beyond their own narrow cultural perspectives and national borders. Something akin to putting the genie back into the bottle – it won’t work.

They are trying to revert to an educational system based on ideology rather than fact. One that avoids teaching the kind of critical thinking essential not only to meet the challenges of the present and the future, but also to produce an electorate capable of opposing increasingly authoritarian or ideological regimes.

Increasingly, we are seeing an educational system that drives students away from important courses of study early on in their career – science and engineering students who lack a strong foundation in the liberal arts, so essential for the development of critical thinking abilities. At the same time, we are seeing liberal arts students completely divorced from the sciences, and from the fact-based thinking that these disciplines encourage. In addition, in this age of instant gratification, voters are seduced by simplistic proposals and promises of immediate results for highly complex issues, with little focus on working and planning for the longer term. Political leaders are capitalizing on this phenomenon to get elected regardless of the longer-term costs for society.

This is true of government as well as society. Legislators are faced with myriad challenges arising from the rapid impact of technological change on society, and the effects of mass, instantaneous, two-way communications, on the polity. Challenges which, in many cases, politicians are ill-equipped to understand and manage. More often than not, political leaders find themselves reacting to developments or phenomena that they don’t understand. Challenges that require the kind of long term planning that is difficult when legislators are looking at four-year election cycles and when a culture of multi-partisanship / nation over party is lacking.

These realities tend to preclude commitment to good policy, which requires a longer-term investment of consultation, time, and continuity, not to mention patience and forbearance - all sorely lacking since the electorate and politicians appear somewhat out of their depth.

Funding is always available. What is required is the political will to work across party lines, make the right budgetary choices, set priorities, invest in the proper training of teachers and in the creative development of curricula designed to meet the needs of the 21st century economy. It requires viewing education as an investment, not a cost.

Our students face the same dilemma. In an era when they have access to instant information, the ability to think critically and meld ideas from different disciplines to achieve good responses to problems through applied synergies is not often taught in our public schools. Nor is the ability to communicate or collaborate effectively, which is critical for surviving and thriving in this century when communications and collaboration are at the core of human and societal development and technology provides the tools with which to do so efficiently. To be effective, however, communications and collaborative skills must be taught and nurtured from an early age and throughout our lifetimes.

We are asking society today to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances using 20th century tools, but with too much information and too little critical thought and wisdom. Our education system is still locked in the 20th century, and these skills, so essential for 21st century realities, must be taught across all academic disciplines.

Critical thinking and communications are at the basis of 21st century society. Technology has created great pressure for instant responses which oftentimes can lead to inappropriate, illogical, ill-advised or incorrect communication. And to communicate well, more than ever, one needs to learn good critical thinking skills and develop an ability to think and communicate quickly, collaboratively and effectively.

I have seen the positive effects of having students from different faculties take courses together and experience the benefits of the resulting synergies. The exchange of ideas and experiences has been enriching, and students come out with a broader knowledge of different sources of ideas than would have been the case had they remained within the confines of their own academic discipline.

Technology can go a long way toward fomenting these skills, but if teachers are not trained and encouraged to learn throughout their careers, and curricula are not designed with these goals in mind, we cannot prepare students for the new economy.

The 21st century requires a revolution of the mentalities.

It requires training and hiring highly competent and creative teachers at all levels – teachers who challenge students to learn and grow, to think critically, to develop their judgment and teach them how to communicate and collaborate effectively to succeed in a world full of information and confusion.

It calls for governments to work closely with the private sector to identify future employment trends and their requirements. At the same time, political parties must commit to multiparty approaches to identify and agree on long term goals for the nation. Finally, it requires close collaboration between government, universities, technical institutes, and the private sector to produce graduates who are equipped to participate successfully in the new economy.

It also requires educational systems in which governments work closely with professionals to design and implement the models required to produce the best thinking citizens possible. Where teachers are trained and evaluated against norms that set out standards that meet the requirements of 21st century realities.

Finally, as noted above, it requires all stakeholders to see education as a critical investment by society in its very future, rather than a cost that can be reduced with little or no consequence. Albert Einstein once said that “education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think”.

And training minds to think must always be at the core of 21st century education.

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