Opinion
Evolution of Learning Environments – How Educationists would build Indian School of Future Part 11
Read on for amazing insights into the vision of building the school of the future…
Ep. 1 | Ep. 2 | Ep. 3 | Ep. 4 | Ep. 5 | Ep. 6 | Ep. 7 | Ep. 8 | Ep. 9 | Ep. 10 | Ep. 11 | Ep. 12 | Ep. 13 | Ep. 14
We were keen to feature views of School Leaders and Educators on 'The Evolution of Learning Environments: Building the Indian School of the Future'. The excitement was palpable. Educationists across the country were preparing to gather at the ScooNews EdBrainstorm with Professor Sugata Mitra on April 2 in Mumbai. In preparation for this exercise to discuss the building the Indian School of the Future, ScooNews invited key delegates at the EdBrainstorm to share their vision on the Evolution of Learning Environments. The result was a smorgasbord of ideas and beliefs, a melange of thoughts and concepts, lively agreements and livelier arguments!
The complete story featured in our April 2018 issue, we are reproducing this online as a series of articles to make it comfortable and easier for our online readers, read the 11th episode for some more amazing insights into the vision of building the school of the future…
We are entering a zone of anywhere, anytime, any subject learning
There is an imperceptible transformation that is taking shape in the space of school education in India. The purpose and objective of teaching is acquiring inclusion, the methodology of transaction in the classroom and beyond is harnessed to technology, the sage on the stage is gradually gaining the identity of a facilitator, teachers are vastly being perceived as harbinger of emotional wellbeing, deficiency in the ability to learn in any child is no longer a social stigma and there are scientific ways to obviate the challenge, classroom is no longer the sole place to learn.
We are entering a zone of anywhere learning, anytime learning, any subject learning from multiple sources. This presents a new opportunity for the parents, students, teachers, school management and policy framers to design a dynamic, pupil-centric, forward-looking liberal education that should have the potential to train the students and prepare them for a hugely uncertain future. Teachers and parents must orient themselves to the fact that sports or participation in a school play or service projects – all are effective teaching tools.
It looks increasingly difficult to sail on a particular discipline and convert it into a career. Domain specialization is gradually losing its relevance to the acquisition of a certain set of key skills – dynamic in nature to withstand the quick transition. We need to have an education system that produces students who are critical and reflective, open to a lifetime of learning and relearning, who are comfortable with change, have empathy and a global outlook. Skills like communication, negotiation, entrepreneurship, decision making and accompanying values like equity, tolerance, empathy, social responsibility are the now longitudes and latitudes of education. The contours of the school curriculum, the yardstick of measuring success, the accessibility of college education, the role of guidance and counselling, partnership with the parent community hold the key to navigate into the future. Education has to be the foundation to liberate opportunity.
Artificial intelligence has been a gift to the learning process. Without getting overboard with technology, we should adopt a path of moderation and optimization; considering the teacher as the key driver of this change and not as “Her Superfluous Highness in the Classroom”. Schools of the future are likely to face staggering challenges arising out of emotional alignment with the time than academic ones and must prepare to handle with sensitiveness to ensure the highest standard of safety on the school compound. Happiness as an educational experience is going to determine the success and failure of an institution in the days ahead. This challenge has an exciting prospect as the teachers who need to be trained as mentors, parents will have to be reoriented as receptors and partners and each student as a unique individual possessed with a great potential to be a change agent.
Some of the key skills and attributes of the future that we now deem relevant and essential are not necessarily the ones that we directly measure in our current major assessments. Alternative assessment techniques which test what students can and cannot do, in contrast to what they know or do not know is what needs to be incorporated into the system. The best assessment will no longer be the one in examinations, but it will be judged by how many socially responsive individuals an institution has contributed.
About the author:
Jyoti Agarwal is Director, The Sanskaar Valley School, Bhopal.
Ep. 1 | Ep. 2 | Ep. 3 | Ep. 4 | Ep. 5 | Ep. 6 | Ep. 7 | Ep. 8 | Ep. 9 | Ep. 10 | Ep. 11 | Ep. 12 | Ep. 13 | Ep. 14