A lesson in pioneering education
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 31 July 2019
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We look at the disruptive models of educating young minds across the globe. Is traditional schooling, the detailed study of literature, history, and science really the best way to prepare for life and work? Marc Prensky tells us about less traditional methods - where students aren't always facing forward in the classroom, which makes a huge difference, according to the educational author and writer. We go to the Mpesa Foundation Academy in Kenya to hear about lessons accessible to everybody, which still manages to personalise lessons for each student. We learn their secret.
(Image: Senior three high school students write words of encouragement on the blackboard for the upcoming 2019 National College Entrance Exam. Credit: VCG / Contributor)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello there, I'm Ed Butler and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:05.6 | Coming up, are we making a mess of how we teach our kids? |
| 0:09.4 | While education is a good way to advance your own career, it is not really a good way to improve society. |
| 0:15.5 | Most college classrooms, you'll see the professors are talking about material that very few students would ever need to know in the future. |
| 0:21.9 | Yep, the problems that some see with modern schooling. |
| 0:25.1 | Should we rip up the old models and redesign teaching altogether for the modern age? |
| 0:30.1 | And if we said, okay, you have to join teams and learn to do things and get better at things that help you realize your dreams. I think kids |
| 0:39.8 | given the opportunity all rise to the occasion. A vision for the future. That's Business Daily from |
| 0:45.8 | the BBC. On your way to school as a child, did you ever, perhaps you're a child now, do you ever, ask yourself, what is all this study for? |
| 0:57.4 | Why are we learning these particular things, foreign languages, literature, science, history? |
| 1:02.1 | Are they honestly the subjects we most need to lead successful adult lives? |
| 1:07.5 | Not everyone's entirely convinced, you know. |
| 1:09.7 | Most education actually doesn't teach you anything |
| 1:11.8 | that you will ever use after graduation. And the reason why it's so lucrative in the job market |
| 1:16.9 | is not that you're really being trained to do anything. Rather, it's you're jumping through hoops |
| 1:21.5 | in order to get a stamp in your forehead saying that you have done what other people have failed to do. |
| 1:27.4 | Hmm, that is Brian Kaplan. He's a professor at George Mason University in the U.S. |
| 1:31.6 | He's just written a book. It's called The Case Against Education, |
| 1:35.2 | why the education system is a waste of time and money. |
| 1:38.7 | While education is a good way to advance your own career, it is not really a good way to improve |
| 1:43.4 | society. It's not a way |
| 1:44.5 | to enrich society. And the main effect of rising education is not that you get a more skilled |
... |
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