Given all of this, it is my belief that social media education should be treated with the same level of importance as sex education. And as adults, educators, and employers, we need to take some responsibility in educating our children on the “birds and the bees” of social media use – because it has the potential to do serious damage to young people’s future’s and prospects.
Children today engage with social media at a young age, so the responsible use of it needs to be built into the curriculum at primary school level. As children progress through their education – what they are taught can evolve.
This means that from being made aware of issues such as their personal security and safety, they can move on to learning about how they could find themselves on the wrong side of the criminal and civil law for what they post or tweet. And how their online profiles can influence their job prospects – both negatively and positively.
Because in this modern age we live and work in today, this type of training could make a real difference to the futures of children and young people – both online and off.
Has this ever happened to you: you accidentally leave your cell phone at home, and it feels like your soul has stayed there with it? Your nerves crackle, you feel short of breath – in short, you panic. The specific reaction to a forgotten device depends on the individual, but in the end it’s basically separation anxiety: you find yourself far from something that’s really important to you.
In today’s technology-driven reality, we are seeing the emergence of this new symptom – what I call “anxiety of the disconnected”. It may sound trite, but the phenomenon is real enough to have been studied.
Teachers see it all the time. Just recently, at theInstituto Michoacano de Ciencias de la Educación, the teachers’ college where I work, one of my students started yelling, “S**t! S**t!”, surprising his peers with his profane outburst. “I forgot my …” He rifled through his backpack, taking out books, papers, emptying out everything. But to no avail: the smartphone wasn’t there. I could see the anxiety on his face, as if he’d lost a piece of himself.
So based on the psychoanalytical literature and philosophical truth, we know that the anxiety of the disconnected isn’t because one feels separated from humanity. No, the anxiety comes from the opposite direction: from feeling too close to humanity, too near to the other.
If the subject is disconnected, they have no choice but to face their spouse, their children, their father, whomever else. It is a hard thing to confront one another using words, to dialogue, make agreements, find peace.
That anxiety you feel when you realise you’ve left behind your smart phone? It isn’t about the object you forgot so much as what it represents: a social function that you must now perform in person.
No screen to sink into, likeNarcissus drowning in his own image.
According to a series of newspapers, immigrants will apparently change the English language in Britain beyond repair over the next 50 years. TheDaily Telegraph, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express have all run alarming stories on this topic. Language will change “because there are so many foreigners who struggle to pronounce” certain sounds, such “th” as in thin or this.
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The answer lies in the way languages are understood, especially in the West. Consider the names of European languages such as English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, for example. Now consider the names of the countries where these languages are spoken: England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain. And now consider, also, the names of the people living in those countries: the English, the French, the Germans, the Italians, the Spanish. All these names suggest that there is an obvious and entirely natural bond between specific languages, their speakers and the territories that they inhabit.
Old-school thinking
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So, towards the end of the 19th century, at the height of European nationalism, histories of languages were created in order to demonstrate their primordial existence. For example, it was in the 1880s that language historians began to use the term “Old English” to refer to the assortment of languages used in Britain before the Norman Conquest. The obvious advantage of “Old English” over, say, “Anglo-Saxon” is that it clearly suggests that what is spoken now and what was spoken well over 1,000 years ago is fundamentally one and the same language.http://
The fear of multiculturalism
For this reason, as many in Europe are looking for a firmer re-establishment of national borders, language is once again being used instrumentally to mark boundaries between people. And this fits perfectly well with the anti-immigration agenda of some newspapers. Their A-B-C logic goes something like this:
a) The English language is the language of the English, and it has been so since time immemorial.
b) Now, suddenly, it’s changing, and that can only be caused by non-English people (immigrants).
c) Consequently, by living here and speaking English (badly), immigrants are changing not only our language but the very essence of our national identity.
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This hard-headed association of language with national identity was at the core of an extreme version of nationalism that led Europe to two world wars. But we can turn this on its head: if we understand how fluid languages are by their very nature, if we appreciate the way they evolve and mix, we will also find it easier to live together and multiculturalism will no longer be so scary.
Το έχω στα χέρια μου κάποιους μήνες. Και ανακαταρτίζομαι με αυτό. Στην κυριολεξία μαθαίνω για όσα έπρεπε έγκαιρα να ξέρω. Πρόκειται για ένα βιβλίο. Χρήσιμο για τον κάθε εκπαιδευτικό.
Το συμπέρασμά του - είναι αναγκαίο από εκεί να αρχίσω, όπως το υπογραμμίζουν η Αννα Φραγκουδάκη και η Θάλεια Δραγώνα, πρωτεργάτριες για μια άλλη σχεδίαση της εκπαιδευτικής πράξης - είναι η αξία μιας παιδαγωγικής «που καλλιεργεί στα παιδιά την περιέργεια για τη γνώση και τα κίνητρα για την απόκτησή της. Που μετατρέπει τα παιδιά από παθητικούς δέκτες σε ενεργά υποκείμενα που ερευνούν και δημιουργούν...».
Στο πλαίσιο του «Προγράμματος για την εκπαίδευση των παιδιών της μουσουλμανικής μειονότητας της Θράκης» προέκυψε μια γνώση που η χρησιμότητά της ξεπερνά τον χώρο και την αφορμή που προκάλεσαν και το πρόγραμμα και το βιβλίο.
Με αφορμή τη μειονοτική διάσταση - ως ακραία δυσκολία - για έναν συνολικό και ελεύθερο εγκοινωνισμό σε μια πολιτεία, δηλαδή με σεβασμό στην αρχή της θετικής διάκρισης, της discrimination positive, μια ομάδα εκπαιδευτικών σε συνεργασία με τους εκπαιδευομένους παρήγαγε ένα έργο αναφοράς.
Επιλέγοντας τη λογοτεχνία ως συζητητική αφετηρία - απέναντι στην οποία η περιέργεια και η απόλαυση παρακάμπτουν σε μεγάλο βαθμό το «roman national» - οι ερευνητές εφάρμοσαν τη συλλογική συμμετοχή στη διαδικασία της μάθησης και, κυρίως, προκάλεσαν την παραγωγή μοιραζόμενης ευτυχίας με όσα διεξάγονταν εντός αλλά και εκτός του σχολείου.
Πολλές ειδικότητες ενεπλάκησαν εδώ. Αλλοτε σε διακλαδικό και άλλοτε σε διεπιστημονικό επίπεδο - ακριβέστερα, σε μια ανοικτή συνάντηση - ώστε ό,τι θα προέκυπτε να είναι κοινωνιολογικά σε επαφή με την πραγματικότητα και επιστημολογικά ελέγξιμο.
Δεν έχω τον χώρο για να αναφέρω τα «πολύτιμα» ονόματα που συγκροτούν την ομάδα με την οποία μια άλλη ουμανιστική εκπαιδευτική πολιτική εφαρμόστηκε. Και με κύριο χαρακτηριστικό την σε κάθε επόμενη φάση αυτοδιόρθωση της προσέγγισης.
Το βιβλίο στις εκδόσεις Τόπος με τίτλο «Προσεχώς Εμείς Μεγαλώνουμε», τολμώ να πω πως θα πρέπει να θεωρηθεί διεθνές πρότυπο. Σε κάθε περίπτωση, το μοντέλο εκμοντερνίζει και την πρόθεση και τη σχεδίαση.
*Ο κ. Γιάννης Μεταξάς, ομότιμος καθηγητής του Πανεπιστημίου Αθηνών, είναι τακτικό μέλος της Académie Européenne Interdisciplinaire des Sciences.
In general, classroom instruction in Singapore is highly-scripted and uniform across all levels and subjects. Teaching is coherent, fit-for-purpose and pragmatic, drawing on a range of pedagogical traditions, both Eastern and Western. […]
The logic of teaching in Singapore
Importantly, teachers also broadly share an authoritative vernacular or “folk pedagogy” that shapes understandings across the system regarding the nature of teaching and learning. These include that “teaching is talking and learning is listening”, authority is “hierarchical and bureaucratic”, assessment is “summative”, knowledge is “factual and procedural,” and classroom talk is teacher-dominated and “performative”.
Clearly, Singapore’s unique configuration of historical experience, instruction, institutional arrangements and cultural beliefs has produced an exceptionally effective and successful system. But its uniqueness also renders its portability limited. […]
Reforming the Singapore model
By 2004-5, Singapore’s government had more or less identified the kind of pedagogical framework it wanted to work towards, and called itTeach Less, Learn More. This framework urged teachers to focus on the “quality” of learning and the incorporation of technology into classrooms and not just the “quantity” of learning and exam preparation. […]
Towards a knowledge building pedagogy
Singapore’s experience and its current efforts to improve the quality of teaching and learning do have important, if ironic, implications for systems that hope to emulate its success.
This is especially true of those jurisdictions – I have in mindEnglandandAustraliaespecially – where conservative governments have embarked on ideologically driven crusades to demand more direct instruction of (Western) canonical knowledge, demanding more testing and high stakes assessments of students, and imposing more intensive top-down performance regimes on teachers.
In my view, this is profoundly and deeply mistaken. […]The essential challenge facing Western jurisdictions is not so much to mimic East Asian instructional regimes, but to develop a more balanced pedagogy that focuses not just on knowledge transmission and exam performance, but on teaching that requires students to engage in subject-specific knowledge building.
Knowledge building pedagogies recognise the value of established knowledge, but also insist that students need to be able todoknowledge work as well as learningaboutestablished knowledge. Above all, this means students should acquire the ability to recognise, generate, represent, communicate, deliberate, interrogate, validate and apply knowledge claims in light of established norms in key subject domains.
Over recent years, other countries’ positions have gone up and down in the tables but East Asian education – which includes China, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan – continues to dominate. And the gap between these countries and the rest of the world is getting wider.
The reasons why East Asian countries are way ahead of the pack as far as education is concerned has long been debated – but it essentially seems to come down to the following four factors.
1. Culture and mindset
There is a high value placed on education and a belief that effort rather than innate ability is the key to success. East Asian researchers usually point to this as the most important factor for this regions high test results.
The positive aspect of this approach to education is that there is an expectation that the vast majority of pupils will succeed. Learners are not labelled and put into “ability” groups – as they are in England, where this is the norm even in many primary schools. So, in East Asian countries, everyone has the same access to the curriculum – which means many more pupils are able to get those high grades.
Formal schooling is also supplemented by intensive after-school tuition – at the extreme this can see children studying well into the night – and sometimes for up to three hours of extra school in the evening on top of two hours of homework a day.
But while this intensive after school study can get results, it’s important to recognise that in many East Asian countries, educators worry about the quality and influence these “crammers” have on the mental health and well-being of children. And many studies looking at pupils’ experiences in these schools have reported high levels of adolescent stress and a sense of pressure to achieve – for both the students and their parents.
2. The quality of teachers
Teaching is a respected profession in East Asia, where there is stiff competition for jobs, good conditions of service, longer training periods and support for continuing and extensive professional development.
In Shanghai, teachers have much lower teaching workloads than in England – despite the bigger classes. And they use specialist primary mathematics teachers, who teach two 35-40 minute lessons a day. This gives the teachers time for planning – or the chance to give extra support to pupils that need it – along with time for professional development in teacher research groups.
In Japan, “lesson study” is embedded in primary schools. This involves teachers planning carefully designed lessons, observing each other’s teaching, and then drawing out the learning points from these observations. And lesson study also gives teachers time to research and professionally develop together.
3. Using the evidence
Ironic though it may be, much of the theoretical basis for East Asian education has been heavily influenced by research and developments in the West. For example, Jerome Bruner’s theory of stages of representation which says that learners need hands-on experiences of a concept – then visual representations – as a basis for learning symbolic or linguistic formulations.
This has been translated in Singapore as a focus on concrete, pictorial and abstract models in mathematical learning. For example, this might mean arranging counters in rows of five to learn the five times table, then using pictures of hands that each have five digits, before writing multiplication facts in words, and then adding in numerals and the multiplication and equals signs.
4. A collective push
In the 1970s, Singapore’s educational outcomes lagged behind the rest of the world – the transformation of Singaporean education was achieved through systemic change at national level that encompassed curriculum development, national textbooks and pre-service and in-service teacher education.
Similarly in Shanghai and South Korea educational change and improvement is planned and directed at a national level. This means that all schools use government approved curriculum materials, there is more consistency about entry qualifications to become a teacher and there is much less diversity of types of schools than in the UK.
The success of East Asian education has turned these countries into “reference societies” – ones by which policymakers in the UK and elsewhere measure their own education systems and seek to emulate. Interest in East Asian education in the UK has informed the current “mastery approach” which is used in primary mathematics. Teaching for mastery uses methods found in Shanghai and Singapore and has been the basis of many recent research projects – some sponsored by government funding and others promoted by educational charities or commercial organisations.
But of course, only time will tell if some of the success of these two education systems can be reproduced in the UK, while avoiding some of the negative experiences – such as stress and burnout – associated with the East Asian approach to education
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From books, arts and sports classes to iPads and television, many parents do everything in their power to entertain and educate their children. But what would happen if children were just left to be bored from time to time? How would it affect their development?
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Boredom...“It’s very freeing, being creative for no other reason than that you freewheel and fill time,” she said.
Most parents would agree that they want to raise self-reliant individuals who can take initiatives and think for themselves. But filling a child’s time for them teaches nothing but dependence on external stimulus, whether material possessions or entertainment. Providing nurturing conditions and trusting children’s natural inclination to engage their minds is far more likely to produce independent, competent children, full of ideas.
In fact, there’s a lesson here for all of us. Switching off, doing nothing and letting the mind wander can be great for adults too – we should all try to do more of it.
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