Education… is there another way?

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In our last meeting, our international team discussed what problems we found with our respective education systems. This time we focussed on possible solutions, and found out what alternative education systems exist, in order to encourage us to think outside the box and make us really question what education is all about.

To start the session we watched a documentary on a rural, community-led school in Mexico that rejects the typical authoritarian ideology that schools worldwide conventionally use. Instead, their school was inspired by the principles of a workers’ collective - the opinions of the children and their parents being just as fundamental to the intrinsic workings of their educational system as those of the teachers and the relevant governmental body. The focus on authority and submission was replaced with that of active participation, and everyone was encouraged to express their personal preferences on what they wanted to learn. In the documentary, it was recognised that this system led to a somewhat chaotic and disorganised atmosphere, but this was considered positive rather than negative, referred to as ‘constructive chaos’ and becoming an integral part of the education itself: encouraging children to listen to their peers as well as to express ideas eloquently and persuasively, thus developing efficient communication abilities from an early age. By allowing children to choose their own curriculum, the concept of who should decide what is important to learn for each individual is put into question.

This documentary sparked both praise and criticism. Many of us recognised that our own education systems, at least when we were of a younger age, left us very little room to decide for ourselves what exactly we learnt, and that respecting authority without question was considered an essential lesson to be taught at both primary and secondary schools. Some agreed on the fact that even at a university level, many students were reluctant to take part in debates, preferring to remain quiet rather than risk embarrassing themselves. Encouraging open debate at a young age may help certain types of people overcome this fear of public speaking. Furthermore, choosing your own curriculum could help discourage the typical student ‘cram, write, forget’ exam technique in favour of a longer-lasting memory of the specific subject matter you find personally relevant and interesting. It could also promote a more in-depth, dynamic approach to independent thinking and research, created by a real desire to ask questions and find out more about this particular subject, putting you in good stead for an academically successful future.

However, leaving children to decide their own curriculum has obvious complications. Whilst students may feel that a lot of what they learn is irrelevant to their lives and is quickly forgotten after an exam splurge, having a national curriculum is useful not only in allowing us to maintain teacher standards, but also by aiming to give students a well-rounded knowledge of the world around them before letting them specialise, rather than allowing them to remain in their own comfort zone. In the case of this school in a small, self-sufficient farming community in Mexico, the danger of leaving the children’s education in the hands of the locals could potentially mean students intentionally limit their own knowledge to more relevant manual skills, rather than pushing themselves to learn about what lies outside of their little bubble - for example, cultures they have little or no previous exposure to - creating a future community that is ultimately closed-off from the rest of society.

The encouragement of ‘constructive chaos’ and getting a say in your own education may well be problematic in practice, but the point of this discussion was not necessarily to come up with concrete solutions straight away, but rather to get people talking about other options and knowing that our own education systems could benefit from changes inspired by these types of schools. Join the debate! Follow me on twitter: @Charlotte_Amey

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