Philosophy of Education

The educator requirements are quickly evolving, and the role must evolve to meet those requirements and prepare our students for a rapidly changing world. Upon graduation, students face a myriad of demands that many are ill-prepared for. Professions will emerge seemingly overnight, and they must be ready to qualify for these jobs that nobody saw coming. Our job is to predict this, prepare for this, and deliver the education to our students to ensure they are ready.

How can we predict what does not exist?

Within my lifetime, I have witnessed the emergence of the internet. Its transformation from a novelty to a necessity, its shift from 1.0 to 2.0, and perhaps a third iteration. With one idea emerging from political fear, we were given one of the most powerful tools in human history. We have seen millions of jobs worldwide that grew from implementing and using the internet within the past 30 years. We can prepare students to meet the demands of future jobs by developing these evolving skills.

21st Century Thinking

 Content knowledge is essential, but when the world's collection of information is a few button presses away, it becomes apparent that knowing how to find information, use it, and solve problems are skills that need developing. When a child learns the alphabet, it does not stop there; more than knowing what letters are is required. Instead, we continue to apply this knowledge by acquiring reading skills. Once a child learns the fundamentals of reading and decoding, we polish those skills by expanding upon the rules until they develop new written communication skills. We already recognize the need for students to develop this active ability, learn how to process what they read, break it down, and "read between the lines" by analyzing poetry and prose, but why do we end with the what and how? We may touch upon the when, where, and who, but why gets neglected. It is the "why" that becomes the cornerstone of STEM. This is the root of the 21st Century Education paradigm. 

It is All About Connections

Continuing with the internet example, we could teach about the origin of the internet (ARPAnet, 1965, MIT) to satisfy the educational system's traditional paradigm. The information is essential and relevant. However, exploring the connection to Sputnik, the motivating factors, the funds directed towards the program, and the curiosity that transformed it through TCP to WWW ultimately put the novel invention into living rooms in the '90s. It was a new way to talk to one another that blossomed into social media and e-commerce and impacted numerous systems, from politics to marketing and privacy. The internet highlights causality at its most rapid exponential growth. It took centuries from courier to telephone and a little over 30 years to go from national security to TikTok videos and social media. Why does this matter? With each iteration, we grew jobs out of the demand for smaller and faster computers, faster connection speeds, more functionality, and individuals with vision who saw the potential from Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph with the invention of Netflix (1997) to Jeff Bezos and Amazon. Netflix was always intended to be a streaming service but was restricted to mail-in-disc exchange, and Amazon started with books. These two companies currently employ hundreds of thousands of people worldwide but have changed industries, even ending some. Students can learn to think critically beyond traditional knowledge skills by understanding the causality, purpose, and consequence.

Skills in Demand

Students need to be versatile, effective, and adaptive communicators. 

Students have always learned to communicate, from speaking and reciting to writing reflections about their thoughts and ideas. The difference, now, is that communication is instantaneous to the world and has adapted to the digital format. By being adaptable in their communication skills, students will be well-prepared to effectively communicate in various media, from using words to images to limited characters to promoting effectively.

Students need to retain that curiosity and creativity to innovate.

Children are naturally curious, with preschoolers asking parents roughly 100 questions a day compared with the ten asked when they turn 11 and even fewer as they grow older. Does an increase in information cause this decrease? Many within the field point the finger at the institution of the school itself. This is one driving motivator behind the rise of inquiry-based instruction, problem-solving design, and STEM classrooms. We recognize that telling students answers to questions they are not asking (lectures, worksheets, and tests) harms their drive to ask their questions. Not that assessment is wrong, nor is sharing information. However, if it costs students creativity, curiosity, and ultimately motivation, it is not preparing them to solve life's problems, let alone problems we are unaware of. Much has been researched regarding the effectiveness of fostering this curiosity, from Montessori to David Scott and Dr. Sharon Friesen (to name a few). We see a deficit in learning from old methods, and we fail our students if we fail to adapt to this new data. We cannot say we are using "best practices" if we teach the same way before the internet was invented. When we nurture curiosity and embrace creativity, we see innovation happening. We see futures become planted, and our students could be the ones who create those new, non-existing jobs.  

Students must be problem solvers.

Learning letters was a start, but learning how to decode them changed everything for emerging readers. We then taught them how to find the meaning of a new, unfamiliar word without expecting them to memorize all 500,000+ words in English. We gave them the tool to decode and discover the meaning, allowing them to read anything they will ever be confronted with. This is one of the most crucial tools for their life toolbox. Maybe the only time students revert to asking their parents numerous daily questions is when faced with life decisions. So, where is the tool for these problems? Like reading, we can foster the development of problem-solving skills by providing students with opportunities to fail. This might seem counterintuitive, but technology, discoveries, and the world we know were born from failure. Encouraging students to fail where their livelihoods are not on the line will better prepare them to solve problems more effectively. When we teach students to read, we expect them to fail when confronted with unfamiliar words, but we encourage them to persist. This is the engineering process of failing forward. This empowers students to create something new, try it out, and learn from what worked and did not work. The old Edison quote, "I have not failed. I've found 10,000 ways that didn't work." It is the process of elimination that students forget or fear due to the dreaded failure. STEM is about failing, redesigning, trying again until it works, and making it even better. If they were satisfied with the first computer, our world would look vastly different today, but instead, they made it better and continue to do so because they can. This skill allows students to adapt to any situation, assess what is known, plan a solution, execute the plan, and then evaluate the results to act accordingly. When faced with the need to apply for a loan, they will be confident researching the protocols and seeking help. They will have the confidence to face something unknown and resolve it. When their employer asks them to solve something new, they will embrace the challenge and know where to start. There is no answer in the back of the book, no solution to copy down, but instead, a process like decoding the letters in front of them to see the complete story.

Students need to work together.

Very little is accomplished alone. Students must utilize all the preceding skills and the ability to understand people, embrace diversity, and resolve problems together. Sometimes that collaborator is continents away; they will need to know how to communicate digitally and effectively to accomplish the goal. They must not only embrace various ideas, but also be open to criticism and take responsibility for their actions. This is a crucial part of effective collaboration. In a world with nearly 8 billion people, where about a third use the internet daily, and where few countries are solely self-reliant, it's clear that collaboration and communication are global necessities. Devices and technology, for instance, are a result of international partnerships in resources, production, and distribution. This underscores the importance of students being prepared to work with people from around the world.  

The Role of the Educator

Our job has always been to prepare students for life, and their lives look vastly different. So, we must prepare them differently (see Patrick Howard's Living School). Content knowledge is not sufficient. We must teach them the skills to use this knowledge and be wise in life.