Learners must be prepared for new world
Why make learners memorise things if they can simply Google them, and make them worry about spelling when computers have spell-check?
This was asked by Professor Erica McWilliam at a conference on “Education in the 21st century” in Boksburg, eastern Gauteng, on Tuesday.
The conference also focused on “Global issues facing school-leavers in the 21st century”.
McWilliam said it was quite “tedious” that many teachers tended to just get material off the Internet and read it straight to their learners.
“Before, they might have explained it more using their own words rather than the Internet’s words, and this means learners are not learning much from them,” McWilliam said.
A professor at Queensland University of Technology in Australia, McWilliam said it was important that teaching today be focused on preparing learners for life after school as well as the working environment.
“Schooling is still important, but for how long? If its irrelevance is now so apparent, then alternative ways and means will be found by enterprising young people to develop the skills, strategies and mental models needed for the 21st century workplace despite schooling, not because of it. This is, of course, already happening,” she said.
The conference, organised by the Independent Examinations Board (IEB), was to discuss and debate issues such as ever-changing technological advancement, the social landscape of the country and the global context that have an impact on schools and the manner in which they function.
Addressing educators and school managers at Birchwood Conference Centre, McWilliam argued that “giving more tests more often does not mean that learners will do better”.
“You cannot fatten a pig by weighing it more often. I don’t think more tests will give us quality,” she said.
The outspoken McWilliam said it was also important to have all learning areas interlinked so that learners could have broader knowledge after schooling.
She said certificates were less important than being well informed or having the capability to deliver.
“It’s not a question of whether graduates or former learners can be employed, but whether they are able to stay in work,” she said.
Talking about the intended outcome of the conference, IEB head Anne Oberholzer said it was aimed at making educators and managers aware of the new world in which they were preparing learners.
She said most educators were not thinking about their learners’ life after schooling.
“Professor McWilliam spoke about interdisciplinary knowledge. This means running away from focusing, for example, only on science for science students as though science has nothing to do with other faculties or areas of learning,” Oberholzer said.
“This is about how to prepare learners for life,” she said.
Source: IOL
admin @ August 28, 2008