Education, Students and Teachers
Traditional people believe that education is the accumulation knowledge and the only way to learn is to memorize it, piece by piece at a time. Many textbooks and lecture-based methods are developed according to this belief. Students learn one piece of knowledge then another as they moving from one grade to another; from elementary school to high school then college. This learning method of memorization is effective for examinations and obtains degrees. It has been used for thousands of` year to select officers to serve governments and emperors where many can recite events and poetries, quote books and literatures but few have skills to solve problems.
Today things have changed. Students do not need to memorize everything but they must know where and how to find the needed information. As one of my student often said: “Just Google it.” Although they do not need to memorize but they must learn to investigate, experiment, analyze, draw conclusions, and solve problems. The new learning method is focusing on motivate students to learn, to explore, and develop critical thinking. Students should be able to select material that is best for their knowledge level from whatever sources available. Of course, to do that they must have good reading habit and know how to use tools to find materials for them to build their knowledge.
The classroom should be an environment where each student can focus on the learning process with the help and guidance from teachers. Method like “Learning by Doing” place a great degree of autonomy on the students to collect, organizes, and process information. Instead of following a rigid approach to perform specific actions, this method challenges students to develop logical thinking and solve problems rather than to memorize facts. By allowing students to experiment with many options, they learn about trade-off and come up with the best solution possible. When students learn to collect information, analyze, experiment, and validate their conclusion, they learn how to apply knowledge to solve problems. That is why instead of having more tests based on memorizing facts; more experiments and homeworks are needed for them to practice their skills. They must learn to think deeply to come up with their own logical conclusion rather than follow a step-by-step recipe.
In this new education approach, the role of teachers is also changing from knowledge transmitter to coach and role model. The good teachers as coach do not lecture much but provide more guidance to encourage students to build their own learning skills. The good coach motivates students to explore the vast amount of information that are available to find the right information. Since there are many sources of information that students can use to enhance their understanding of different ideas and concepts, good teachers guide students to find these sources that they can use for learning and then make sure that they learn them thoroughly. To be good coach, teachers must develop continuous learning habit first. They must investigate learning methods, technology, textbooks, reference books and other available sources to gather the best teaching information to use possible.
However teachers are also role models, as they must do more than just provide guidance to student to learn but educate them on a complete education system. Teachers must go back to the basic of education: “To develop good and responsible citizens for the society.” In the fast changing world, especially in this technological environment somehow many people forgot this basic purpose of education but only focus on some attributes such as preparing them for a career by develop skills. For years of teaching in many schools and places, I often asked students: “What do you want to do when you complete your education?” The common answer is: “To get a job”. Few students would even talk about career so it seems many have not thinking deep enough of what they want in life. If having job is only what students want then we, as educators, did not do a very good job. My next question is: “OK, so you get a job then what is next?” Again the common answer is: “To make money, a lot of money.” If the goals of education are only about jobs and money then as educators, we may need to reevaluate our role as teachers. Developing knowledge and skills to compete in a global market is important but it is not enough. As educators, we must also prepare them to be responsible persons, for themselves, for their family, for the society, and for the country. Education must also be focusing on ethics, morality, virtue and much more. While these are related goals, they demonstrate the expectations and prioritizations that its educators must manage. Education does not have a single goal, it has many but overall it is about developing good and responsible citizens for the society. Any improvement in education must start with this foundation as to educate a generation of students is not something we can do in few months or few years but we needs perseverance to help our students to be good citizens and ethical citizens.
Few months ago, a young teacher wrote to me: “If the role of the teacher is not lecturing as you stated then what are we doing in classroom? My answer is there are so many things that we, as educators, should do which is much more than just lecture them about some knowledge and skills so they can find jobs, make money then enjoying things on their own. They are citizens of a society; they have responsibilities to their society, they must be taught about responsibilities so in the future when they graduate, no matter what job they do, what position they hold they will be responsible for their actions. They will be good citizens who contribute to the society in a positive way.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
