t has been nearly nine months since the COVID-19 pandemic caused the shutdown of schools across the world resulting in over 1.5 billion learners out of school. Since then, schools have readjusted and adapted in various ways; some cities and localities have seen schools closed again. With recent encouraging news of successful vaccine trials and 2021 soon approaching, we take this moment to look back on the state of education in this tumultuous year with views from authors from the Education Disrupted, Education Reimagined e-book, while looking ahead to what the near future brings.
Throughout human history, humanity has been driven by the desire to learn, grow, improve, travel, move and innovate. And through all the efforts and struggles, it is fair to say we have learned more from failure than success, more from discomfort than comfort, and more from disruption than tranquility. As Deborah Kimathi, from Dignitas in Kenya reminds us, ‘’Disruption is rarely comfortable.’’ However, ‘’If we use the disruption wisely, it helps us rediscover vision and purpose, and refocus on what is most critical.’’
2020 as an Accelerator of Critical Future Trends in Education
From what we have seen this year in education, Deborah sees a number of trends that will emerge due to COVID-19. One of these trends is that, ‘’learning is only meaningful if a child's most basic needs are taken care of, including their socio-emotional needs. Socio-emotional learning must take center stage in the recovery period.’’ The pandemic has forced us to prioritize well-being over economic growth, for ourselves and the planet. Since the industrial revolution our education system was built with the primary purpose of providing labour to maximize economic growth. This could be a turning point where we decide a new purpose of education. The second trend that Deborah sees is that, ‘’we can no longer fail to invest in leadership. Crisis, disruption, and recovery call for a strength of leadership to ensure all children have the opportunity to thrive.’’ School leaders were really put to the test this year. They had to juggle between government actions, public health concerns, and their students' education in a time of public anger and mistrust of public officials.
The impact of COVID-19 the in the classrooms of 2020 will be long felt afterwards. Students have lost precious time between March and June, particularly close to examinations in many contexts. Many children whose education has been interrupted will not return to school. Those who have been able to stay in education have had very different experiences of online and remote learning, which has had mixed results at best.
Lorenzo Benussi, Chief Innovation Officer of Fondazione Scuola in Italy, reminds us to take the middle approach, ‘’It is increasingly clear to teachers and to the general public that quality teaching and learning can happen both remotely and in person. In short, technology is an issue, not the issue.’’ Going forward, places of learning will need to be more agile and blended, the brick and mortar school created towards the end of the 19th century is changing. Furthermore, as Lorenzo puts it, with the increased importance of digital tools, “We are seeing a continuous increase in the digital competence of teachers, as well as an increase in their ability and willingness to collaborate and learn from one another.” Learning as a process rather than a place.
However, Xueqin Jiang, an education consultant based in China, is concerned about the imbalance left behind due to COVID-19. “My greatest fear is that 2020 will have created the conditions for public education not to be reimagined, but corrupted. COVID-19 tested how well schools had taught meta-learning skills, and the best schools left everyone behind.’’ There are some important learning opportunities here for schools around the world.
Jiang reiterates the importance of sticking together, “Post-2020, educators must fight for the soul of public education by teaching compassion, citizenship, and community.” While the more fortunate have ways out of crises, what about the rest of the population? It is essential that we remind young people that they will be shareholders in their respective communities and societies, and that they will have a stake in its success. But to ensure that success means fostering a sense of unity and helping one another. Even before COVID-19, there is a global crisis of national unity in many countries. Teaching civics, community, and citizenship will be key to remind the next generation that when each of us succeeds then the society as a whole does better.
This idea of togetherness is also a key theme and cause for cautious optimism for Dr. Robyn Whittaker from Kaleidoscope Lights in South Africa. For her the “overarching impression of 2020 has been that of a dramatic acceleration of collaboration (in particular with significant inter-continental links being facilitated), as well as a raised awareness of the eco-systemic nature of not only our education systems, but our societies, and the possibilities that may lie ahead if we fully embrace these…as Stanford economist Paul Romer once stated ‘a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.’ My prayer for us all is that this is one crisis that we will not waste—but that as humanity we will rise to the challenge and find better, hope-filled, courageous ways to re-invent ourselves and our systems in service of each other and of our planet.”
That is a similar sentiment to what we heard from the Australian based educator Louka Parry, CEO of the Learning Future and a founding member of Karanga—the Global Alliance for Social Emotional Learning and Life Skills. “Some of the most effective responses to the education crisis in 2020 have had empathy, collaboration, compassion, and resilience development at their very heart. These are core social and emotional learning skills and behaviors and as we look to the future we need to ensure that more time is given to the development of these attributes than has been in the past.”
Covid as the test paper, climate change as the final exam
As challenging as this year has been what if COVID-19 is only the test paper and climate change is the final exam? We could well be entering a period of protracted disruptions to ways of life all around the world. The response to COVID-19 from educators around the world has shown that education innovation and change is possible at a pace and scale never previously seen. It is now more important than ever that we learn from this year, keep hold of the best of these innovations and take them to scale. Investing now is not just the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do and will help us to come together at a global level to root out these long overdue issues in our education systems. COVID-19 has shown that amid disruption, tragedy and loss, new channels of innovation, creativity, and purpose can be found to allow us to rethink and rebuild better than before.
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Why 2020 Will Be Seen as One of the Most Important Years in the History of Education
Photo by Mohammad Shahho via Unsplash.
December 22, 2020
I
t has been nearly nine months since the COVID-19 pandemic caused the shutdown of schools across the world resulting in over 1.5 billion learners out of school. Since then, schools have readjusted and adapted in various ways; some cities and localities have seen schools closed again. With recent encouraging news of successful vaccine trials and 2021 soon approaching, we take this moment to look back on the state of education in this tumultuous year with views from authors from the Education Disrupted, Education Reimagined e-book, while looking ahead to what the near future brings.
Throughout human history, humanity has been driven by the desire to learn, grow, improve, travel, move and innovate. And through all the efforts and struggles, it is fair to say we have learned more from failure than success, more from discomfort than comfort, and more from disruption than tranquility. As Deborah Kimathi, from Dignitas in Kenya reminds us, ‘’Disruption is rarely comfortable.’’ However, ‘’If we use the disruption wisely, it helps us rediscover vision and purpose, and refocus on what is most critical.’’
2020 as an Accelerator of Critical Future Trends in Education
From what we have seen this year in education, Deborah sees a number of trends that will emerge due to COVID-19. One of these trends is that, ‘’learning is only meaningful if a child's most basic needs are taken care of, including their socio-emotional needs. Socio-emotional learning must take center stage in the recovery period.’’ The pandemic has forced us to prioritize well-being over economic growth, for ourselves and the planet. Since the industrial revolution our education system was built with the primary purpose of providing labour to maximize economic growth. This could be a turning point where we decide a new purpose of education. The second trend that Deborah sees is that, ‘’we can no longer fail to invest in leadership. Crisis, disruption, and recovery call for a strength of leadership to ensure all children have the opportunity to thrive.’’ School leaders were really put to the test this year. They had to juggle between government actions, public health concerns, and their students' education in a time of public anger and mistrust of public officials.
The impact of COVID-19 the in the classrooms of 2020 will be long felt afterwards. Students have lost precious time between March and June, particularly close to examinations in many contexts. Many children whose education has been interrupted will not return to school. Those who have been able to stay in education have had very different experiences of online and remote learning, which has had mixed results at best.
Lorenzo Benussi, Chief Innovation Officer of Fondazione Scuola in Italy, reminds us to take the middle approach, ‘’It is increasingly clear to teachers and to the general public that quality teaching and learning can happen both remotely and in person. In short, technology is an issue, not the issue.’’ Going forward, places of learning will need to be more agile and blended, the brick and mortar school created towards the end of the 19th century is changing. Furthermore, as Lorenzo puts it, with the increased importance of digital tools, “We are seeing a continuous increase in the digital competence of teachers, as well as an increase in their ability and willingness to collaborate and learn from one another.” Learning as a process rather than a place.
However, Xueqin Jiang, an education consultant based in China, is concerned about the imbalance left behind due to COVID-19. “My greatest fear is that 2020 will have created the conditions for public education not to be reimagined, but corrupted. COVID-19 tested how well schools had taught meta-learning skills, and the best schools left everyone behind.’’ There are some important learning opportunities here for schools around the world.
Jiang reiterates the importance of sticking together, “Post-2020, educators must fight for the soul of public education by teaching compassion, citizenship, and community.” While the more fortunate have ways out of crises, what about the rest of the population? It is essential that we remind young people that they will be shareholders in their respective communities and societies, and that they will have a stake in its success. But to ensure that success means fostering a sense of unity and helping one another. Even before COVID-19, there is a global crisis of national unity in many countries. Teaching civics, community, and citizenship will be key to remind the next generation that when each of us succeeds then the society as a whole does better.
This idea of togetherness is also a key theme and cause for cautious optimism for Dr. Robyn Whittaker from Kaleidoscope Lights in South Africa. For her the “overarching impression of 2020 has been that of a dramatic acceleration of collaboration (in particular with significant inter-continental links being facilitated), as well as a raised awareness of the eco-systemic nature of not only our education systems, but our societies, and the possibilities that may lie ahead if we fully embrace these…as Stanford economist Paul Romer once stated ‘a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.’ My prayer for us all is that this is one crisis that we will not waste—but that as humanity we will rise to the challenge and find better, hope-filled, courageous ways to re-invent ourselves and our systems in service of each other and of our planet.”
That is a similar sentiment to what we heard from the Australian based educator Louka Parry, CEO of the Learning Future and a founding member of Karanga—the Global Alliance for Social Emotional Learning and Life Skills. “Some of the most effective responses to the education crisis in 2020 have had empathy, collaboration, compassion, and resilience development at their very heart. These are core social and emotional learning skills and behaviors and as we look to the future we need to ensure that more time is given to the development of these attributes than has been in the past.”
Covid as the test paper, climate change as the final exam
As challenging as this year has been what if COVID-19 is only the test paper and climate change is the final exam? We could well be entering a period of protracted disruptions to ways of life all around the world. The response to COVID-19 from educators around the world has shown that education innovation and change is possible at a pace and scale never previously seen. It is now more important than ever that we learn from this year, keep hold of the best of these innovations and take them to scale. Investing now is not just the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do and will help us to come together at a global level to root out these long overdue issues in our education systems. COVID-19 has shown that amid disruption, tragedy and loss, new channels of innovation, creativity, and purpose can be found to allow us to rethink and rebuild better than before.
