One can think of a time in history when schooling was very classical and for the so called upper stratum of society. Gradually schooling came to be seen as a preparation for life inclusive of preparing for paid work that enabled one to satisfy the primary and secondary needs ( ......a bit of Maslow if my memory serves me.)
Technology was always there in various forms, but deductive reasoning tended over the eras to hold us back. Once inductive reasoning became dominant we surged. The industrial revolution was a big change. Eventually came electricity, anaesthetics, the telephone, combustion engines, cars, radios, aeroplanes, teletype machines and then in rapid succession: plastics, TV, computers, antibiotics, the internet, smart phones and more recently carbon fibre and robotics. I'm sure to have missed something but you get my drift.
As my readers know I became a teacher and eventually a school Principal, hence this blog. I can recall in the 1970s much talk of students being educated for jobs that at the time did not exist. However there was no sense of urgency as we were only then becoming caught up in the exponential advancement of modern technologies.
The very urgent catch cry today is that we are educating our young for jobs that are yet to come into existence or have arrived but will become rapidly more sophisticated.
Today I listened to a talk to the National Press Club of Australia with the topic being about a report: "Australia 2030 Prosperity Through Innovation"(I suggest you Google this.). The speaker noted that the report found that education (schooling) was a basis for innovation yet he indicated that Australia is falling behind comparable countries in science, maths and literacy. He stressed that this needed to be addressed. I have done so at length in previous posts with my underlying theme being a 'no gaps' approach to learning. This means in core subjects like maths and literacy ensuring that students do not move on to the new learning until they have mastered the prerequisites for it. I know of a few others who are of the same view, but worry that schools having to meet the demands of government sponsored compulsory testing in science, maths and literacy are under pressure not to be able to set up a 'no gaps' approach. Enough of this : see the previous posts for further very detailed information. You will see stuff about NAPLAN testing. Its not all bad news as the speaker had a lot to say about STEM subjects and recognised that schools are on to this including learning experiences in computer coding.
The speaker indicated that Australia needs to work hard to catch up to comparable countries as an innovator. He was optimistic and provided several case studies of Australian innovation including the just nominated Australian of the Year, Professor Michelle Simmons, who is leading a world class team to develop a quantum computer, which would cut down the time for solving various problems by a huge amount. He also indicated areas for improvement other than schools if Australia is to catch up.
We can return to the time when the horse and cart were replaced by the car. Now we see big companies like Rio Tinto using a fleet of driverless ore trucks in their iron ore mines in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Someone thousands of kms away a few persons controls the trucks.
They have just announced that they have over ten years moved one billion tons of ore with this autonomous haulage system (Harvey Ben, "Rio's driverless trucks reach one billion milestone", The West Australian, 30 January 2018, p42)
We have seen for years robots doing a lot of the assembly line jobs for car manufacture.
My big concern is that we may see a new literacy deficit looming in the computer IT area in schools. Can we assume that all kids will master the intricacies of coding?
Burgess writes (Burgess Melanie, "Strong jobs growth in STEM, tech", The West Australian, 31 January, 2018. p19) that research from Seek job finder site shows increasing advertised positions in jobs like:
- Maths, stats and information sciences;
- Environmental, earth and geo sciences;
- Biotechnology and genetics.
In the information and communications industry the jobs increased for computer operators, software engineers and cyber security professionals.
The above information was tempered by the fact that mining and trades were the top-performing industries in the job market.
Thus one can see from the above areas where the jobs growth has arrived. The relatively new Australian National Curriculum fortunately has Digital and Design Technology sections containing learning experiences for students.
Other areas where humans just have to get about finding solutions are in food and water supplies for a growing world population. Maybe, dare I say it, the World just has to ask how many people can it support?
Imagine a world where humans are required to work less and less owing to technological advancements yet each person is living a lot longer because of medical advancements. Imagine being a teacher when thinking students confront you with this issue.
You are probably exhausted reading my all too shallow statement about the future. I am of the view that as a school Principal I would need to be on top of all this information if I am to truly lead a modern school community. I would also need to bring my staff members along with me. Teachers have regularly been criticised as persons who move from school to teacher training then back into schools without developing a broad knowledge of the wider world of work. At least the contemporary teacher is well versed in the world of computing and understands its value. However many teachers fear science and maths as it was not to their liking at school. The speaker mentioned above indicated that many teachers of school mathematics have no formal training in that area. As long as I have been an educator we have been short of maths teachers. If we are to meet the demands of the future we may have to pay trained maths teachers a higher rate to join the teaching vocation. The Local Hero in the Australian of the Year Awards for 2018 is I am pleased to say a very innovative maths teacher who now has a world wide web and You Tube audience.
Finally I observe that is has never been easy to convince secondary school students that they are learning this or that in readiness for the world of work whatever that will be for them. Teenagers tend to want more immediate and observable goals. It requires splendid teachers to convince their charges that what they are learning now will benefit them in the future.
While being up to date as best we can about the future we as school community leaders need to be sure that our students are happy and safe in the present. As they grow and develop they have many questions and often some of these become issues. The wellbeing of our students day by day is paramount.
As I noted in my previous post on STEM subjects I would want my school community to have a very strong and compulsory ethics program that runs the ethical ruler over some of the issues of the here and now and of the future. We are still managing to kill each other in the hundreds of thousands in all sorts of hideous ways. We still have millions of people dying of hunger. We still have the fundamentalist intolerance of various religions and races and all the consequences of the hatreds that they breed. We still pollute our Earth with reckless abandon and the developed nations utilise the majority of the resources available.
Oh boy I am weary just thinking about all of the above but I cannot resile from what it means for me and you as school Principals. We have to be on top of it all.
May the Force be with you!
GD
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