What is schooling about? (Part 1)
Posted by Marwa Soudi on
Once upon a time there was a group of isolated islands. Children island, industry island and University island. So the three islands had a deal together. They built schools in the children island and once they are ready they go to the University island and once they are ready they go to the industry island to have work and good life and money that would be shared with the three islands.
But there are people (teachers) who kept being in the children island to prepare them for the University island. And people (Uni educators) who are working in the University island to prepare people to the industry island.
And there are people who don't fit,or finished their journey in the three islands they become an overload and not fit in any island so they throw them in the sea.
The deal was working good. Until one day something happened. Industries started to collapse and no more creativity nor innovation to build sustainable new industries. Economic crises started to take place and everyone started to look what is going on their islands.
Panic, crowd and every island blaming the other .....
Until a group of people come and said well we should change the deal. The deal between the three of us is not working anymore.
The deal was designed that the third island is the final destination.
So the new group came up with a new deal to unite the three islands to be like one island. And to be as one living island!
And redefined the new role of the past islands. The Uni island had a lot of knowledge so it should help in R&D it should obviously work not in preparing workers to the industry island but to help creating the knowledge based industries.
Forest schooling, STEM schooling, helping teachers and parents,....all those elements should be considered in the new deal.
We should look for to the deal as a dynamic living organism and not as a linear road to take!
For me I am wondering what is teaching and learning all about? Observing animals making it more clearer or they have at least a specific mission raising generations to survive in their environments like hunting, flying, and swimming. But when it comes to us humans its not clear because the goals of "educational system" is not clear.
Are we supposed to teach students how to survive and develop in their environments? should we build scientists ? should we prepare workers serving the industry? are we serving parents who are paying to the school board? Or we should work on all this?
Should the teachers be the one carrying everything over their shoulders? it looks for me impossible, we ask a lot from the teachers. They have a personal life with all its pressure, moreover : They should deal with students with different characters, we ask teachers to be therapists , we ask them to be technologists and entrepreneurs we are asking the teachers actually to be everything.
Practically speaking its good for teachers to read and know different ideas about education but when it comes to implementation they are like leading a ship in a turbulent water while people standing on the shore enjoying the stability and giving them orders.
That is why we started to work on co-creating with teachers and received a good feedback from Egypt and Finland about that type of cooperation between teachers and professionals in STEM field.
We are here for you! That how we do it to the teachers ! you don't have to take your students out of the school each time you want to teach them STEM through practical experience. The world has a limited resources and each school has its own challenges. And we are here to fill this gap through our different programs.
We shouldn't keep asking the teachers to be super humans who need to learn everything and every skill in the world otherwise they feel lagging or not professional enough. That type of pressure has its negative effects on the teacher and the student. And that was an important alarm I got from teachers whenever I go!