Many of us like to teach in the same way that we were taught. But something has fundamentally changed in the last ten years. Information that was once locked in the minds of professors and in libraries is now out in the open. Every concept is explained and re-explained on the internet. Alternate theories are put forth freely. Animations and videos provide easy ways of visualizing complex information. Communication between individuals, teachers and students alike, is instantaneous and well beyond the walls of the classroom and confines of the work day. Once we teach our children the three Rs, we should probably get straight down to helping them make sense of the abundance of information now available.
In other words, the skill our children will need the most is to learn to learn. Today's education does an excellent job of teaching children to read, write and to do basic math. Things seem to go very well till our children are in their fourth grade. After this, with the pretext of building upon prior knowledge, we bombard them with information and expect them to memorize almost all of what is presented. In addition to dealing with increasing amounts of information, our children will need to integrate information learned separately and in the past and make sense of it all. Many fail at this. Some call it the "fourth-grade slump". The slump exists because we teach our children information that is separate from the context. And we wait for the "A-ha" moment to happen. When it doesn't we go back and try to see what went wrong. Research studies ensue. "Decoding, comprehension, maturity, ability, strategies, resources, professional development of teachers, SEC, gender, ethnicity, age" just a few of the variables we study to death. The answers are lost in journal articles in the jargon of statistical significance, interactions, effect sizes and ANOVAs.
We know what our children need. A new approach that presents our children with carefully designed problems (preferably taken from real life situations) that requires them to think more deeply, connect the dots, integrate the knowledge and come up with a solution. In the course of this learning, we will teach our children how to find the critical knowledge, effortlessly work with other students and stay focused on finding a solution to the problem. This system of learning is generally termed problem-based learning. And I believe that this approach will teach all of us to be lifelong learners and problem solvers.
Change is hard and unwanted. Implementing problem-based learning (PBL) as a complete educational system is meeting with stiff resistance. Some opposing such drastic change in curriculum have argued that it costs too much and takes too much time to develop materials. Some others have argued that there is no research data that warrants this shift. After all this dies down, we will still face what can be called as the "grieving period". This is the period of transition from one macro educational approach to another. I believe that this has begun. When this will end, I do not know.
In the meantime, I only hope that not many children will slip through our unsuitable educational system.
