Tag Archives: Modern day education

THE BEADY EYE SAYS. OUR EDUCATION IS OUT OF DATE.

13 Tuesday Jul 2021

Posted by in Education

≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE SAYS. OUR EDUCATION IS OUT OF DATE.

Tags

, , ,

 

(Five-minute read) 

A few days ago a friend of mine described a group of children 5/6 years answering the following questions. 

Where do fish come from?  Answer Asda ( Supermarket) 

Where does meat come from?  Answer  (Mc Donald’s )

It made me think that on one hand, parents and teachers are obsessing about making children into the perfect worker drones but on the other hand, they complain that kids these days have no creativity or concept of the world they live in. 

Why? 

Because, if ever, the present-day education is totally detached from the values that are needed to sustain life. 

But why should we put so much time, money, and effort into education?

The reasons are obvious even if Leonardo da Vinci, after all, received none.

 

                                     —————

Education is not cheap. 

In every country, billions are wasted on futile learning almost everywhere.

With the current state of our planet, this has to change. 

But education only has value in the society in which it exists, and that society is becoming a lazy Google society day by day. 

So – why do it?

Many insects such as ants, bees, and cockroaches achieve their goals through outstanding cooperation and common understanding.

Luckily, or perhaps unluckily this has so far proved impossible for human beings.

 

                                              ————-

 

If we accept that culture plays a critical role in education and that successful education must fit the needs of the times, then, there is little doubt that:

  • It is a waste of time and effort to try to emulate another country’s education system and, more important
  • Most of what we teach today is not fit for purpose because it is founded on needs that are centuries out of date.  
  • Focussing on examination results produces great stress for little purpose in future life. 

In its forms and methods, any education is an outgrowth of the needs of the society in which it exists.

Why are we examining students so stressfully on subjects that are less and less relevant when an app on a mobile phone is capable of calculations far more complex than any of us is likely to need.

The things young people need to learn change – and they are changing rapidly now.

The current curricula and methodologies with their outdated examination system no longer suffice, no longer reflecting the world we live in.

In 500 years, education today will surely be looked on in much the same way as we now regard medieval sanitation (appalling), regardless of country.

                                                    —————-

But how and what needs to be changed?  

To ensure that students learn to evaluate and respond to the social, economic, and political consequences of their work will require the development of an entirely new curriculum that gives the next generation of technologists, engineers, scientists, and mathematicians the formal foundations – including shared vocabulary and intellectual frameworks – for considering the macro effects of their actions on society.

Education must become the cornerstone of a more comprehensive long-term strategy to ensure that technology serves society in overwhelmingly positive ways. 

Bringing about change in education by any form of government intervention is impossible and undesirable, also Those in the education industry are too close to it to bring about change.  

Parents should be more involved with the non-academic aspects of their children’s schooling and employers should continue to demand more relevance of education systems around the world.

It seems that every country wants to emulate what they see of value in other country’s education systems.

What is needed is education in topics like “Ethics, Public Policy, and Technological Change” and “Computers, Ethics, and Public Policy.”

So where are we?

Over the centuries, parents have played a major role in their children’s education, so it is impossible to visualize a global education reformation.

All (a teacher) can do is plant some small seed of independent thought. However, if this seed depends increasingly on irrelevant or arcane knowledge, the time and resources spent acquiring high grades is a huge waste for both the individual and society.

In this unpredictable world where everything is a product for consumption informed decision making, creative problem solving, and perhaps above all, adaptability will be what is required. 

                                                  —————

The rapid spread of COVID-19 has demonstrated the importance of building resilience to face various threats, from pandemic disease to extremist violence to climate insecurity, and even, yes, rapid technological change.

In a matter of weeks, coronavirus (COVID-19) has changed how students are educated around the world.

  • The coronavirus pandemic has changed how millions around the globe are educated.
  • New education solutions could bring much-needed innovation.
  • Given the digital divide, new shifts in education approaches could widen equality gaps.

The development of AI should be paired with an ongoing study of its impact on human society if we are to gain a deeper understanding of how technology affects humanity.

So. What could help to overcome the education divide? 

Generally, education is always associated with the process of delivering skills, disseminating knowledge, and internalizing values.  

Not much unfortunately as it is those who are better educated, and who should be sensitive to discrimination – who can benefit – often unknowingly -from the inequality they help to create are in charge.

What is true is if there is a deficit of educated people society as we know it stops its further progress.   

Take for example;

It remains true that the development of a child in the west has nothing in common with developing into a member of society in ancient Greece,  but Education is a combination of the Past and now how to Face the Future. 

“We can’t cut down rainforests forever. And anything that we can’t do forever is by definition, unsustainable” – David Attenborough. Glimpse at How Education Will Possibly Look Like in 2050

 Education will never disappear. It will take up different forms.

Personalized learning.

More e-learning platforms. Etech in the classroom. Digital Literacy. 

Social and Emotional skills as a priority, with accelerated learning and 

teacher as a guide. 

Not limited to a physical school.

Traveling classrooms.  More affordable 

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

Advertisement

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S. WHAT ARE MODERN DAY VALUES AND THEIR ROLE IN OUR LIVES.

20 Saturday Jun 2020

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2020: The year we need to change., A Constitution for the Earth., Capitalism, Climate Change., COVID-19, Dehumanization., Digital age., Disconnection., Economic Depression., Environment, Fourth Industrial Revolution., Future Education., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Human values., Humanity., Inequality., Life., Modern day life., Our Common Values., POST COVID-19., Poverty, Reality., Reverse racism., Survival., Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The state of the World., The world to day., Truth, Unanswered Questions., VALUES, WHAT IS TRUTH, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Economic Depression., World Leaders, World Racism

≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE ASK’S. WHAT ARE MODERN DAY VALUES AND THEIR ROLE IN OUR LIVES.

Tags

, , , , ,

(Twenty-minute read) 

This is a vast subject which is not possible to address in an 800-word blog.

However, values role’s in our lives and their importance is not always fully understood.

Values are the things that are important to us, the foundation of our lives.

What I am interested in here is exploring the influence of technology and its advancement and how it now relates to the modification of cultural values.

Technology commonly exerts a strong influence on daily practices, changing the way values are carried out with each new development.

Will this in the end ‘kill’ our social cohesion and will groups of people be left out? Or will our social interaction become extensive and will our relationships get better? Are there any common values left? 

These are all questions that can’t be answered yet and can only be answered in the future. 

Technology is all around us.

It is so pervasive in our everyday life that it is impossible to get away from it.

It has become almost invisible so that most of us don’t know how to interact in the real world or with our environment, but it is how humans are using technology that is so devastating our common values. 

Before COVID-19 we were already isolating ourselves from physical contact with smartphones.

The virus has pushed us further apart with social distancing, online education, and social platforms replacing almost all forms of entertainment.   

Are we connected better nowadays with social media, or are we worse off?’

One of the aspects of culture and values is social interaction between people. How we behave to one another and in which way we do that. Social media has taken a big role in our social interaction. We no longer have to speak to a person to know what they are doing. We just look on twitter of Facebook. 

Social media and smartphones both are turning us into non-empathic couch potatoes and it is this passive use of technology that is the reason technology is ruining not just our values but humanity itself. 

With the arrival of COVID-19 ( His “epidemic”) technology isn’t allowing the young generation to truly embrace our humanity while creating a gap between generations. 

The real connection such as visual and emotional expressions aren’t shown anymore, because we are looking at a computerized display. This way messages could be understood differently than they should be, because they don’t get to know the real meaning behind the message.

If Facebook was a country, it would be the world’s 3rd largest country in terms of population. 

Now is the opportunity to realize this and that we must use technology as a tool, not reality.

Our overbearing dependence on technology can be detrimental to society.

It is not the be-all and end-all of everything. Everyone is entitled to their own values, attitudes, and beliefs.

For example. From the outside, the cultural values ​​of a group can often be difficult to understand. 

In India, 80% of the population practices the Hindu religion. For the believers of this religion, the figure of the cow is venerated and should not be sacrificed. In western culture, this is a strange cultural value, since cows are a source of food and not of worship. 

or

Some people may see great value in saving the world’s rainforests. However, a person who relies on the logging of a forest for their job may not place the same value on the forest as a person who wants to save it.

——————————————————————————————-

Before the coronavirus crisis exploded and confronted us with a life-and-death threat to every corner of our planet those who worked in what could be called taken for granted jobs we not valued neither in money terms or the essential services they provided to us all.

As a result, society discovered new heroes.

Times of crisis bring out the best in us. Superficial concerns fall away and we rediscover what really matters: Our values.

Now that the Pandemic in the western world is coming under control (we hope) and the murder of a colored man in the USA our worldwide values which have been honed by decades of biased history are coming under the spotlight, not just our personal views but societies as a whole.

BUT WHAT ARE THOSE VALUES AND HAVE DUG DOWN TO CORE VALUES AND WILL WE PUT THEM INTO ACTION?

It is easy to compile a list of personnel values and at the same time aspire to universal values of peace, human dignity, equal human rights, and freedom values.   

They are at the core of our being. They are our motivators, our drivers, the passion in our hearts, the reason we do the things we do and feel the way we feel. They help us to make better choices in life, develop healthy patterns of behavior, and form and maintain meaningful personal relationships.

They are the compass guiding everything we do – our choices and our actions.

So, if we want to change the world for the better, then we have to change
our own behaviors.

Living by your personal values sounds easy—at least in theory. Your values, after all, are simply the things that are important to you in life, so it should be natural to live by them.

Here are some more questions to get you started:

  1. What’s important to you in life?
  2. If you could have any career, without worrying about money or other practical constraints, what would you do?
  3. When you’re reading news stories, what sort of story or behavior tends to inspire you?
  4. What type of story or behavior makes you angry?
  5. What do you want to change about the world or about yourself?
  6. What are you most proud of? 
  7. When were you the happiest?

Think about our most important values and to act on them.

Living your values is about more than the big, long-term goals, however, it’s also about the small, day-to-day decisions. Putting them into action each and every day will have a powerful impact on our own wellbeing, the wellbeing of the groups and communities we belong to, and the wellbeing of the whole world.

The passive use of Technology is the reason technology is ruining our Humanity. 

Why is technology ruining humanity?

The only reason people do things is that life gives them the opportunity to do so. Which by extent, whether they know it or not, implies that people value their life.

Behind every use of technology is a person, as behind every murder, there is also a person.

We are about to pass through a long and very painful period of adjustment which is fraught with danger at the cost of permanently reducing human beings and many other living organisms to engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine.

As the noose of technological enslavement tightens on humanity will our values have any value?

They say that innovations in technology can save the world and is extending democracy. I say that it is concentrating even more power in the hands of a tiny elite.

Personal Values are formulated by a variety of influences, environmental influences including upbringing, religion, friends, family, peers, and, education not by algorithms, virtual reality.    

Until we get better at using technology as a tool I think we’re cooked, we’re going to continue to extinct species and we’re going to continue to dig the hole deeper of the whole eco-social crisis.

If you just hold your cell phone for 30 seconds and think backward through its production you have the entire techno-industrial culture wrapped up there.

You can’t have a smartphone an I pad or use Social media without everything that goes with it. You see mining, transportation, manufacturing, computers, high-speed communications, satellite communications, it’s all there, you see and it’s that techno-industrial culture that’s destroying the world.

The only way we’ll be able to responsibly harness the fruits that technology bears are with a renewed attitude of cooperation and care for the most vulnerable among us.

Technology has given us the tools to reshape how we live in the world; if it also changes the way we interact with our neighbors, it can be transformational.

Technology can inspire progressive social policies. When 62 billionaires have as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population, it’s clear that political principles are skewed toward the influential in business.

Overall, technology has the potential to reduce suffering, fight disease, and level the playing field for the poor if we use it as a tool, not as values.

Values are immensely powerful!

We know that human history is full of hideous, horrible acts, but it is important it explains why things are the way thy are. The problem is that is it not taught in schools without warts so no one gets a free pass.

History is the past it cannot be changed.   

But mature humans don’t live in the past and we need to start seeing each other as fellow humans. If we do so maybe we can start addressing the real cause of inequality in our societies which is our present economic systems. 

However, you don’t have to go into the future to see what is happing.  In the last forty years, we have wiped out 40% of our wildlife, acidified our oceans, pumped CO2 into the atmosphere, destroyed vast regions for livestock, ignored world natural disasters all for the sake of short term profits.  

If we don’t have a fucking healthy biodiversity-ecosystem there will be no need for profits or values.

With world economies, slowly reopening, I won’t hold my breath as it is easier to keep viewing thinks as black and white and profit for profit sake, not Clickbait.       

We all deserve to be treated as human beings of worth.

However because values are culture-bound, what’s good for one culture may be (and often is) deemed an abomination by another.

Herein lies the ultimate irresolvable dilemma.

Culture gives us prescriptions for appropriate conduct. When judging values, we should not speak in terms of right or wrong, black or white rather we should look at competing values in terms of better and worse.

Who’s to say what my values will be in 2030?

When I hear competing values shouted by a person from a different culture than mine, I hope to take a deep breath, realize that he/she is simply expressing a deep need they have, and then perhaps I can share my values and needs without fostering judgment, evaluations of their character, or moralistic analysis.

In the end, compassionate dialogue changes live, not right/wrong judgment, or taking the keen. 

All comments valued. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S THE WORD HOW IS MISSING IN OUR WORLD OF EDUCATION

13 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by in Education.

≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE SAY’S THE WORD HOW IS MISSING IN OUR WORLD OF EDUCATION

Tags

, , ,

 

Eight minutes read.

Back in the 60th, I had a dream that every student after University could access a grant to travel worldwide for a year free before entering the world of earning a living.

There is nothing like travel to open your eyes to the world you live in.

We’re all aware of the fact that education is a universal human right, anywhere in the world.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of education for all"

Equality is a term largely thrown around in political discourse. However, without education, it is an idea that is largely out of reach.

The ultimate goal of the education system was created during the industrial revolution.

Back then young lads like me that had not experienced either world wars were to be brainwashed into conformity. Our current day educational system is still stuck in this mode.

However, due to technology advancement, people are shunning away from education.

Who could blame them?

When the same old system does not guarantee the technical skills that are needed in the current world, they tend to find the information they need online.

With 21st century technology, we have more opportunity and ability to create change than ever before.

We have the power to shape how we think the world should operate, and so far we have not taken advantage of that opportunity.

Technology is actively transforming the world today and will continue to do so whether schools are ready for it or not.

The big difference today is it’s not just about acquiring knowledge. It is about learning in a different way.

If the world around us changes and we do not, how are our students going to be prepared for the jobs of the future — largely technology-based, non-traditional careers?

The current education system is teaching us outdated skills designed for the industrial era, and ignoring modern history; a modern history that will dictate the career paths of current students.

We are depriving the future society of the best foundation possible for a better world by allowing governments to charge for Education.

It is no wonder rather than treating higher education as an investment into the future of a country, at an average of £30/50000 debt young people shay away.

I am sure investors would not hesitate to do their part in planning ahead and securing the future of a nation if for ever pound invested they were rewarded by tax benefits.

Modern education is spreading more ignorance than knowledge.

The word “How” is missing in our world of Education which causes ignorance.

Our education system has developed into mere schooling now. It has become a process of spoon feeding. We are being fed with facts and knowledge without any need to understand how.

Education…has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading. Our schooling does not leave us with time to get educated.

Education provides context to history, art, depth of understanding, and perspective that some people would not otherwise experience. This is part of the traditional role education fulfils in teaching about culture and the transmission of our society’s values.

We cannot assume that the six hours a day a student spends in school is sufficient to teach them to appreciate the riches of our society.

If education wants to capture the attention of children then it must compete with the increasingly effective seductions of commercial offerings.

We must stop teaching the curriculum and start teaching the individual if we are to truly understand the threat that is Artificial intelligence and automation.

Now students finish university spend years looking for anything more than menial labour; the next ten years are going to make this seem like a happy outcome. Within that time frame, we will face an employment crisis that will shake the foundations of our society, our political system, and our economy.

Combined with climate change and ever-increasing protectionism, and inequality the only answer is education, for adults as well as young people.

What is the value of memorizing facts if you can command them with a wave of a search engine?

It is understanding and context that are critically important.

We are headed into a world where creativity and innovative thinking will be more valuable than rote learning of any depth.

We will, instead, need to fall back on those things that are uniquely human, like art, teamwork, leadership, empathy, understanding, creativity, ingenuity, and all of the deeper aspects of human life and society. Computers, robots, and cheaper competition from abroad will take everything else.

Must we wait and see these problems racing towards us? Do we have the will do to something about them? Those are the questions that will determine why and how we need to change education.

Online education is booming.

Is this the solution to education ie distance learning?

Hundreds, if not thousands, of online colleges courses in dozens of fields, are now are open to distance learners making it possible for students to receive advanced training and earn college or university degrees without having to leave their native countries.

Online education is booming in poorer countries, which promises to raise the economic and social conditions in these countries.

There is also a potentially darker side to online education as well.

As demand increases and technology develops, companies will want to get a piece of the action by promoting their goods and services. This is part of the inevitable mix of money and education.

Not all “schooling” is “education,” and not all “education” is “schooling.

The new generation of student is born digital and the current system was designed in a different era and structured for a different society.

WE NEED TO RENEW OUR SENSE OF COMMON DESTINY WITH THE WORLD AROUND US.

In the current climate, the true meaning of education has been lost. There are few educators today and there are too many trainers.

Something with specific and determined ends is schooling, not education.

Education is something we should value for its own sake, not for another purpose – it is an end in itself, not a means.

If you actually educate children and young people properly they will learn to think for themselves rather than just being indoctrinated – which is what “education for social justice” actually means.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

THE BEADY EYE SAYS: OUR EDUCATION IS OUT OF DATE.

24 Tuesday Jan 2017

Posted by in Artificial Intelligence., Education, HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Modern day life., Technology, The Future, The world to day., Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World

≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE SAYS: OUR EDUCATION IS OUT OF DATE.

Tags

, , ,

( A three-minute read for all Educators)

I see the movement towards AI and robotics as evolutionary, in large part because it is such a sociological leap. The technology may be ready, but we are not—at least, not yet.

It is widely agreed that education is the most effective means that society possesses for confronting the challenges of the future.Afficher l'image d'origine

Indeed, education will shape the world of tomorrow NOT TECHNOLOGY.

The changes we have seen in the past 20 years may one day seem trivial compared with those of the coming decades.

Robotics and Artificial Intelligence will permeate wide segments of daily life by 2025, with huge implications for a range of industries such as health care, transport and logistics, customer service, and home maintenance.

There will be a vast displacement of labor over the next decade.

The most critical question facing the academic world is something far more fundamental THAN OBTAINING A DEGREE:

Our system of education forces students to “qualify” in something.

Although this works reasonably well in service to core professional competencies, this arbitrary structure does little to encourage breadth of education.

Namely, what it will mean to be an educated person in the 21st century.

One of the great challenges for students and our schools, UNIVERSITIES is to evolve beyond the narrow confines of “disciplines” and embrace the chaos and uncertainty of a rapidly changing world, bearing in mind that the “discipline” of today is the forgotten history of the future.

It is for this reason that education is the primary agent of transformation towards sustainable development.

It is also for this reason that society must be deeply concerned that much of the education presently on offer falls far short of what is required.

Improving the quality and coverage of education and reorienting its goals to recognize the importance of sustainable development must be among society’s highest priorities.

The world has changed a lot in the last 150 years, but we humans are driven by the same basic needs as we were 150 years ago, food, sleep, sex, the feeling of being appreciated and loved. Will this change in the next 150 years? No.

Where a notebook and pen may have formed the tool kit of prior generations, today’s students come to class armed with smart phones, laptops and iPods.

Curricula are created as if there are predictable paths to careers, we are basically teaching students to be status-quo oriented.  And they will find little supply of status quo in the future.

Will this new generation of leaders be innovators, or followers?  Strong, resilient problem solvers, or servants of the status quo?

The answer has everything to do with education  . . . or how education is adapted to the realities and wonderful opportunities of the not-too-distant future.

A brand new generation of business and institutional leaders is taking the reins.

The world has continued to shrink and is much, much smaller.  Technology has continued an unabated, unchecked progression; what is now futuristic has become commonplace.  Complexity is the daily norm, and change the only constant. Opportunities, problems and grand challenges abound.

Sweeping technological changes will effectively change the skill-sets of the future workforce, as well as its approach to work in general.Afficher l'image d'origine

As a result, societies around the world will need to consider how to make their educational programs to understand the impact of our individual and collective actions on ourselves and on the biosphere as a whole to make the most of these new opportunities.

Today people are more aware than ever of global realities but ill-equipped both to understand or influence those realities.

Education increases the capacities of people to transform their visions of society into operational realities.

Circumstances change and change rapidly, and the career students think they are preparing for today will simply disappear in ten years.

Students need an education that will leave them resilient and  prepared to turn on a pin prick.

In a sense all of this can be summarized as the need to teach students to dare, to experiment and to fail with joy.

Leadership:    As a discipline, a thing to be practiced and learned, leadership is a woefully low priority in education.

Authenticity:   Learning about yourself is perhaps the single most important outcome of a powerful educational experience.  Self-awareness can lead to an ever-increasing authenticity, which in turn leads to powerful leadership abilities.

Everyone will have multiple jobs, careers and life experiences and rarely will any one way of thinking or one path to career preparation have a very long shelf life.

Technological innovation, long a hallmark of academic research, may now be changing the very way that universities teach and students learn.

Conformity, and dumbing down by interconnected technology will result in a world where so few will dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of our time.Afficher l'image d'origineAll comments welcome. All like clicks chucked in the bin.

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: EDUCATION IS NOT KNOWLEDGE

11 Monday Apr 2016

Posted by in Education

≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: EDUCATION IS NOT KNOWLEDGE

Tags

, ,

 

Quite recently I wrote a Post under the heading  : Are we all being Dumbed down. Have a look.

Many great people throughout history have claimed to be educated.Afficher l'image d'origine

But what does it mean these days to be educated?

Once upon a time a long time ago it was the ability to read ,write, add subtract and divide and multiply. Know the highest mountain the longest river in what country where. Who said what, in which play and who were your mother and father. All tested to see if you could go to University.

These days being educated cannot be determined by any means of standardized tests. Being graded in school can actually be quite degrading. Assigning a quality value to a young human being is simply not humanistic.

We should get rid of it as soon as possible and start building a system that would foster individuals who know how to push the progress of humanity forward. Because progress and innovation starts with embracing mistakes and failure and taking a risk in order to get to a greater good.

Education is not knowledge, although commonly confused as such.

A huge part of education is the consumption of knowledge.

The ability to listen carefully is the most effective way to absorb information on a subject.

Knowledge is being learned of many things, where as education is having an understanding of many things.

To be educated is having the ability to listen carefully, think critically, and explore viewpoints different from one’s own.

A listener must adamantly listen to each sentence, extract the idea within, ponder it, and chose to believe it or not.

The more one learns, the more one will realize that they know nothing.

The first step to becoming educated is to humble oneself to learn that they do not know.

The foundation of the society is based on education since it brings economic and social prosperity. It is through education that Technological advancement has been realized enabling communication and production of cost effective products and services to the society at large.

Google does not educate with its thoughtless accumulation of knowledge.

Twitter is trying to do so with iPads in Africa. Facebook is self-gratification. Social Media and the Internet is disconnecting us from what matters by overload of information and confusion.

This being said, the majority of the men and women who run the government that sets laws and restrictions on its people are not educated. Not to say that government officials are not qualified to hold their positions, but a majority of these men and women do not meet the criteria to be categorized as educated. Many politicians are controlled by their parties and do not make decisions on their own.

Because of these reasons, one will never know if a political figure is faking it and not living by his or her own ideas, or if they are one of the very few who truly speak what they believe. This is why the uneducated love the Donald Trumps of this world.

One cannot form opinions on a matter with a smart phone if that person does not know about that matter.

Dialogue is importance to the process of education. A society filled with people who understand themselves in relation to the others around them is a much better place to live.

Although an education can be paid for, no one can physically give you an education.

Experience and emotion are our real teachers.

I would like to see an educational system that embraces independent thought, personal talents, making mistakes along the way, humanistic values and fostering creativity and uniqueness.

I believe that education helps us achieve what we want to do but it’s actually up to each and every one of us to carry through.

I will argue that the primary long-term moral obligation of the world’s over-privileged have to the underprivileged is to provide those in need with the means necessary to develop a foundation for fair future interactions.

This will lead to the idea that a necessary part of the long-term obligation to the underprivileged, in addition to the redistribution of economic and material resources, is the redistribution of ideas and knowledge through educational programs.

I believe taking this argument seriously we could build a foundation for the creation of new kinds of international cooperation and understanding.

History has been traditionally told from the point of view of those with wealth and education.

But to truly understand history one must understand the history of the people who were not writing the history which includes the nation’s minorities, working class and those without a high level of education. Society is made up of a variety of people and history is not complete without telling all of their stories.

Our educational system is archaic.

It emerged in the time of the Industrial Revolution and it is designed to cater to that time of history and not current social reality. Education is still trying to grind children down to the size that would fit the needs of the industrial revolution. We can see this in the way we assign importance to different subjects.

It is inexcusable that we have so little useful life knowledge and skills. We should be spending much more time thinking critically, analyzing information instead of just learning it.

Let’s put the emphasis on the really fascinating stuff like the beauty, complexity and diversity of life instead of knowing each and every chemical reaction that is part of the Krebs cycle for Biology.

Let’s put the emphasis of Physics on the miseries of the universe and the mindbogglingly paradoxes of the quantum world instead of solving interchangeable mathematical problems and learning formulas by heart.

Let’s use Math class to talk about statistics and use it to analyze our own schools, lives and communities striving to understand things that matter to us and learning to do the math that goes with the analysis along the way. When there’s a will, there’s a way. We just need to recognize the deficiencies and start addressing them.

Our education is based on stereotyping people and so is our society, which is now desperately in need of free education. Not education with massive debt.

To my mind if we really want to get rid of inequality in the world and promote peace there is no better way than investing in Education.

So go now, and look with your newly educated eyes at this world and be sure to call me as soon as you hear about anywhere that’s looking into cyber-eye implants.

Afficher l'image d'origine

THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE IN THE WORLD: PART TWO: EDUCATION.

30 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by in Education, Humanity., Modern Day Communication., Social Media., Technology, The Future, The Internet., Unanswered Questions., Where's the Global Outrage.

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

Education can contribute significantly to the promotion of mutual understanding and tolerance.

Today’s revolution in social communications involves a fundamental reshaping of the elements by which people comprehend the world about them, and verify and express what they comprehend. The internet has significant effects on communicating, teaching and learning.

What today is called the digital divide, will be the Educational Disaster of the Future.

Afficher l'image d'origine

It takes a wide range of different communication styles to get across to all the different learning styles that exist, but as our modern world evolves and becomes more sophisticated, so must our learning institutions.

Technology enthusiasts have long heralded the power of technology—from the printing press, to blackboards, to the laptop—to transform education.

The potential of technology to help improve education has significance beyond teaching children reading and math.

Quality education plays an important role in promoting economic development, improving health and nutrition and reducing maternal and infant mortality rates. Economic growth, for example, can be directly impacted by the quality of the education systems in developing countries.

Our first problem is that the internet is not always accessible by all learners and teachers. The second problem is though English all over the world is taught widely as a second language its is the primary language of the internet.

As a result in most of the non-English speaking parts of the world the internet it is only a tool for educational activities.

In my previous post in this series we looked at Communication.

I ended that post by stating that Education is Communication.

With most of the world deprived of any Internet connection we are WiFi our way to a digital divide that will have more than serious consequences for those countries but for all of us. 

Of course, education has used technology for centuries, from blackboards to textbooks, yet in recent history very little has changed in how education is delivered.Afficher l'image d'origine

Modern information and communications technology holds great promise in helping bring quality learning to some of the world’s poorest and hardest to reach communities. But it is highly unlikely that this will happen.

Many emerging and developing nations will be left out of the internet revolution entirely.

Indeed, in some of the most remote regions of the globe, mobile phones and other forms of technology are being used in ways barely envisioned in the United States or Europe.

Here are a few examples.

About half of online Chinese (52%) have used the internet to buy products in the past 12 months.

Majorities of internet users in Bangladesh (62%) and India (55%) say they have looked for a job online in the past year.

54% of internet users across emerging and developing countries use the internet to get political news and information.

In Venezuela, three-quarters of cell phone owners (who constitute 88% of the adult population) use their device to take pictures or video.

More than six-in-ten internet users in Poland (64%) say they have gotten health information online in the past 12 months.

Over half of the reduction in child mortality worldwide since 1970 is linked to “increased educational attainment in women of reproductive age.”Internet Has Most Positive Influence on Education, Least Positive on Morality

Back to Education.

Four years ago the iPad didn’t even exist.

We don’t know what will be the current technology in another four. Perhaps it will be wearable devices such as Google Glass.

You don’t have to be a genius or a clairvoyant to see that Education as we know it is rapidly becoming obsolete.

So what is the future?

On the possibilities of recent forms of technology, often known as Information Communication Technology (ICT). ICT refers to technologies that provide access to information through telecommunications. It is generally used to describe most technology uses and can cover anything from radios, to mobile phones, to laptops.

The future is about access, anywhere learning and collaboration, both locally and globally.

But the questions are:

What will education be? Who or what will be doing the Education? For what purpose?  Is it desirable that we all end up being educated by the cloud if the future of education technology is all about the cloud and anywhere access. 

Thanks to the cloud and mobile devices, technology will be integrated into every part of school. In fact, it won’t just be the classrooms that will change. Games fields, gyms and school trips will all change. Whether offsite or on site the school, teachers, students and support staff will all be connected.

In my ideal world, all classrooms will be paperless.

Unfortunately educators working in and with developing countries rarely have an expertise or even a basic grounding in the wide range of technological innovations and their potential uses for education.

Even the most seasoned education expert is likely to stare blankly if terms such as ‘cloud computing’, ‘m-learning’, or ‘total cost of ownership’ are introduced into the conversation.

Students will take ownership of their own learning. Rather than being ‘taught.’

Students can learn independently and in their own way. They could be in the same room or in different countries.

Will this form of education be mass brainwashing?

The cloud will set, collect and grade work online. Students will have instant access to grades, comments and work via a computer, smart phone or tablet.

The great disadvantage will be the lack of oral communication.

The iPads and other mobile technology are the ‘now’.

Reflecting western style democracy.

Schools of the future could have a traditional cohort of students, as well as online only students who live across the country or even the world. Things are already starting to move this way with the emergence of massive open online courses (MOOCs).

Infrastructure is paramount to the future of technology in education.

This should be happening now.

Teaching and learning is going to be social but people are even more leery of the internet’s effect on morality. It is should be driven by the question: How is this changing your capacity to engage the world effectively?

Universities should teach students how to deal with a world in constant motion, a world that doesn’t come labeled and arranged for you, a world in which you have to work with a lot of other people both because you need their help and because they need to understand why you think what you’re doing makes sense.

This is what is going to be importance to our world which is reminding us so every day of the week that Inequality is at the source of all our troubles.

We’ve lost sight of this, but we can reclaim it through education. 

It is possible to say that technology is not a purpose but only a tool for all humanistic necessities. This at the moment is totally untrue.

If you don’t believe me, look a Wall Street.

 The winner in this process will be humanity as a whole” and not just “a wealthy elite that controls science, technology and the planet’s resources”;

The Internet transmit and help instill a set of cultural values—ways of thinking about social relationships, family, religion, the human condition—whose novelty and glamour can challenge and overwhelm traditional cultures.

The Internet far from diminishing our concern to develop this earth, the expectancy of a new earth should spur us on, for it is here in Education that the body of a new human family grows, foreshadowing in some way the age which is to come”

The Internet can make an enormously valuable contribution to human life. It can foster prosperity and peace, intellectual and aesthetic growth, mutual understanding among people’s and nations on a global scale. If it is married into Education for all.

 

Afficher l'image d'origine

 

Wall Street : Every trillionth of a second shares, stock, currency, futures, are bought and sold for profit by Computer programs.

It’s no wonder that a median of only 29% say the internet is a good influence on morality, while 42% say it is a bad influence.

There’s still a way to go to ensure all schools are ready for the future of technology.

So go now, and look with your newly educated eyes at this world.

Afficher l'image d'origine

If students aren’t proficient in their studies to begin with and technology is used incorrectly, a whole mess of problems will arise.

The Beady Eye looks at what is wrong with Modern day Education.

05 Sunday Jul 2015

Posted by in Education, Sustaniability, Technology, The Future

≈ Comments Off on The Beady Eye looks at what is wrong with Modern day Education.

Tags

, , , , , ,

Every person is an individual; they think differently, so wouldn’t it make sense that they all learn differently?

Consumerism tells us that in order to be happy we must consume as many products and services as possible.

Unfortunately the modern world does little to combat this. However more and more spheres of activity are being shaken out of their complacent ways.

Education is one of these spheres that needs to be redefined. We are fast approaching a new Singularity: when all the concepts that give meaning to our world – me, you, men, woman, love, hate-will become irrelevant.

So the big question for all of us is-what we want to become.

A question that dwarf the debates that currently preoccupy all of us.

After all if we don’t come to grips that we all live on the one planet and that all of to days debates between today’s religions, ideologies, nations, classes, will in all likelihood disappear along with all of us.  If we don’t learn to educate for sustainability rather than consumption and Slavery to information and knowledge owned by Google a by-product of capitalism.

There is little point in going to Space, or anywhere else if we are represented by Artificial Intelligence.

It is not a lack of education, but a lack of creativity, and an inability to independently think for ourselves that is the problem with Modern day Education.

For nearly a century, societies have believed that higher education is necessary for success, but the opposite is true with the modern version of education.

For instance, most of the high-tech companies were created by high school dropouts, who dream’t of doing something that nobody else had done.

You won’t find such inventive and pioneering attitudes in those who have been through school, college, and then university.  Students are trained to only strive for self-limiting ‘reachable goals’. 

For a lot of people out there, it is time to realize that creative, independent, free thought is more important than anything they can learn at any university.

To teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain.”

“I never let my schooling interfere with my education.” — Mark Twain

So let’s have a look with the Beady Eye. (This is a “think piece” intended to stimulate thought and discussion, rather than a scholarly manuscript.) We just didn’t have time to address every social issue that surrounds education.

The term education is derived from Latin word educere, educare, and educatum which means ‘to learn’, ‘to know’, and to ‘lead out’. Education is an act or process of imparting or acquiring general or particular knowledge or skills, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.

But rest assured that nobody cares about learning when they can’t even feed themselves.

In the primitive era indigenous education is said to be the significant resource for development, but in recent times it is said that modern education is the significant resource for material wealth. 

There is no argument that both types of education play a significant role in development of our world and that both type are precious tools to life, to put one’s potentials to use.

But how do we explain the fact that those who had spent the most time in college are also the most unsuccessful.

It is due to what we think education is for in the first place.

Technology enthusiasts have long heralded the power of technology—from the printing press, to blackboards, to the laptop—to transform education.

So far it has done little to impact educational processes and outcomes.

A young girl is using her mobile phone to send an SMS message in Urdu to her teacher. The girl is part of a Mobilink-UNESCO program to increase literacy skills among girls in Pakistan.  It is not. Why?  Because the education is in English (which is deemed to be the only language to learn if you want to understand the Modern Capitals World) not her language.

She is being turned into one of the ultra-conformists that Google and modern schools seek to mass-produce.  She will become one of the ones that couldn’t make it in the real world – her world.

No human beings are able to survive properly without education. Untrue.

The training of a human mind is not complete without education. Untrue.

Only because of education a man is able to receive information from the external humanity, to notify him with past and receive all essential information concerning the present. Untrue.

What is true is that indigenous educating in ones native tongue has created culture for millennium. In so doing ensuring their survival as a culture. Indigenous means originating in and characteristic of a particular region or country. It can also mean native, innate, inherent, or natural, produced, growing, or lliving, naturally in a country or climate; not exotic; not imported.

In the absence of writing, indigenous people depended on the power of their memories to facilitate the retention and transmission of all learned ideas to future generations.

Now its the power of Google, Facebook and the Smart Phone that is dumming us all down to a click for knowledge.

The debate is whether the power of mobile phone technology, will help hurdle several education barriers by finding new ways to support learning for rural girls or boys in insecure areas.

The point here is that we must protect verity, not to become copies of each other.

WHAT IS MODERN EDUCATION:

It is education that is synonymous with colonial, western or Christian education. Modern education can be understood as a by- product of the capitalist regime the terror of the ecosystem.

With the rapid expansion of information communication technologies around the globe, there is a high level of misdirected interest in harnessing modern technology to help advance the education status of some of the world’s poorest people at the cost of loosing their cultural values.  

Indigenous education was for everyone in the community and existed for the purpose of strengthening the community while Modern education is for everyone in the society for the purpose of strengthening the society.

Indigenous education taught children their own indigenous culture based within their own society while Modern education brings in cultures from another societies. 

The potential of technology to help improve education has significance beyond teaching children reading and math.

Quality education plays an important role in promoting economic development, improving health and nutrition and reducing maternal and infant mortality rates.

We look back on our past, and learn from our experiences.

There are many forms of Education.

Visual learning: Power point presentations, videos, and word documents.

Auditory learning has the most basic tool to learn- your voice. Through speaking and lectures.

Tactile learning involves physical hands-on activities, and therefore can take several forms.

Special attention, programs for students who need extra help to learn.

Education is in upheaval, with free online classes proliferating, tuition surging and public universities struggling. Perhaps worst of all, too many students leave school with high debt and no degrees. The endless chase for prestige and the resort-like marketing of college has nothing to do with Education.

Massive open online courses, or MOOCs, are just one of these upheavals.

Others include initiatives to grant credit for “competency” in skills rather than time spent in class; digital systems to help match students to the right colleges and guide them to the most efficient course of study to obtain a degree; and hybrid learning environments at schools.

When  ‘cloud computing’, ‘m-learning’, or ‘total cost of ownership’ are introduced into the conversation no one knows where education is going.

Therefore, education has become a basic principle to measure the labor market on the basis of essential skills and the ability to appropriate them through suitable communication. The knowledge gained through education enables individuals’ potential to be optimally utilized owing to training of the human mind. Employment in the contemporary world is based on education, as employees must possess the required skills that correspond with the current technology to perform their tasks.

It is said that Information Communication Technology (ICT). (ICT refers to technologies that provide access to information through  telecommunications). is generally used to describe most technology uses and can cover anything from radios, to mobile phones, to laptops combined with technology holds great promise in helping bring quality learning to some of the world’s poorest and hardest to reach communities.

It does nothing to teach common culture and values. Other than through this type of education that Technological advancement has been realized enabling communication and production of cost-effective products and services to the society at large.

Education is an important tool that is applied in the contemporary world to succeed, as it mitigates the challenges which are faced in life. Untrue.

Everyone is an expert in something. A modern-day form of segregation.

In many ways, higher education is like any industry that has produced its product a particular way for a long time and is suspicious of anything new.

Teaching skills require a shift away from designing curricula based on topics and subjects and toward creating experiences where learners can choose their own objectives.”You can’t make socialists out of individualists. Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming, where everyone is interdependent.”

— John Dewey, Father of Modern Education

Indeed, in some of the most remote regions of the globe, mobile phones and other forms of technology are being used in ways barely envisioned in the United States or Europe.

Will a technological future fix any of this? I hope so.

The lack of clear distinctions between service and education is blatantly visible in the world.

Experience alone cannot define its educational value without understanding its relationship to the individual learner.

Designating students for separate educational paths based on their academic performance as teens or younger is a worthless use of resources.

There is hope.

We’re already starting to see how tech-savvy people are using the web, software, and devices to connect those who have with those who don’t.

Can education help fix any of this? And not just in terms of stitching together technology, neuroscience, and learning design, but also in stitching together opportunity, safety, support, and care. We can only hope so.

We have much to do.

So far the educated Sapiens regime on EARTH has produced little that we can be proud off.

Despite the astonishing things that humans are capable of doing we remain unsure of our goals and we seem to be as disconnected as ever. No one seems to know where we’re going.

Self made Gods with only the laws of physics to keep us company. Wreaking havoc all around us, yet not finding happiness. It’s time we started to reeducate ourselves. So, do we need to revert to old school education in this new age techno world?

For starters you’d have to do away with the internet and the array of electronic gadgets that are so much a part of our children’s everyday lives.

The truth, as I see it, is that we are caught in an inexorable grind of change and human evolution. Towards what, God only knows, but it will obviously influence our children’s education, and their future. Finally, regardless of how out-of-control today’s schoolchildren appear, it may well be a matter of perception coloured by the nature of our own reality as adults.

I think some people teach solely because of that very belief.

Learning is a life-long endeavor.

The imparting and acquiring of knowledge. Is modern education spreading more ignorance than knowledge.

23 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in Education

≈ Comments Off on The imparting and acquiring of knowledge. Is modern education spreading more ignorance than knowledge.

Tags

, , , ,

Modern day education is aided with a variety of technology, computers, projectors, internet, and many more.

I am entirely certain that is fifty years or less from now we will look back at education as it is practiced in most schools and universities today and wonder that we could have tolerated anything so primitive.  Why?

Because the greatest innovation in the world is the demand for equality of opportunity and that comes primarily through education which unfortunately these days is lacking the words “How” “Look ” “Understand”.

These three missing words in our world of Education are causes ignorance.

They can only be brought back as the backbone of Education if we stop educating for the Market Place and educate for ability to make yourself do the things you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not.

The Internet provides abysmal knowledge at just a click of the mouse; there is no end to it. 93 percent of students search online rather than go to the library, and Wikipedia is the most used research resource.

There is no doubting that Technology has had an amazing impact on education in the last few years. The impact of Internet on education can be felt in homes, schools, colleges, universities.

However the Internet has proven to be a double-edged sword for education and we must now ask the question, are traditional higher education approaches fit for purpose for the modern world?

A broader definition of learning is needed that better accounts for the intricate nature of learning in times of complex technological and social contexts.

What we’ve seen so far is nothing compared to the sea change that will be created by the Internet of Everything (IoE) in the coming decade.

The networked connections among people, processes, data and things will change not just how and where education is delivered, but will also redefine what students need to learn, and why.

People today generally agree that the purpose of education is to convey knowledge. But if all the world’s knowledge is instantaneously available online via smart phone or Google Glass, how does that affect what we need to teach in school?

Perhaps education will become less about acquiring knowledge, and more about how to analyze, evaluate, and use the unlimited information that is available to us.

Perhaps we will teach more critical thinking, collaboration, and social skills.

Perhaps we will not teach answers, but how to ask the right questions.

Regardless of gender, race, age, geographic location, language or any disability, the internet gives an equal chance to all to progress in the field of education.

Information Superhighway along with personal computers is fast transforming the world of Education.

Not only our planet but the whole universe has become accessible.

We are being fed with facts and knowledge. Not art, not books, but life itself is the true basis of teaching and learning.

Education is  producing a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.

Our Education Instituted were created in the era of the assembly line.  Built for an industrial era not for the Technological Revolution now taking place.

The very concept of what a university is, what academia is, has change.

Technological innovation is creating less uniformity in higher education.

These days or Tech experts believe market factors will push universities to expand online courses, create hybrid learning spaces, move toward ‘lifelong learning’ models and different credentialing structures by the year 2020.

But they disagree about how these whirlwind forces will influence education, for the better or the worse.

For a millennium, universities have been considered the main societal hub for knowledge and learning.

Universities have survived intact through the sweeping societal changes created by technology—the moveable-type printing press, the Industrial Revolution, the telegraph, telephone, radio, television, and computers. Like every thing else they are susceptible to tech disruption as other information-centric. (Industries such as the news media, magazines and journals, encyclopedias, music, motion pictures, and television.)

As a result the cost of university education is growing higher and higher which is totally unsustainable particularly in the light of the growing global demand for such education. For me it is the duty of the richer nations to educate its next generation for Free. This could be easily achieved by placing an education tax on all gambling.

(In the case of poorer nations it can only be achieved by capping Greed. ( see previous posts; 0.05% World Aid Commission on all High Frequency Trading, on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions, and on all Foreign Exchange Transactions over $20,000.)

Students and parents, stretched by rising tuition costs, are increasingly challenging the affordability of a university degree as well as the diploma’s ultimate value as an employment credential.

As a result heightened inequalities may arise based upon instructional delivery formats.

The transmission of knowledge need no longer be tethered to a college campus.

The technical affordability of cloud-based computing, digital textbooks, mobile connectivity, high-quality streaming video, and “just-in time” information gathering have pushed vast amounts of knowledge to the “place less” Web and privately held, online instructional delivery firm.

Nonprofit learning organizations such as the Khan Academy, commercial providers of lecture series, online services such as iTunes U, and a host of specialized training centers that provide instruction and credentials for particular trades and professions.

All these can easily scale online instruction delivery more quickly than can brick-and-mortar institutions and will present themselves as challengers for-profit universities.

Requirements for graduation will be significantly shifted to customized outcomes leading to ‘customized’ education for people from different class backgrounds.

Significant numbers of learning activities will move to individualized, just-in-time learning approaches. There will be a transition to “hybrid” classes that combine online learning components with less-frequent on-campus, in-person class meetings. The technology will allow for more individualized, passion-based learning by the student, greater access to master teaching, and more opportunities for students to connect to others—mentors, peers, sources— for enhanced learning experiences.

There will be mass adoption of teleconferencing and distance learning to leverage expert resources. Distance learning.

As communications technologies improve and we learn how to use them better, the requirement for people to meet face-to-face for effective teaching and learning will diminish. The high cost of face to-face instruction, the improvement of AI will be major factors in individualizing education.

Research will increasingly be driven out from behind the high-premium-pay walls of academic journals and into the open, where scholars and the public can more easily benefit from government-funded and grant supported research projects.

While people will be accessing more resources in classrooms through the use of large screens, teleconferencing, and personal wireless smart devices, most universities will still mostly require in-person, on-campus attendance of students most of the time at courses featuring a lot of traditional lectures.

Most universities’ assessment of learning and their requirements for graduation will be about the same as they are now. Assessments will take into account more individually oriented outcomes and capacities that are relevant to subject mastery. Universities are not just portals where students access learning, they are places in which people develop as social beings.

In 2020, higher education will not be much different from the way it is today

The good man who can speak well will not be brought about by techno-based thinking. Teaching is not about holding on to huge amounts of information; it is more about giving direction to the thought in individual minds.

It is obvious that the Internet has and will continue to change the way we live. How it is changed, and how it will continue to do so is to be seen.

Around the world, millions of children are not in school: 57 million primary school children and 69 million secondary school children are denied a basic education.

I know that you do not have to be told that if we want to change this selfish chaotically world we have to strive for free education for all.

An education that emphases values.

The brain flourishes freely and ideas blossom marvelously when they are given an open sky and a broad horizon.

The most sought after skill today is creativity.