Our Archaic Schooling System

This Coronavirus pandemic is demonstrating the disfunction and fragility in every ‘system’ that we have set up, and our education system is certainly not an exception.

Now that us parents are all having to home school our kids, as they gather for their classes behind their screens on zoom, it surely begs the question ‘what is the purpose of school?’

Of course school exists to educate our children. But then let’s consider what the word educate actually means.

The English Oxford dictionary directs us to the word ‘Educe’ the definition of which is to draw forth, to bring out, to develop.

That surely means that the social interactions that we have all experienced at school are just as important for our kid’s development as the classes are.

So why are schools not doing a better job of using the technology that exists to enhance this important, and critical interaction?

Rather than trying to replicate the classroom on zoom, might it be beneficial if educators used their imagination and creativity to explore how to increase the interaction between class mates?

One example would be to have children doing group and project work on zoom, reporting back to the rest of the class and the teachers. Perhaps this is actually happening in some schools, but it is certainly not happening in the public school system where I live in Switzerland (one of the richest countries in the world in financial terms!).

Businesses are having to pivot to survive – now that our backs are against the wall some of the creativity that I am seeing is awe inspiring. And to keep going we are having to use technology to create and maintain real human connection as opposed to it being there just for business transactions.

So if this is what businesses are having to do to survive in order to keep feeding ourselves, our colleagues and the economy, it is now surely time for the archaic systems that have been in place since the industrial revolution to innovate and catch up.