Introduction
Several educational philosophers, both ancient and modern, left their mark on educational thinking, which drastically evolutionalised and revolutionalised educational practice up to this day. Lord Chesterfield, in his ‘Letters to My Son’ on the 4 October 1746 wrote:
‘Knowledge is a comfortable and necessary retreat and shelter for us in an advanced age and if we do not plant it while young, it will give us no shade when we grow old’.
This quote sums up the mammoth task that educators of yesteryears and modern times face. And even future educators will face more daunting tasks than their predecessors. The ideas and challenges inherent in the above quote need a brief discussion to place the quote in related perspective.
Knowledge, as indicated in the quote, is really a comfortable and necessary retreat, in that one cannot do anything in which one does not have adequate and supportive knowledge and can therefore not be sheltered by it. In our advanced age, we need a clear and perfect articulation of knowledge and ideas to be able to steer our way through the tumultuous storm of educational practice. And if we do not plant those strategies, approaches and methods, and water them consistently, we will never be sheltered by this knowledge when we grow old.
Making learning in the future classroom more appropriate
It is necessary to explain the concept ‘more appropriate’ to be able to place this discussion in a clear context. Appropriateness in this context should consist of strategies, approaches and methods that will help to make learning in the classroom easy, self-directed and learner-centred, with little or no interference by the educator. In fact, in the classroom of the future, the educator’s role should be in the background.
To be able to do this properly, all future educators must master various branches of knowledge applicable to the changing needs of the learners and constantly keep abreast with the current stream of flux of knowledge, including the explosive dilemma of technological advancement. In addition to all these, there will be a need for a new ideas paradigm to guide, direct and situate educators’ initial and inservice training, which will equip and provide them with the knowledge, skills and attitude that will be able to withstand the challenges that the ‘fluxing’ of ideas will demand.
A few decades ago, educators were the masters of classrooms and stood tall above the ideas and knowledge of learners. Learners were fed with knowledge and passively absorbed them without question. They played no role in argumentation in the classroom. Currently, times have drastically changed, especially when the child-centred and outcomes-based approaches to classroom practice were ushered in.
… there is an urgent need for a completely new paradigm for classroom instruction.In the light of the above scenario, it can be indicated that there is an urgent need for a completely new paradigm for classroom instruction. There is need for a new framework of strategies, approaches and methods to help direct future classroom practice and make classroom learning more appropriate for the future. The thesis of this new paradigm has been outlined by a prominent oriental philosopher, Sanyal (1994:32) and described below.
- One needs to be institutionally knowledgeable before one is able to propose a new idea.
- A new idea should lend itself to being implemented by gradual modifications of the old ways of doing things.
- One should realise when proposing a new idea that it must be able to generate institutional consensus and this requires that the new idea must not be proposed in terms that are antagonistic to the old ways of doing things. Rather, it is important to reform or innovate old ways amicably in order not to create institutional antagonism.
- One must acknowledge that a new idea will need an institutional base from which it can be implemented.
- Institutions usually prefer clearly defined and uncomplicated ideas that are easy to implement.
- In case no existing institutions are able to absorb the new idea, its proponents may push for the creation of a new institution and, to be successful in that effort, they must be in close contact with top level policy makers.
- Embedding in the existing institutional network is essential for the successful implementation of new ideas.
- Finally, it is important to recognise that, in ideological battles, successful ideas are usually those that provide hopeful views of intergenerational issues.
Throughout our lives as educators, we always try to strive to make sense of our experiences, to understand regularities and to accurately predict future circumstances. Research has always been one sure way to understand, explain, predict and control phenomena. Professional educators go about their duties in an orderly and systematic manner. This involves formal application of systematic and logical procedures that guide the investigation of phenomena of interest. As a result, there is need for general and specific approaches in the inquiry of knowledge and understanding, in order to initiate changes and advance them into the future and guide them further into fruition. There is also need to identify and fuse the characteristically positive remnants of the past to create a better future.
Enunciation of Sanyal’s eight paradigms
Sanyal’s eight ‘paradigmic’ characteristics, as described above, need elaboration so they can be placed in a practically applicable perspective.
PARADIGM 1. This paradigm places emphasis on the educator and insists that every educator becomes institutionally knowledgeable in whatever field he or she is practising in, before being able to propose a new idea within that field.
PARADIGM 2. The need for new ideas to be feasible, applicable, practicable and relevant, for easy implementation, through gradual modification of the old ways of doing things, is important. This idea deserves careful and critical attention because many rapid revolutionary changes breed chaos and confusion. Therefore, whatever idea that the future educator proposes should take cognisance of the need for gradual fusion and integration, in order to avoid confrontation and antagonism between the old and the new.
PARADIGM 3. The proposed new ideas - strategies, methods and approaches - must generate cordial institutional consensus. Even though the old order changes, yielding to the new order, the process should not be antagonistic to the old ways of doing things. The new ideas should, instead, help to reform and innovate the old ways amicably, in order to deflect institutional antagonism. New ideas are not readily welcome in societies. As such, the old adage: ‘The devil you know is better than the angel you don’t know’ still applies.
PARADIGM 4. Whatever way you see it, nothing changes in a vacuum. Every discovery has a base comprising both old and new ideas that are refined and integrated to give birth to a completely new thing. In this process of creating the excellent new, educators in the school environment will need an institutional base from where they are able to try their experiments and later implement the discovered new.
PARADIGM 5. Whatever ideas the future educator would propose to enhance appropriate classroom practice for the future, he or she should be able to convince established institutions, whose ideas have been tried and tested by society, that the new ideas will equally serve them or serve them better. To be able to do this, there must be clearly defined concept that is appropriate, relevant and applicable that leaves no doubt for speculation or assumptions. On this note, the new ideas could be easily adopted and implemented and practically applied.
PARADIGM 6. It is always plausible that existing institutions may have their own world for their operation. Established traditions die hard and often may resist change if they feel that their very existence is threatened. However, where this is inevitable, the proponents of the new ideas should ‘hold hands’ with the old institutions, to create a new institution where the new ideas can be successfully implemented. This will require close contact with top level policy makers. In this way, new ideas may exist side by side with the old, and not threaten the extinction of the old.
PARADIGM 7. Whenever new ideas cannot lead to the creation of new institutions for their implementation, another alternative is to advocate embedding them in the existing institutional network, which is essential for the successful implementation and acceptance of the new ideas.
PARADIGM 8. Since the future course of ideas and developments cannot be accurately predicted, it is necessary to recognise that ideological battles always ensue. Usually, the acceptable ideologies must always be couched in ideas that provide hopeful views for intergenerational discussions.
A critical re-examination of the elaborated paradigms given above poses several questions which, the rest of this paper intends answer. Some of the questions include the following.
- What is meant by ‘making learning in the classroom of the future more appropriate?’
- How should the future classroom look like in terms of layout and equipment?
- What would be required to make learning in the future classroom more appropriate?
- What kind of instructional technology and materials should be stored for learners?
- What should be the structure of teacher training, for both initial and inservice teachers?
- How should educators organise their teaching?
- How should whole learning take place?
- What role should the learners play?
- What role should educators play?
- What role should the school administrator play?
- What role should the parents and the community play?
Procedures for making learning in the future classroom more appropriate
Trying to provide insight into future practice of any profession is like trying to dry the oceans. However, if attempts are not made to predict the future, we would have no course of events for the betterment of the future. In fact, it would be disastrous to allow the future to dawn before without making adequate preparation to face its numerous challenges. In order to meet these challenges and be able to live up to them, we need to predict accurately those challenges we expect to crop up.
It is clear that the modern world has undergone tremendous technological metamorphoses, to the extent that everything seems to change every second. We are aware that 2050 is a distance away from us and many of us will not live to enjoy or suffer its technological advancement. However, like our predecessors, we are all required to make a meaningful contribution towards the future.
To be able to predict successfully how appropriate learning should be in the future classroom, it is necessary to answer the questions listed above. The answers provided to these questions are tentative predictions that are expected be ushered in from now and beyond 2050.
What is meant by ‘making learning in the future classroom more appropriate?’
The concept ‘appropriate’ is actually relative in terms of its use and application. To this discussion, the concept is assumed to refer to teacher training, equipment, instructional materials and any other resource that makes learning better and teaching methods learner friendly, so that the educator is not burdened in playing his or her role in the education of the learner. Therefore, there must be appropriate classrooms and such a classroom should take cognisance of the following.
- Teacher training should be dynamic. Educators should be prepared in such a way that creativity in everything that the educator is supposed to do is emphasised. These should include a variety of teaching and mentoring skills related to styles of knowledge dissemination and acquisition to be able to direct the learners, who should be tuned to look into the future in everything they do.
- Classrooms should be designed to be friendly, allowing for easy movement, perfect lighting, with equipment storage cupboards made in such a way that everything the learner might need in the course of a lesson is within easy reach, without disruption and diversion of attention and concentration. The hostility of present classrooms, where almost everything is fixed, needs to change. In fact, the most appropriate classroom of the future should be like a performing auditorium, where everything can be moved and changed for a new act. Such dynamism would make the future classroom able to be used in a variety of ways.
- The principles of learner-centred techniques and approaches are given prominence in everything the educator does. In fact, the learner in the future classroom should be as independent as possible at the earliest stage in their learning, so that the educator does not interfere in his or her freedom to work and make informed decisions on their own. Creativity should be imparted to the learner in the future classroom.
- Parents, communities, school administrators should all be required to visit classrooms regularly in order to acquaint themselves with what is actually happening in the classroom of the future. In fact, all the listed agents should be directly involved to make learning more appropriate, relevant and applicable to the needs of the community.
- Instructional materials should be user-friendly so that learners are able to use them with little or no guidance. This would make learners to know they are capable of taking their own destiny forward into the future.
How should the future classroom look like, to make learning more appropriate?
As indicated, except in laboratories where much of the equipment should be fixed for safety and durability, the future classroom should be designed to make reorganisation easy and quick, so that a classroom could be used to serve many purposes. Activities should dictate how the classroom should be rearranged.
What is required to make the learning in the future classroom more appropriate?
Whatever is required for a lesson should be made available in the required quantities in the classroom. This should apply to both the needs of the educator and the learners. This would make it possible for all parties to take part in the activities in the teaching-learning environment.
What type of instructional technology materials should be stored for the learners?
Anything that is stored for use by the learners should be within the cognitive and physical maturity of the learners so that they are peaceful with them and be able to use them without any form of inhibition. These materials should provide challenges that the learners should be able to respond to positively. The educator should have advanced knowledge of these technologies, so that guidance could be provided to the learners when required.
What kind of training – both initial and inservice - should future educators receive to be able to make teaching and learning in the future classroom more appropriate?
The training of educators should be such that it is commensurate with the changing technological scenario worldwide. The training should take cognisance of both regional and international perspectives. This would enable educators to be internationalised, so that their activities and services provision is in line with globalisation. This would mean that educators will have no boundaries and would be able to teach in any part of the world and do the teaching appropriately.
How should educators organise their teaching to make learning more appropriate in the future classroom?
Educators should be able to employ the knowledge and skills acquired during training with a bit of personal initiative to be able to adapt to situations as they arise in the classroom of the future. They should be able to apply a variety of teaching methods, and use different techniques and approaches as they lend themselves in the situation created in the classroom. Their organisation should take cognisance of the fact that independence is necessary and should be made accessible by the learner. All methods, techniques, strategies and approaches should be future-prone to make the learners to think ahead of their time and be able to project into the future.
How should learning take place in the future classroom to make it more appropriate?
It is important to emphasise the need for independence. If learners are skilled in activities that lead to independence, then every piece of equipment that is required to make learning more appropriate in the classroom should be easily assembled with the required instructions, so that the learners are able to do their own learning with little or no guidance. Once the learners are independent and able to manipulate the equipment, appropriateness would definitely be achieved.
What role should the learners play in the future classroom to make the learning more appropriate?
Learners should be given control over their learning. They should not be forced to abide by the traditional classroom protocol which does not allow for rigid control of activities. This does not mean that there should be control at all. The learners should be their own controllers. For this reason, learners should be enticed into the practice of intrinsic motivation, where they do their own work, knowing for sure that those activities are going to benefit them in the future.
What role should parents and community play in making learning more appropriate in the future classroom?
As indicated earlier, there should be regular visits by parents. They should liaise with the educators so that the learning of their children does not become the preoccupation of the educators only. In fact, regular visits and interaction with both the educators and the learners would mean that the whole system is no more isolated from the beneficiary. And for this reason, the educators would have the feeling that parents have not dumped their children on them. Since schools, as institutions, are owned by the communities in which they are located, like parents, the communities should be engaged in the activities of the schools, so that the school and the communities would feel the sense of belongingness. Such belongingness would lead to appropriateness in the organisation of several activities in which both the school and the communities would be involved. Such a condition would definitely contribute to a more appropriate classroom where learning would be positively adhered to.
What role should school administrators play in making the learning in the future classroom more appropriate?
School administrators would have a mammoth task to perform if learning in the future classroom is to be made more appropriate. The mammoth nature of the administrator’s work would depend on how educators’ parents, communities and the learners are convinced about taking part in decisions that affect them. School administrators should not be dictators who adhere to traditional protocols and reject dynamism that always accompanies changing times. There must be collaboration in everything that is required. This does not diminish the school administrators’ control of events and activities in the future classroom.
Conclusion
Our current explosion of technology and ideas has made it practically impossible to predict the exact events of tomorrow. However, we should be able to glimpse into the future a little and predict what events will follow, so that we are able to prepare adequately against this flux of change. In the teaching-learning continuum, professional educators would have to contend with the unexpected. They would need to be on their guard so that the activities in the classroom of the future could be predicted and make teaching and learning appropriate, relevant and applicable, leading the learner into ideological and reasoning freedom so that they are able to steer their path through life successfully and independently. This is the ultimate goal of all educative processes.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Dr Nana Adu-Pipim Boaduo FRC lectures in the Department of Languages and Social Sciences Education, at the University of Botswana, in Botswana.
Ms Saline Monicah Babitseng is a teacher of languages and social studies at Gabane Primary School, in Botswana. |
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