How can we future proof education?

Future Proofing Education (original use of this phrase belongs to Paul Kirschner @P_A_Kirschner)

In an assembly this week I told the students that the solution to environmental destruction, inequality and rampant mental health problems was for them to be happy. What I should have said is that any solutions will involve critical thinking, creativity and collaboration. The problem with this second answer is that it moves the question to another level, how do we get students to have improved levels of critical thinking, creativity and collaboration? The answer is not what we might expect. 

When I said the answer was being happy, the Middle School kids looked at me funny. Surely, Mr Tucker, we need to care about the future of our planet and not be caught up in our own hedonistic concerns? Don’t we need to get angry about this stuff to change it? Don’t we need to know how to change it? Good questions. This blog attempts to answer them. To begin, let’s take a detour into problem-solving, creativity and critical thinking. 

 All educators want to "future-proof" their schools. Schools need to ensure that education prepares young people to compete in a globalised economy where technological innovation and complex problem solving is prioritised. So how do we go about future-proofing education in a way that will ensure we are producing well-rounded, creative, problem-solving young people who can clean up our oceans and reduce global warming whilst contributing to and thriving in the third industrial revolution?

Within education, since the 1990s really, there has been an obsession with the three Cs, creativity, collaboration and critical thinking. Schools have tried to teach these three Cs by giving students lots of opportunities to work in groups and come up with solutions to real-life challenges through engaging experiential learning activities with indeterminate outcomes, often using technology. If we get kids being creative, collaborating and solving problems, the argument goes, we should expect them to get better at being creative, collaborating and solving problems. The mind is like a muscle and we should "work out" these faculties so they expand and strengthen. This approach has been accompanied by a kind of generalised dismissal of content knowledge as people think, we have Google now and well, who remembers all that stuff they learnt in school anyway? 

If we could find a way to teach these generic skills that would be wonderful for education; it would be huge news. Unfortunately, the assumption that these skills can be trained or taught independently of knowledge isn’t supported by research. This is where schools have been getting things upside down and where we have an opportunity to get ahead of the game. Cognitive science has produced studies that have been replicated in hundreds of intense laboratory experiments and in school settings that have found that our ability to think critically depends on the quality and amount of information stored in our long term memory much more than on thinking skills. Thinking, as it turns out, is quite an inefficient way to solve a problem; we mainly rely on experience and long-term memory. Working memory capacity does have a lot to do with successful thinking but it is more or less fixed by the time we are 14 and there is little evidence it can be expanded that much (although we can use it more efficiently). Conversely, long-term memory has no known limits and there is a bunch of good evidence on how to maximise it. 

To put it another way, the more knowledge we have in memory the better we are able to propose innovative solutions that solve complex problems as we free up our working memory capacity. Chess grandmasters are not more logical or better thinkers, they are successful because they have thousands of different chessboard scenarios stored in their long-term memory that they can draw from. This makes sense if you think about it even quite briefly. If you are a doctor you are unlikely to be able to think creatively and critically about complex financial market fluctuations; if you are a working physicist you are unlikely to be able to think creatively and critically about cooking; if you are a structural engineer you are unlikely to be able to think creatively and critically about legal concerns. One only needs to watch politicians offering ill-informed opinions on health, education and business to see this in action. We have been mistaking the results of knowledge and experience for generic thinking skills. Our job is to make kids more knowledgeable so that they can be more successful in their thinking. 

All of this explains why the most successful countries in the PISA scores use more teacher-directed methods. In my opinion, it also explains why Asian countries are leading the way in both PISA scores and technical innovation. Interestingly, since the Finnish education system adopted more technology and "personalisation" into its secondary education system it has fallen down the PISA ranking. This article is interesting on this topic. If we are to embrace the future of learning and make progress we need to embrace the fundamental role that memory plays in human cognition and creativity and verse ourselves as a school community in the cutting edge information out there about how human minds work.

What implications does all of this have for us as a school? It does not mean that there is no place for self-directed research projects or entrepreneurial/engineering activities but it does mean we should be cautious and clear-headed in ensuring that students have mastered the knowledge and skills they need to be successful, giving them the chance to apply this knowledge in authentic situations only when it’s appropriate. 

I appreciate this was quite a long detour away from happiness. Why did I tell the students that solving problems in the future was to do with happiness and not information in their long-term memory? The answer is that without wellbeing the system of human cognition overall doesn’t function very well. Stress is not harmful if we are able to see it as a source of strength. This reading is interesting on the topic.

A successful school is a rich, nutritious environment through which minds can acquire and make use of the knowledge that leads to enhanced cognitive functioning whilst also fomenting a positive feedback loop of wellbeing and social connection. Importantly wellbeing is not about giving people what they want or succumbing to lower desires. The self-esteem paradigm has been debunked with psychologists realising that by protecting people from their own limitations, schools fail to deal with the reality of these limitations. A self-esteem focus can fail to recognise and embrace negative emotions and failures as crucial components of healthy development. We feel good about ourselves in spite of what others are doing, not because of that. When a school gives prizes to everyone, it doesn’t mean kids don’t realise who the superior athletes are; nobody hangs those freely obtained medals on their bedroom wall. Modern psychological theories emphasise grit and resilience obtained through adversity and challenge. Getting what you want isn’t a recipe for increased well being and nor is never failing or being held accountable for irresponsibility. Wellbeing is about recognising and embracing difficult emotions not ignoring them or engaging in activities, such as alcohol or drug use, that mask them. 

When students are peaceful, when they are calm, when they are serene they will be more successful at solving problems and being creative. Happier people have stronger social relationships and live longer healthier lives. Excessive screen time, alcohol at a young age and materialist concerns are not conducive to improved mental health. Exercise, self-discipline, and compassionate regard for others are. We also need to help students deal with difficult emotions and disappointment in an increasingly hyper-connected world. They face not reality but a hyper-reality viewed through the filter of Instagram. The instant gratification of thousands of notifications on a smartphone is an addiction that I would strongly counsel against allowing to go unchecked if wellbeing, creativity, critical thinking and collaboration are the goals. Our school, therefore, needs to have a rock-solid advisory and pastoral care system that ensures we teach students the research findings on how to keep physically and emotionally healthy.

Generic skills such as critical thinking, creativity and collaboration depend on knowledge, disciplinary study and a nutritious, compassionate environment of high expectations and do not require group projects where students have to solve complex "real-world" problems using technological tools. Technology has its place and we are strengthening our elective courses for next year to include coding and design thinking, but the longer-term solution lies in knowledge and goodness.