Traditional Education Does Not Meet Our Needs

Zhao, Y. “The Wrong Bet: Why Common Curriculum & Standards Won’t Help, World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Learners. Pp. 23 – 45

The traditional educational paradigm appears to be outdated for several reasons. The first on in my opinion is that the world is not the same and things now change faster and can be communicated faster that what we have ever seen before. The amount of information people can access in seconds is huge and therefore we, the teachers, are no longer the sources of information, but rather the moderator and enabler on how to use that information and how to access it. Education these days does not need memorization since we can easily access it on line in no time. This paradigm has also been outdated since we no longer need people that know how to do the same things, we need people who know the skills to do different things and communicate in a global way, hence they need to be prepared to be citizens of the world and not only limited to their own culture. Traditional education seems very limited when thinking of the skills that our children will need in the future.

These limitations have affected our own opportunities because some children in different countries, especially developing countries, will not be able to learn these skills and will fall behind in the race for the future. They will lack the skills to be successful in this world. However, luckily not every school in these developing countries has to be limited. Teachers often compensate for these deficiencies in the educational system by adapting new techniques they share with other teachers around the world. We have then been able to create and accommodate a second curriculum aligned to the core one to supplement the needs of our children. I am very fortunate to work in a school that tries to implement these new ideas and that works toward helping our students acquire all those skills. In my classroom we constantly integrate not only technology but the knowledge that the children have from their trips to different countries, and we have been able to share this with other people as well. Technology has been an essential tool in allowing me to create an interesting and challenging environment for my students to develop these skills.