Why the Humanist school of thought in Education will disrupt EdTech faster than you think
The paradox of knowledge is pervasive in everything we do. Logically, it makes sense to assume that the more we know, the better we expect to understand the world and the way it functions, but the relationship between effort and assimilated knowledge, aka wisdom, does not evolve in a linear way. Again, presumably, the more time you spend reading and collecting knowledge, the better it is for your mind, as it creates more access points between the new data and improves reflective and holistic utility of those new variables. But, it is this inter-connectivity between the previous and new information carrying neurons helps leverage whatever you have read, heard, experienced and lived, and thereby results in acquired wisdom.
Conventionally it is agreed that knowledge which does not positively affect outcome is considered unfruitful. This sounds like a lame excuse if you think that all knowledge must wield an improvement in an outcome. This metric-driven expectation not only roots itself in a restrictive vision, but it takes away attention from the ‘other’ things that knowledge positively affects.
Let me borrow a clarification from Yuval Noah Harrari’s book named ‘Homo Deus’. It is a thought provoking book that challenges both new and antique notions about beliefs and culture. It talks about counterfeit, historical stories that we’ve been told over and over; about Dogma and Holy scriptures that have been immortalized on paper, and most importantly about the fine line between how we perceive things as fact and fiction. It is fair to assume that we all have questioned atleast once in our life about how a theory or a ‘religious factual statement’ or an ethical judgement came into being. Even though we have come to centre our lives around few or many of those beliefs, however, ideologically, we’ve all been at a point of time where we asked ourselves of the veracity or the relevance of such facts. We indeed have asked ourselves to debate some ideas before accepting ot rejecting them, and more so when they fail to appear natural to us.
Yuval also talks about the conflation of ethical judgements with the factual statements that result in practical guidelines for society in general.
For example, an ethical judgement is that ‘Education is sacred’, and a factual statement is ‘Education in beneficial’. But, when they conflate together, it may begin to sound something like, ‘Education is sacred and is a sure way to a prosperous life’ or ‘<insert a specific type of> Education does not have an alternative’ or ‘Education should be revered for how it is given that it is both sacred and beneficial’.
Notice how these conflated judgements start to lose authenticity and rather become dogmas. Well, we all dislike dogmas that try to control our lives, and fail to provide us utility or pleasure.
Timing is important in this context- I believe that people in the 18th century certainly did not think about education this way, nor will this make sense to someone 200 years from today. Perception around the utility of Education has changed, too. Historically, formal education had a respectable place in history because of the practical applications it had. And, it too evolved with time, as all the other things did, but at a much slower pace. As a young adult in the 1900s, it was considered decent to want to read and write and marvel at the beauty of imagination of authors of all genres, but never did education in the 1900s feel like a burden on your soul like it does for many today. It certainly did not feel as heavy weight as it does today to most of the adolescents and their parents, and never in the 1900s was education alone considered a Raison d’etre for your success. There were other factors like familial influence, wealth, luck, natural skills etc!
The book discusses human capabilities, temporal arch of its limits and how it will eventually evolve into leveraging better outcomes for humankind at large. Well, it also reports on homo sapien’s desire for divinity, bliss and immortality, but in the context of this topic, it stresses on the fact that in the craving for maximum life satisfaction, humankind will be able to thrive only by leveraging on distinctions between the human fallibility and technological superiority — which is the ability to emote into consciousness and related improvements.
There is a visible and an irreconcilable decline in the perception and hierarchical value of education over time. The unemployment crisis of today is due to a number of different economic, political, and social inadequacies of the system, but the decline in recognizable value of formal education is right to blame. The unfair reliance on Formal Education and Diagnostic tests of your ability impact the commercial success of an individual. The unfair practice of measuring people up against a linear scorecard that dismisses the intellectual and emotional abilities of people have had a far reaching impact on morale, happiness, and general satisfaction with life. Numerous shows like the Kota Factory draw inspiration from the (stagnating and now disrupting) culture of obsession with dogmatic aptitude measurement tests. This is now bringing forth a new cultural wave within millennials who prefer reflective-learning instead of theoretical learning.
These movements are also bringing to surface the emotional distress of being rejected and discarded by the measurement-obsessed and myopic recruitment agencies who want to hire talent with a certain educational bar but want to pay her according to the last drawn salary which unfortunatrly has no lowest bar.
However, on the brighter side of the cultural movement against regressive formal education, there is a burgeoning uprise of the ‘Humanist movement’ that is revolutionising the education system.
It is successfully bringing forth the difference between previous educational systems- where authority was external and hence education focussed on instilling obedience, memorising scriptures and applauding the ability to regurgitate verbatim what the book taught, to the ‘evolutionary systems’ of today that is influencing and modelling teachers to ask meaningful questions. Simultaneously, it is teaching students to think for themselves. The humanist movement in education acknowledges that it is good to know how Prof X and King Solomon thought about politics, art and economics, yet it is important to derive answers from within and know what ‘you’ think about these matters. In modern schools that encourage humanist schools of thought, ask a teacher what she’s trying to teach. ‘Well’, she will answer, ‘I try to teach them history or physics but above all, I try to teach them how to think’. It may not be prevalent or commercially successful or widespread yet, but this is what humanist education ought to look like.
