If you go to my blog, probably the first thing you will notice is how I've been incredibly inactive from the past few days because of my exams and well, my laziness to get back to writing again once it was over.

As a college student, things haven't really improved that much from high school for me in terms of quality of education, to be honest. Though it feels less stressful, at its core, the education system is still very much out-dated, old-fashioned and very non-utilitarian.

I'm pretty sure you guys have heard about this a lot already on how the education system, especially in underdeveloped and developing countries, needs a serious upgrade and be turned into a more practical approach where students are prepared for the real world and not forced to learn things that aren't really worth remembering.

Usually in a debate regarding this topic, the "for" side defends the traditional approach of education by mentioning how it preserves cultural values and focuses on discipline.

The "against" side, however, reveals its flaws and introduces the benefits of a potentially better and modern approach which focuses more on character and skill development and encouraging kids to learn on their own with curiosity.

The Ideal Classroom

If we're gonna imagine it, an ideal classroom, shouldn't be one where the students are just listening to the teacher's lectures, but one where they are actively participating and involving themselves with the teacher and each other as if it's an informal conversation between multiple curious parties.

This way, we have solved the problem of students feeling bored and unwilling to participate in the discussions happening in the class. Now comes the bigger problem: how do we make studying fun, or at least, make it something you would want to do willingly instead of being told to do it?

As humans, we want to invest our time more in things that we feel, in some way or the other, emotionally attached to. This is where the teacher plays a huge responsibility because he must figure out a way to make the subject seem relatable to the students, or at least show them how they'll be using it later in life, including personal examples if possible.

Another ideal condition would be to lower the maximum amount of students that one class can have. This means we will need more teachers to teach the same amount of students so that the teacher can give personal attention to each student and understand their needs individually.

Instead of preparing students to pass exams and compete for better grades, an ideal classroom would be one where they are made to cooperate with each other to become creators, thinkers, and problem-solvers, because that's exactly what the world needs right now. We need people who can come up with better ways to save us from our own doings to the world.

For example, learning about biodegradable plastic is no less important than learning about The Battle of Waterloo, or how learning new ways to make artificial meat is arguably more important than learning about some of the most complex formulas of calculus that a wide majority of us don't use in our everyday life anyway.

Introduction of new specialized subjects which may focus more on thinking and discussing rather than reading and memorizing given information could prove immensely beneficial too because it allows the students to let out the ideas that they usually are afraid to bring up normally.

The hard part here is to bring in practicality while still keeping room for creative imagination. A balance between these two is often quite difficult to find, but if we can mold our system in such a way, we can prepare kids for the real world and also allow them to not lose their creative drive as they grow up.

The Problem

What we talked about above is definitely not gonna be easy to build and form a system out of. Why? Because the traditional method of "sit and listen" kind of schooling has been going on for ages and we have adapted it so well in our culture that it will be really uncomfortable to adapt to a new system.

Not just this, but we will need better leaders and curriculum-makers who are ultimately responsible for what's been taught. Many people believe that the job to make the curriculum should be given to teachers and not the higher authorities because teachers are the ones who are in closest contact with the students.

Next, we have to divide the line between what is taught, and what should be taught. Meaning, to include the new and necessary and delete the old and obsolete information from the textbooks, while still somehow preserving our cultural values that traditional education offered.

Of course, all of this would not be possible unless there are some big decisions taken to adopt these new systems and the overall expenditure on education increases to actually make the change happen.

But because of the generation gap, it becomes really hard to convince the decision makers to make the investment and make them see how the idea of a new system could be significantly better. The potential here is huge, but so are the problems that we have to deal with to make good use out of those potentials.

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Thoughts On The Future Of Modern Education - What 'The Ideal Classroom' Should Look Like

The Ideal Classroom

The Problem

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