The future of education?

I remember my dad finding a piece of work from primary school from my brother. He drew a car which knew how to self-navigate and tell the driver the directions. The assignment was obviously to look into the future and think of an invention that would be reality in a certain century. Did my young brother foresee Googlemaps, TomTom and the self-operating train and automatic pilot on other vehicles they are testing at the moment? Maybe.

Having just done three (very traditional) exams last week, I was wondering on a walk through the park in The Hague (in between tests) what future educational assessments look like. I truly think (and hope) that my daughters will not be tested and benchmarked using the current (and old) methods. Methods that test your memory more than your knowledge, that often do not ask you to apply what you have been studying, but just to repeat facts or definitions.

Do we, as teachers, not all find that our brightest students perform poorly on tests? Do we not all agree that it is a fraction of their capacity? Don’t we all see that children experience stress and compare their results with those of other students?

Of course there are moments where we need to perform under pressure in life, of course there will be tests at different points (a driving test for example). But is a paper test with traditional open and multiple choice questions necessary at a young age? Do the presentations, performances, assemblies, class work, even playground behavior, PE classes and artwork not speak louder than those test results? Is it not more important to test understanding and ability to answer questions in a more relaxed setting, for example novel reading and letting children give their own summary afterwards, or asking questions about the chapter read.

I am wondering what the way forward is and what assessments will look like in the future. I am curious to see how the ‘plus classes’ or high ability groups will be readjusted. I wish we could all believe in all our students and see the best in each one of them.

If I were to ever start a school I would probably call it something super cheesy like ‘The champions’ or ‘Best students school’. I would act, no matter what school or situation they have come from, like they have been chosen to come to this excellent school. Just because they are special, super clever and simply amazing. When you work from a positive environment and always look at the bright side, it works contagious and you actually perform better. That has been even been proven scientifically.

And secretly I think I have already tested this approach. When I started as a PE teacher at Kivukoni School the school had very few children in the same age groups to form sports teams. We attended every tournament or friendly we could anyway and I often combined age groups and ‘borrowed’ girls or boys for a team if at all allowed. The students were, despite often losing, not demoralized at all. Together we learned from the experience and focused on how fun it was, how many new friends we made and the places we went. We sang on the bus, every single time. Oh how we sang. Slowly we grew, slowly we became more skilled, slowly we started winning. We loved it all, we went for it and we believed we were good at it. We may not have been the tallest or strongest, but we were always the best TEAM. We worked together and played because we loved it and knew we had something to offer. For some strange reason we were often shorter than the other teams, but we focused on our speed and agility and beat them. Of course we lost, of course there were tears, of course we had negative moments, but we were always able to reflect on those, come back to reality and move forward with more hope, energy and joy.

I guess there were times the students came along to not disappoint me, the enthusiastic teacher who was telling them they were amazing (but they didn’t believe that yet). Maybe those times were many. They didn’t want to let me down and crush my hopes, or those few good players’ hopes. Whatever it was, it worked, for just by them tagging along the team played and they got better, they learned something from that experience. And we all know the cliché that practice makes perfect. So even if your students do not believe they are the best, the brightest, the funniest, the most confident, skilled or whatever; as long as you show them you believe it, they will go along with it. So empower your students to try everything, to learn from one another, to be part of the team. All teams, give them as many valuable experiences as possible and they will find a passion and hopefully follow it…

But most of all. We all need someone who believes in us. Be that person!

We don't know what the future holds, we don't know which direction education will take, but I truly hope that with our faith and confidence in our students, the tests will take different form and shape. And children will live happily ever after and have a bright future.