Shevek Pring

The problems facing education are not new, nor are the concepts for innovative change, in fact the Distinguished Professor E. E. Erikson of Utah spoke of the innovations necessary in education in 1971 in New York (McMurrin 1971). 50 years on and we are still trying to meet the challenge of changing education through innovation. So how do we differ from previous iterations? The reality is that Education has almost exclusively inhabited a product innovation space; different ways of offering products (curriculum, qualifications etc) and services (teaching styles, learning spaces etc). The aim here is to deliver on paradigm innovation; changes in the underlying mental models which frame what education is, and to underpin this with position innovation; the context in which the products and services are introduced for the elements of education that continue, by necessity, to be delivered under the old paradigm (ie qualification elements where radical change would significantly disadvantage learners due to the overwhelming adoption of the current system). Real life, the engagement of which is the ultimate outcome of education, is firmly of the complexity model; based on nonlinear causality. Highly contextualised real-world situations requiring a line of best fit approach that encompasses incomplete data sets and multiple perspectives. There is no one right answer available.

The principles of education have always been apparent to power as a means of generating a workforce capable of suiting the labour market; in this regard the political will behind education reform is no different from the motivations behind rearing cattle. Of course, the education of the elite has always differed, and contained the esoteric as a means of raising and maintaining the ruling class from those who would be providing for the economic means of a nation. If we are lucky, from the legacy of such questionable history, the academically and artistically gifted manage to prevail. But this is despite, not because of, our education system.

To what extent are we willing to remain shackled to the history of an education system born of the industrial revolution and within the mindset of the enlightenment. How much are we a slave to our history regardless of how it serves us? In all other respects, economic, political, technological, we have moved forward within our society and consider the past versions of our endeavours to be now consigned to our past. Not so in education where learning by rote and judgement by examination within the narrow confines of an academic curriculum remain somehow a beacon of excellence rather than the very real demonstration of a nation who’s efforts have failed the next generation.

What, then, is the answer? How do we move the concept of education forward and make it fit for purpose for the world the next generation will inhabit instead of the world of the past? There are some basic conceptual shifts that can make all the difference and will provide a structure for the betterment of both the society of tomorrow and the individual.

To create change the basic concepts of what education is for must be laid out. Education must, as a fundamental principle be a mechanism for developing a critical understanding in students of;

1. The society in which they live
2. Themselves
3. The world they will inherit
4. The contextualisation of the world as it currently is

Contained within these basic precepts is the whole of human culture, obviously it is not possible to teach students all of this, and indeed there is no need to; people have developed many excellent structures for storing and recalling information that are now at the fingertips of learners across the planet. If the sum of human knowledge can be accessed readily by almost anyone, what then is the benefit of learning by rote? Surely the focus must be put on how the knowledge can be accessed and critically understood; the research, discussion, enquiry and discernment of the information available become the skillset of the future. Access to knowledge is no longer the defining feature of what should be valued in education, the critical analysis and relative merit of what is available as sources of information must be the focus, or else the knowledge available becomes meaningless in the white noise of all that can be accessed so easily. Are we teaching students to be critical of their sources, to understand bias, to know how to rely on what is available? Do they know how to navigate their way through what is available and therefore do the following two things;

1. Access knowledge intelligently, rationally, and critically in order to advance their understanding of the fundamental principles above?
2. Contribute meaningfully through opinion, research, innovation, and creativity to the existing body of knowledge available?

If what we teach cannot, and indeed should not, be adequately defined, therefore we must look instead at how we teach. The paradigm through which education is viewed by The Outdoors Group includes the following 5 elements, learners should be able to access education;

1. Experientially
2. Through Project Based Learning
3. That is Learner Led 
4. Holistically
5. Outdoors

These are the 5 elements that form the foundation of future learning, the first principles from which a robust and future proof mechanism for learning can be developed that is not only suitable for the intellectual and economic challenges of the future, but that is also future proofed against an increasingly fast paced and uncertain world.