Could the Real Modern Education Please Stand Up?

And so this morning I had to mark a first year test... Although it stole time from my normal work it was a bit of a thought-provoking experience... As I shake my head in dismay at the answers in front of me I think of these smartphone-toting highly-informed youngsters and realise that they probably know much more about current affairs and pop culture than what I will ever know regardless of how many novels and magazines I read... And they could probably google a question quicker than I could prise it from the misty recesses of my memory.
I realise that obtaining the knowledge for the subject they are trying to master is not a priority for them.  As a matter of fact it is clear that mastery is not what they are trying to achieve.  They are trying to obtain a qualification that is required by an old-minded world which it sees as an indication of mastery.  However this belief is not shared by these free-minded twitter-brained youngsters.  They do not accept the necessity of mastering a fact, concept or equation that could be clearly explained or summarized in the first paragraph of a wikipedia entry.  And they are right. As far as the concept itself goes. But how does one develop a thought that we do not understand?  What do we hang things on in our minds when there are no hooks to hang them on?  The answer to a single question is easy to find. But the answer to problem is not. Problems are not solved by straight fact but by reason, and for reason to work requires understanding. And something is only understood when an acceptable framework is available in our minds in which to manipulate a thought or problem.  Education creates these frameworks.

The question is how to create these frameworks in this new kind of young, stimulation craving, concentration deficient mind?  This is the challenge that educational institutions, and society in general, face when looking to meet the grave necessity of education for our sustainable future. With institutions themselves being (and rightfully so) the stalwart defenders of tradition, history and the status quo in general, they are the most unlikely candidates for instituting the change in the system that seems to be so urgent.  It is rather a sticky situation. But if anyone's got the answer it's probably the students who wrote this test... And if they dont have it... they'll just google it!

Some more interesting discussion on the topic in the post education place... For Millennials, Chat Rooms Are the New Conference Rooms