Innovation in education before the forthcoming pandemic
By C&J
What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders; they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets, inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?
SÓCRATES (Attributed)
The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
PLATO (Atribbuted)
These phrases, which apparently were never uttered by the great Greek philosophers, come to describe a universal constant in our human history: people, when we stop being young, tend to criticize with that ammunition those who have just accessed that condition and were, until recently, children.
What is known today as boomers vs. millennials (or whatever comes to your mind as appropriate: OK Boomer or old fogies, on one hand, and offended, generation Z or softie, on the other) are, actually, modern manifestations of the generational gap of our lives.
Undoubtedly, social networks are a speaker of this gap. We see an example in the ‘OK, boomer’ movement, an expression with which young people consider the dialogue with the elderly has ended when they try to make them see that they lack basic knowledge or experience in life. Such is the growth of this movement, that it already accumulates millions of references on Tik Tok.
However, there are some phenomena that are observed in children and young people of our times that, unlike what happened with other generations, do not seem to be explained with typical behaviors of a generation gap.
Phenomena such as the drastic reduction in the time they spend playing outside, their resistance to asking questions or their preference for using editable means of communication, such as chats or voice notes, as opposed to personal or telephone conversations that leave them more exposed to improvisation… or the growing rate of psychological care needs, among others.
Differences that could happen to derive more from complex social changes and the arrival of innovations in the form of new technologies, the commercialization of free time in entertainment or the ‘servitization’ of extra-curricular educational activities, than from the mere generation gap.
In defense of young people: the lack of self-criticism of the elderly
Among the segment of people who have left their youth, there are streams boasting they did play in the street, that they did know how to navigate the profound changes in technology and were able to overcome apparently complicated socioeconomic situations. The latter, by the way, without even having known a war or post-war in first person.
Some, immersed in their criticism of the new generations, are not capable of looking at themselves and wonder that perhaps they were the first generation that faltered in saying NO to their children when they had to, resigning from such responsibility, believing that this could be outsourced to the school.
Or that they were also the first to be condescending to them and complain that they brought home too much homework, to defend them from the teachers who ‘had it in for them’, to let them watch TV, first, and the tablet later, more than necessary so they wouldn’t bother them, or to over-protect them when they used to go out.
It is worth wondering whether this is part of the generation gap, or we are facing a more profound paradigm shift. Be that as it may, it is worth delving a little deeper into some phenomena that have occurred in recent years in our educational system.
Time to step in
A few days ago it went viral in Spain on Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/querido-alumno-universitario-de-grado-te-estamos-daniel-arias-aranda) and, later on, in many other media, the letter from Professor Daniel Arias-Aranda of the University of Granada, with the provocative title “Dear university student: we are deceiving you”.
In it, the Professor makes an open criticism about the presence of technologies in the classroom as distracting means, about the increasing impatience of the students for the class to end in order to change their activity, a decreasing level of attention, the loss of their ability to ask questions in public or private, and so on. This, according to Professor Arias-Aranda, has caused a reduction in the level and depth of the subjects taught.
Arias-Aranda adds that not everything is attributable to technology, but also agrees on a teaching training stream “in multi-diverse teaching techniques to motivate students”.
In addition, he attributes the fact of having to increase the pass rate and ‘make believe that the students are worth it’ to a ‘system requirement’.
Among the solutions, he proposes focusing on training intellectual elites, without rewarding mediocrity, returning intellectual authority to teachers, stand up for reinforcing the early learning stages in teaching how to think, how to read and how to write well, to face obstacles, to express oneself, to have good manners, tolerance to frustration and to seek constant improvement.
There has been no lack of responses to that letter. The one that has had the longest journey so far is the one published by another university professor, Rafael Arenas García from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, on the same social network (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/querido-alumno-universitario-de-grado-te-estamos-daniel-arias-aranda) with the counter-title: “Dear university student: we are not cheating on you”.
In it, Professor Arenas García states that criticism to students has always been there, that there has always been a feeling that any time in the past was better. In other words, it is a question of the generation gap, as also happened back in the time of Socrates or Plato.
After making a call not to generalize, the letter explains that both the methods and the profile of the students have changed. And, unlike Professor Arias-Aranda, Arenas García believes that the general level is better than in the past, where only a few elites graduated.
As for the skills, he considers that they now have some that past generations did not have. And that the sources of information are unlimited, which improves both the possibilities of learning and their concern for the society that surrounds them.
The coming pandemic?
But there are data and evidence that, regardless of who is right in the debate between “worrying regression” vs “evolution and gap”, already show that we may be facing a profound change in the ability to concentrate of which, for the moment, we do not know the future consequences.
The first evidence points out the fact that the technological artifacts that surround our lives, especially those of our children and young people, multiply the quick rewards that their brains receive, which seems to drastically decrease their tolerance for frustration.
A disastrous tolerance to frustration is being created in adolescents, who are unable to postpone satisfaction and need immediate gratification for any stimulus
JULIO CÉSAR ÁLVAREZ, 2018 NEBRIJA. PSYCOLOGIST SPECIALIZING IN ADOLESCENT PSYCHOTHERAPY
On the other hand, there are manifestations of a growing inhibition in young people of their ability to focus on an activity for a minimum time. They need to constantly change activities.
As a result of this phenomenon, we find a curious example in the NBA, which since 2014 has been studying new formats to reduce the duration of games, because its audience data shows that young people disconnect rapidly.
The practice of browsing through negative content, in order to be informed, has increased, which can be harmful to health if done in excess
GRAHAM DAVEY, EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX
We don’t understand how modern technology and changes in our culture impact our ability to sustain our attention on our goals
JESSE RISSMAN, NEUROSCIENTIST IN THE UCLA DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY
According to Rissman, there is already abundant scientific evidence that technology causes lack of concentration, fractured thinking, and addiction. And it is not known how the mechanism works.
He is not the only one. From the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research (Inserm), Michel Desmurget, also a neuroscientist, affirms it categorically: ‘studies show that they have lost the ability to think about the world, to process information and to concentrate. While what they have won is not entirely clear’.
According to mainstream neuroscientists, humans’ ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information that play on the primitive drive to respond to opportunities and threats (https://www.nytimes.com/es/2018/08/17/espanol/atencion-concentracion-pantallas-internet.html). And specifically in adolescents, according to a study carried out in 2012 at the University of Burgos, in Spain (https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=349832342036).
However, the use of technology can also be beneficial, according to other experts. And some studies, such as that of Gary W. Small from UCLA ( https://doi.org/10.31887/DCNS.2020.22.2/gsmall ) indicate that the brains of Internet users become more efficient in finding information. But it is true, they warn, that this happens with more intensity between the ages of 55 and 76.
In the field of education, voices are beginning to be raised from secondary and high school centers and, more recently, from universities. They warn of the phenomenon of lack of concentration, a real impediment to understanding the most elementary text or to contextualize a real problem.
Some speak of a true pandemic of lack of concentration.
When technological innovation is an impostor
For more than a decade now, not a few schools have fallen into the trap of indiscriminate technological adoption as a necessary synonym for innovation.
Thus, in a pursue to differentiate themselves, some primary and secondary schools acted as ‘technology radical’ examples and began a race to be pioneers in the adoption of innovations in the classroom in the form of computers, tablets and other everyday devices.
Unlike those who first worked on digital content, these ‘technology radicals’ opted to introduce elements that were not adapted to the classroom. Elements that frequently did not come as another resource in class, but directly as substitutes for paper and books. Elements introduced without bearing in mind, furthermore, that the management of these new resources had to be adapted, and adequate teacher training for its use was required.
In short, those were supposed pioneers who used technology as an end and not as a means.
In university education, the widespread use of everyday technological devices (not adapted) came from the students, and their use spontaneously normalized.
In some cases (Professor Arenas García mentioned above may be an example), teachers knew how to adapt to the new technological paradigm, leveraging the advantages that this introduction in their subjects and teaching methods.
However, the new paradigm did not seem to respond in the same way in all subjects (Professor Arias-Aranda may be an example of this other case), nor did it seem to respond in the same way to acquire all the skills.
In addition to devices, technology also landed in the form of applications or other platforms, such as social networks. We find some examples in some Spanish universities that adopted the Tik Tok channel as the main means of internal communication with their students, even hiring influencers from among their ranks.
The main argument put forward for its implementation was that “students no longer read”. This argument is inconsistent with the fact that, in order to complete any university degree, it seems obvious that the student must read. Nor did they foresee what to do in the event that their influencer, once empowered, decided to follow his or her own path outside the guidelines of the university.
This is how so-called technological innovations that did not take into account the objectives they were introduced for, began to be adopted at the risk of meaning a regression.
Other imposter innovations
Nor is it difficult to find schools that have adopted radical measures, such as suppressing books, or even subjects, championing an educational innovation in which the student discovers and, even, co-educates.
Or educational centers where memory has been completely banished from their methods and, even, have even forgotten that the Pythagorean Theorem is not discovered, nor questioned, but rather taught and, most importantly: ‘IT IS’.
In some extreme cases, some schools took such so-called innovations through a one-way street, for example, making large investments to change the configuration of their classrooms to accommodate the new methodologies. Investments that, once made, were very difficult to reverse.
In almost all cases, these radical barrages landed at the hands of supposed external, national, or international gurus, with hardly any research background, or professional rigor to contrast the capability of their new methodologies.
The moment of truth for impostor innovations happens when they are confronted with their measurement and their results. Not carried out in any way, but in accordance with the objectives previously established in a strategy, and responding to commonly accepted standards such as, for example, the PISA reports.
Impostor innovation is characterized by not looking for evidence of the expected result compared with data. The most evolved impostor models do have measurements, but these do not respond to the core basics, i.e., to evaluate the model itself, or even some previously established educational objectives. They do not even meet the agreed standards of practice.
When data measurement is disguised, it only further bureaucratizes teachers and takes them away from their primary mission. Numerous examples of this can be found, both in schools and universities.
In companies it is also common to see cases where they work with an excess of indicators that, on too many occasions, lead to a fearsome paralysis due to analysis.
If you torture the data long enough, they’ll confess to anything
Ronald H. Coase, British Economist and Bank of Sweden Priz in Economics
In any organization, it is essential to adopt a good non-bureaucratic evaluation.
Returning to education as an example, Finland became an icon of global education after the publication of the first PISA results in 2001. However, in recent years, it has suffered a notable setback due to the effect of ‘imposter innovations’:
The big change that has taken place is that there are more and more projects. These projects were grouped under the umbrella of the new comprehensive education, which allocated millions of euros to projects related to a new curriculum, digitalization, promotion of physical activity or experimental ways of teaching… Many of these reforms have caused an increase in administrative work and you have the responsibility to be accountable for it. Teachers believe that they cannot face these educational changes
MATTI PENNANEN, RESEARCHER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF JVÄSKYLÄ
The million-dollar question is why was it necessary to change what apparently worked? Or, rather, why are innovations taken to the extreme and not applied only to certain areas where improvement was identified.
The example of PBL or project-based learning is another of these cases in which, sometimes, one takes too many steps forward, and innovation is taken dangerously to the extreme. There is a consensus that working on projects is something with recognized benefits.
The problem comes when we only work on projects, downplaying other aspects such as motivation through individual effort or, directly, banishing methods that, in general, had proven effective for thousands of years. This, if it is not done with perspective and context, often results in the generation of unstructured content, devoid of links between them, with no context so far and ultimately making them useless in many cases.
Abandoning classical education to exclusively embrace active methodologies is generating a trend towards a new, more superficial, and fragmented way of reading, which contributes to reducing the ability to concentrate.
And all this at a time when, in addition, as explained above, exposure to the Internet, the use of screens and the expansion of content on social networks are also precisely in the same vein of reducing the ability to concentrate.
The requirements for true innovation
As is the case in companies where, by the way, technology is also wreaking havoc on the concentration capacity of its talent (William Treseder, 2018 in Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2016/08/the-two-things-killing-your-ability-to-focus?language=es), innovation in schools should never go alone, nor should it be limited to a specialist unit of your organization and, much less, exclusively external support. Rather, it should meet the following requirements:
- OBJECTIVES. Technology is not a goal and, therefore, it cannot be an objective in itself. Neither should the new methodologies.‘The house must be tidy’ before introducing disruptive technological or educational elements. An order that comes hand in hand with a strategy with a clear purpose, shared with people, with well defined, specific and measurable objectives.
- CONTRAST AND MEASUREMENT. The performance of the innovations introduced must be kept in a short leash, in order to easily identify possible unexpected results, so that unwanted situations can be redirected. Good innovation in the industry is linked to prototypes evaluated by the customer, in short processes, limited series and with immediate results subject to evaluation. In the case of education, this must be carried out with greater rigor, if possible, since experimenting with education carries more risks than experimenting with fire.
- THE ERROR INTEGRATED IN THE PROCESS. Innovation must embrace error and, especially, in an educational environment where learning is in the error itself. But the error should be identified almost immediately. For this, teachers are required to be familiar with the introduction of new features, without fearing they may cause errors, but with the guarantee that they are controlled.
- FOCUSED ON PEOPLE. In industrial companies, innovation must be integrated into all the organization. But even more when we talk about education and teachers, qualified professionals who are living the daily experience of educating. For this to happen, trust and a strategy and objectives that people feel as their own are essential. Not imposed by an external agent or by guidelines of the educational system. That is why leadership programs that contemplate change management are required. Programs that provide guidelines and tools to the management team, so that they can generate trust, first, of pulling objectives, second, and, finally of allowing the introduction of meaningful changes in the day-to-day schedule.
- OPEN INNOVATION. In a sector, such as our example in education, in which business rules should not prevail, almost by definition, sharing resources makes more sense than ever. The Barenboim-Said Foundation in Seville (Spain), for example, has devised a free universal musical education program delivered to children on a daily basis, which involves taking advantage of one of the greatest educational tools in the early stages (music). Or, in a similar way, programs in primary school, such as the MUS-E of the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation, or others to promote reading, or other disciplines. Effective programs that have a pedagogical foundation and proven empirical results. Programs that can be adapted and truly create demand, allowing development models (or business models in business jargon, as you wish) with high added value.
- BALANCE OF THE TEACHING-LEARNING BINOMIAL. Educational organizations are models, in many cases, derived from the ‘factory’ model, where students are treated as ‘raw material’ that enters a production line to become a ‘finished product’, or treated as an ‘input-output organism’ (or take the Pavlov’s theory of ‘conditioned reflex’). This makes it sometimes seemingly more ‘efficient’ for knowledge to flow in only one direction (top-down in industrial organizations, or teacher-to-student in educational organizations). That is, promoting the ‘teach’ aspect, demeaning the ‘learn’ aspect. Russell L. Ackoff and Daniel Greenberg in their book ‘Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track’ support this point, speaking specifically of the imbalance in the teaching-learning binomial and argue that educational systems based more on ‘producing’ by teaching are, in many occasions, a true obstruction of learning.
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught
OSCAR WILDE
In search of the key aspects for the professions of the future: knowing how to read and write
One of the frequently asked questions regarding educational systems is what the professions of the future will be.
No one can answer this question accurately. Simply because today, due to the high-speed rate of change, it is something that cannot be anticipated.
But it is possible to give an answer to what characteristics the best professions of the future must have: those in which people know how to read and write.
Of course, in a broad sense of the terms. Knowing how to read in the sense of knowing how to understand complex concepts and clues. And knowing how to write in the sense of being able to communicate, inspire and lead.
In a world in which cheating a job, or an exam is becoming easier with new computer tools such as AI chats, some people continue to be dangerously confused by the new guises of technology.
Some people come to wonder what good does to learn how to write well, at a time when a so-called artificial intelligence can write a reasonably elaborated text for us. And in their fear of not knowing how to identify imposters, they forget that a speaking test unmasks them immediately.
But, above all, they forget that the learning process to read and write is the same learning process by which the ability to think and ponder is acquired.
A society that thinks and reflects upon the important bits, moves away from populism, extremism, and radical individualism.
For all these reasons, educational innovations are more necessary than ever today, both in educational and industrial organizations: new models that further promote learning processes (and not so much teaching tools), thinking and reflection.
In the end, new models that can fight a pandemic that comes to hit us right on the waterline.
HADRONE, is a systemic thinking transformation agency that operates in a network of open innovation alliances.
