Contemporary learning and its enemies

Mr William Keane Emmaus College Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

It is common to talk these days of the global marketplace, where everyone with access to technology can be connected 24/7. It is imagined that the new communities will be multicultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious. The imagined results of this change in the global scene include the breaking down of borders and the necessity to develop new skills to reflect the new world order.

At the same time, it is true that ‘a growing number of respected voices have sounded the alarm that students are not being prepared to compete in an increasingly global marketplace and that new curriculum models and structures must be considered’. Many forward-thinking educators would agree that students need to have critical thinking skills, problem-solving ability and collaborative skills to succeed in work and life in the new era. If this is not happening we ought to consider what barriers have been put in place preventing the development of the necessary skills in students.

Although governments have enthusiastically embraced the new global economies, the social impact of the global marketplace has been something quite different. Rather than becoming outward-looking, societies are turning insular, becoming intolerant and xenophobic. The new realities of the 21st century have proven so threatening that societies are turning inwards, rather than outwards. Although this trend is reflected in a number of social areas, it is perhaps most apparent in education. If you want proof of this, you need look no further than the ‘history wars’ and the values in schools debate. There has never been more emphasis or debate in this country about what it means to be ‘Australian’. A central feature of this discussion is that the terms of reference are being taken almost exclusively from the past. The debate about what it means to be Australian is about where we have come from, rather than where we might be going, and it is being driven largely by the Federal Government.

Here we can identify two keys barriers to the development of a contemporary curriculum: the politics of education and the nostalgia of education. These two factors are inter-related. Increasingly, we see education being used for political purposes in an attempt to shape the national debate on a variety of levels. A feature of this debate is the government distrust of educators themselves, with the dismissal of modern ideas in education as ‘trendy’ and ‘jargon-ridden’. The irony here is that there is a real danger that these education policy directions might well prevent the development of the very 21st century skills, which the economy and society of the future actually need.

This ‘educational nostalgia’ presents an enormous barrier to contemporary learning and it permeates through into the popular press. For evidence of this, you need look no further than the stream of anti-technology stories that feature regularly in the media. Although this is not surprising, such an emphasis is hardly helpful in developing the kind of curriculum required for the new century.

More importantly, though, is the emphasis on what I want to call ‘educational objects’. By this I mean the growing emphasis on tests and test scores, isolated ‘facts’ as important knowledge, and lists of classics that ought to be read in schools. I call these educational ‘objects’ because they are, in a sense, a replacement for real learning. Consider the three key skills mentioned in the second paragraph: critical thinking, problem-solving and collaborative skills and ask yourself whether the emphasis on the educational objects stands any chance of developing these skills.

Critics of modern education frequently rail against a curriculum that is ‘content light’. The criticism of the teaching of history, that themes have replaced narrative, is such an example. It is important, though, not to go back to an era in which content alone was the measure of knowledge. Education, as some kind of trivial pursuit game, which rewards those with the most arcane knowledge, is not going to produce the problem-solvers of the future.

The important message here is that contemporary learning has its enemies and they have very powerful voices because they appeal to the most dangerous of all emotions: nostalgia. Not only do the advocates for the emphasis on educational objects evoke a past that never actually existed, they would prescribe an educational future that would not be a future at all and will not prepare students for the world of tomorrow.

What, then, needs to be done? An important response is to recognise that education has been politicised, as it has often been in the past, and to understand that there is a crucial role for educators to develop and explain an educational vision. Of course, the other crucial aspect of this is to articulate what that vision is and how best to achieve it. At the moment, the loudest voices belong to those who want the current generations’ education to be a reflection of their education, in the mistaken belief that the past was better and that you can somehow recreate the past in the present.

We need to, firmly but gently, point out that the world is different now and that the new global realities mean that we need new skills that grow out of, and are connected to, the old disciplines but which are not confined to them. We need to have another conversation about the construction of knowledge in the modern world. Some of the old labels and divisions make little real sense when they are applied to real life. A study of politics quickly becomes a study of history and economics and legal studies and geography, and so on. Science and technology become inter-connected, while it is many years since we thought of computers only in relation to writing programs. These are conversations we need to continue to have.

More fundamentally, though, we need, as educators, to articulate what we have learned about learning over the last quarter of a century. We are on surer ground here because there have been many gains in our understanding about learning. What is clear, though, is that not all of our colleagues have caught up with these ideas, let alone the parents and students who are our constituency.

Schools and school systems are conservative and resistant to change. In order to shape the kind of curriculum we need in the future, schools must change. However, they will not be allowed to without considerable time and effort being spent in assisting all of those who are connected to schools to develop a clearer understanding of how learning takes place.