3: Reforming Education

Its purpose was to reform society using reason and logic through science, Immanuel Kant called it, “mankind’s final coming of age, the emancipation of the human consciousness from an immature state of ignorance and error.” The Age of Enlightenment was a time of rising philosophy, understanding of nature and science.

According to Matthew Taylor in his 21^st Century Enlightenment, we, as a society, are drifting away from this idea of an enlightenment period. We must start living differently to think differently. Taylor believes that a reform is necessary to get to an understanding of who we are, who we need to be and who we might aspire to be, 21st century enlightenment. The video explains that education needs to be updated and adapted to a new way of thinking. He thinks that education being our most valuable resource is now a cliché, which Sir Ken Robinson touches on in Changing Education Paradigms. Robinson states that the current system of education was designed by a different age, so it can’t apply fully to this day and age of learners.  He believes that we need to go in the opposite direction.

Right now education is trying to meet future needs for today’s youth by doing what they did in the past. This system is alienating millions of children, Robinson goes on to explain. Students are put through a factory line to get through school, separating students strictly by age, not ability or interests like he believes they should be. If organized by what students are interested in and enjoy then their ability to learn rises. Also, he states that we need to get back to “divergent thinking” or get back to seeing lots of possible answers to a question. “We have to think differently about human capacity, great learning happens in groups, which leads to growth.”

I have to agree most with what Sir Robinson talks about in his video. Our education system is very, very flawed. Many kids are becoming more and more alienated by the strict regime of today’s way of schooling kids and young adults. He talks about children being scolded for being distracted by the most stimulating period in history from the, what he calls, boring stuff. I think for education to be fun, exciting and effective. The people in charge need to be open with the fact that not everyone is interested in the same things. We need a system that takes into consideration the many different ways people learn and the many different things one could be interested in and good at.