Blame the education system

In my class lecture last week, my prof started choose not to do a lecture and instead a debate on what is innovation. For those who are unfamiliar, I am taking an online direct masters in marketing with King Colleague. Still very traditional way of teaching, using a flipped classroom system and usually our lectures are our profs going through the material.

Still that day, she choose to let us do the talking. The question was how to innovate in marketing. Ideas such as new ways to do things, new systems, the use of tech etc was thrown around. Then it came to me which ask innovation since many things have been around for years. Such as Uber, ride sharing has existed always but only with technology of handphones, the model is viable. Also the risk of innovation, our education has always taught us to "Colour within the lines". Especially since I am a product of the colonial British education system.

Innovation as taught

It was interesting my comments were well received. The prof pivoted saying well the education system we used is still an industrial age education system to produce factory workers. As such it prioritises compliance and memorising over trying new things. To train and prepare a compliant, hardworking workforce.

Yet in this knowledge age or knowledge based economy, we value disruption. Trying to build new innovative items and ways to make things cheaper, more efficient and change the whole industry. As such there is a mismatch in how we are taught and how we are expected to work. Such that the education system hasn't caught up with the needs of the workforce.

Oh, I ended off saying, maybe cos King College London is British, "I blame the Chinese Imperial examination system since the British copied it"

Backlash of the British system

For those who are not familiar, the British system is tradition system of school where the teach stands in front of the class, teachers. Everyone learns by memorising and taking the teachers word as the law. Think of it those stereotype headmasters in the school, holding a cane/meter ruler and going "you cant have any pudding"(The wall reference😂 ) The system prioritises memorising over trying new things. Such that we spend years studying subjects to "Vomited" it out in our GCE N, O or A-levels. Colour between the lines and do what you are told.

Interesting, after that debate lecture, a few students commented in our whatsapp group that our prof was lazy. That she was "teaching" as she did not go through the materials. I honestly enjoyed the debate, its a breath of fresh air but yeah, we should be learning the material since we paid for that. Still didn't we learn in the debate? Isn't that still learning?

Education, from young my debate

The idea of learning is a new debate for me. From the "Pressure cooker" education system, there were cousins who choose to homeschool or migrate to prevent their kids from being in the system. Similarly from the grading and streaming system to put people where "they can learn better", a hierarchical system has been created on where you can go and what you can do.

Its most unfortunate we are judging based on start of person when they are young how they would progress. Maybe they are more inclined in a different way like arts or sports, or maybe they were just playful or going through a string of bad luck. Still because they did well or not at a young age, the trajectory of their life has been set as smart or not so smart. Still there are people who went EM3 but made it to a top SG university. However, how many fell through the tracks?

Debates instead of lectures

One of the debates in my head has always been, "what is learning?" In certificate indicative learning is done? Then why people with certificates cant perform at their jobs? How do we truely teach and learn. Is a debate better than a lecture? and how to we prepare our learners to learn? That they have an impact from the class and return on expectation.

Lets explore that question in Pure Andragogy