5 Trends that Progressive Schools Cannot Afford to Ignore in 2015

When Michael Sayman, a young 17 year old high school student was hired by FaceBook to head an upcoming division at the company’s headquarters Menlo Park, California, it made headlines across the world. It was evident that student experiments with technology were big business and most schools were opening up to the idea of allowing students to experiment with technology,  teaching them to code and create games.  

But for the228 million students in India’s schools, nothing has changed as most schools continue to hold onto their outdated and dogmatic perspective on education. The tools have changed;schools now use computers for administrative workand the intranet and whatsapp groups to connect with teachers, parents and students. But when it comes to teaching, most schools simply fall back on the old system, as was done before 1992, before the internet came into our lives. For the slightly more progressive schools there are ‘add ons’ which means using technology tools selectively for research to work on specific projects, which is really a waste because without a systemic inclusion into the curriculum to address individual learning requirements, focus on research, encourage creativity and innovative thinking, most of our students will remain at the bottom of the low cost tech labour market. 

But things are changing, even if slowly. There is incidence of increasing pressure from the parent community which points to a situation where schools will be hard pressed to provide customer satisfaction. Schools would be well advised to make note of a few important trends that can be easily inculcated into the school’s teaching strategies for sharper results. 

1. In the next decade, we will witness a clean cut in cattle class learning. Students and parents will demand new learning play lists focusing on customized learning supported by real time, experiential, sustainable and deep learning opportunities. This will impact the old orderliness in schools. Academic curriculums will lose relevance unless supported by new and interesting methods of teaching. New teaching methodologies will have to be interactive, personalized and closely linked to life outside the school. 

2. Digital will increase, even more. Progressive schools will use tech to focus on student learning, creativity and productivity. Tech will be used to build and sustain new learning networks often from across the globe. Cyber threats will intensify. In the absence of adequate safety measures and lack of cyber law, schools will struggle to protect students against cyber bullying. 

3. The millennials will experiment more, network more and have fun while doing it. They will look for ways to ease pain points in the society. Entrepreneurship will be another career choice. Expect to see more startups, entrepreneur mentor groups, school and industry collaborations, social media groups on societal issues. 

4. Youth travel will top all experiential learning. Student travel will increase manifold and schools will look for meaningful and cross cultural options.  Summer learning will comprise of ‘learn while you travel’ opportunities. Youth exchange will become part of the curriculum with inter cultural, cross border and long term relationships created. 

5. Schools will have to change their role to become life affirming centers, collaborating with new partners most of whom will provide learning outside the school. High School internships will become a norm. Progressive schools will adopt summer internship opportunities for their students early on to enable them to experiment , experience and explore before they are asked to make career choices. 

The tomfoolery of school rankings

School rankings have become de rigueur in India over the last few years, goading the entire K-12 private school industry into some sort of frenzied dance.  With each passing year, not just the numbers of agencies conducting the national school rankings increases, but the number of categories also increase, reducing the entire exercise to a farce.

Why do schools fall for it? Well, it makes an authentic story and provides bragging rights. Perhaps it also means increased enrolments. But if the media blitzkrieg that follows is any indication, it points to substantial commercial value. It is easy then to set aside details such as metrics of evaluation, categories of assessment and parameters of grading. In a win- win situation no one is complaining.

Most countries have one or may be two well respected rankings which are used as a benchmark. For e.g. in the UK, you may point to TES - Times Educational Supplement for the grammars and private schools and the School League Tables for the primaries published by the DfE. Both these ratings use a strict code of evaluation, building on the rigor of evaluation each year, making it highly aspirational for schools. In India, the ASER report evaluates state run govt schools, and has maintained its leadership position because of its neutrality and its ability to mirror the on ground reality.

Of the multiple rankings and awards that have been set up by self-styled education agencies, not one of them is about teachers. So the ‘Pearson Excellence in Teaching Awards’ came as a surprise. For categories, they had teaching of STEM, English language and Social Studies. Applicants had to respond to questions such as, “What innovative methods do I use for teaching my subject?” In addition they were also asked to provide evidence of their ongoing professional development, publications and research work in the last 4 years. Entries were segregated as private and govt schools.  

The great surprise however was a separate category for sports and arts teachers. As the jury, we reviewed some incredible applications and guiltily realized how little recognition is given to these subjects and their teachers.  

Another oddity that became evident was that there was not a single entry for ‘excellence in teaching’ from any of the so called ‘top ranked’ schools and all entries were self-nominations, there were no nominations made by schools. This could only mean two things; none of the top ranked schools believed they had excellent teachers; or;   the metrics of evaluation used to rank these schools did not have ‘excellence in teaching’ as a necessary competence for being ranked a top school.

The incongruity of the rankings is telling.  And one may dismiss it citing the demand supply excuse. But I want to pin my hopes on the emergence of at least one well-defined assessment on ‘excellence in teaching’ which will be a true justification for the school's ranking. The Pearson awards may not be TES, but it is a strong and welcome start.