The 5 Key Ways I Believe Our Education System Needs To Change So That Future Generations Can Succeed

For years now, I have not been happy with the way schools “teach to the test”.  You know what I mean…teaching kids day after day how to pass the end of the year test so that they can “move on” to the next grade or get the diploma.

It is just not working!  Kids are dropping out of high school right and left, many say they hate school and the big goal with college kids is to be able “to pass without attending class.”

What this tells me loudly and clearly is that our kids are bored in school and our education system is still operating out of the Industrial Revolution (you know…lecturing and writing on the chalkboard.)

I really believe that if our next generation of learners and leaders are going to be able to really thrive in the world, we must be willing to design our education system based on what our kids value.  Here are the 5 changes I believe we need to make.

1) Stop competing and start collaborating in the classroom.

Kids are so competitive right now.  Who can get into Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Duke, etc. is the big competitive factor.  I am not going online to pull up a bunch of research to make my point here, because I know that people learn much better and faster if they are collaborating with others.  When you are working in teams of 5-7 people, you learn new ideas, you get new resources and you aren’t constantly frustrated trying to find the answer when it’s already sitting inside another person’s brain or network.  I believe that “teaching/learning pods” are where we need to move and just get rid of these lecture halls filled with 200-300 kids who are sitting in the classroom with their laptops open on Twitter and Facebook or who are sitting in class texting, because the teacher is standing up in front of the class lecturing like Charlie  Brown’s teacher (womp, womp, womp…sounds a bit like this.)

2) Stop lecturing and start innovating.

I think I am harping a bit on the lecture mode of teaching, but it is ridiculous.  Kids are hearing about 20% of what the teacher says, but if you put kids in a true experiential process where they have to come up with their own answers by designing a new product, service or piece of technology, they will learn the skills they need to learn.  You can then go back and support the activity/innovation with a few notes and facts but only after the kids have been fully engaged in an activity that seals the learning.  Once they fall in love with the innovation, kids are usually eager to then know the facts of the process.  Get their attention first by throwing them into a learning activity that will get them engaged and excited about learning the “test material”.

3) Stop using textbooks and start using technology.

Kids are saying they spend $300-500 on textbooks they never open.  Then why are we continuing to use them?  Kids can now go online and gather their information.  So, if you have to use a textbook, then get it online and break it into bits and bites so that the information can be easily digested.  I keep hearing “Well…these kids need to sit down and learn to read a book”, but they AREN’T DOING IT!  Most Gen Ys are saying they go online to read and while they love going into bookstores, they get about 75% of their information from online libraries, articles passed around on Facebook and by text messaging.

4) Shift from quantity research to quality research.

I know that each project comes with a good amount of research that needs to be done.  But…to tell someone they “must have 10 credible sources to reference” just for the heck of it is just ridiculous.  I would much rather see kids find 2-3 very credible pieces of research to draw upon than having to choose another 7 that are either mediocre or simply repeating what the 2-3 credible pieces of research say.

5) Move from “doing things the long way” to finding more efficient/effective ways of completing projects.

This whole mentality of “kids need to learn how to do things the long/hard way” is one of the reasons we are in a mess right now.  Time is money, and we need to be teaching our kids how to find both efficient and high quality, effective ways of getting to a great finished project rather than “doing it the way we’ve always done it!”  Gen Ys are well known for finding shortcuts, and people argue that this is the “dumbing down” of our society.  That is nonsense.  If we can find quicker ways of completing a project and ending up with a better result, then why not teach this?   The reason is because Baby Boomers often think that the long, hard way teaches a strong work ethic, and I see a LOT of Baby Boomers who are overworked, living with heart disease, high blood pressure (much of which is coming from being overworked and overstressed)  and then that could get me into a rant on our healthcare system, which I won’t even get into today.

Okay…that’s it for my rant for today.