“Traditionalist, rote and teacher-centered.” This is how educational consultant Laura Lewin defines current education in our country. She is the author of the book Hacking Traditional Education, where she carries out a thorough analysis of current teaching, proposing different alternatives to prioritize active learning, with technology as an added value.
He details: “Although there are many teachers who are very passionate and train themselves, there are a lot of others who continue teaching the same way they learned, and therefore, They are teaching for a world that no longer exists”.
Although there are many teachers who are very passionate and train themselves, there are a lot of others who continue teaching the same way they learned.
In this way, it then raises the imperative need for an educational change, where the student is placed at the center of the scene. “In a traditional classroom, with frontal instruction, the teacher is the one who speaks, the one who is active, while the student is as if anesthetized, receiving information and complying,” highlights the specialist.
-What you propose is to make classes more participatory and didactic?
-Of course, we need a more participatory classroom so that the student wants to be there. The good teacher is the one who manages to provoke the desire to learn. You have to be able to capture the attention of your students, through strong stimuli, so that they really want to be in the classroom.
-Do kids get bored faster today because of the easy access to information they have outside the classroom?
-The Technological overstimulation generates disorders cognitive, which have to do with kids who have a hard time paying attention and concentrating. Everything bores them, they have anxiety…
-And what could teachers do specifically?
-The problem is that many teachers they continue teaching the same way in which they learned and do not take into account who they are teaching today. We need to trigger the desire to learn.
-What would be the benefits of the so-called Digital Era, which you also mention in your recent book Hacking Traditional Education?
-The great thing about the Digital Age is when technology is brought to the classrooms with the aim of optimize learning. Through it you can automate content and personalize education. Although I always say that technology is both a blessing and a curse. Because it is good for optimizing learning, but at the same time it is a great distractor. So when it helps to learn, we have to use it. When it becomes a distraction, you have to limit it.
-What happens to schools that are not prepared to provide this technology in the classrooms?
-Let’s see, I I don’t think technology is the solution. Yes a great opportunity. I also do not believe that everything that has to do with innovation in education involves technology, but rather generates added value to the pedagogical proposal. In the case of technology, there are many schools that do not work with it because they do not have connectivity, or because the teacher does not know how to use it, or because the students are dispersed. Technology is a means, not an end, which is great to incorporate when the conditions are right. Therefore, connectivity should already be considered an essential service for schools.
“Active learning.” A concept that Lewin tries to be adopted by teachers.-What other added values are necessary to improve current education?
-Innovation in education has to do with didactic proposals, called “Active Learning”.
–An example is the flipped classroom. This means that the kids at home will access the material and then get to school and activate that content there. That is, the idea is to maximize and enhance face-to-face time. This is a clear example of putting the kids at the center of the scene that I mentioned before. They stop being passive, receiving information. In the flipped classroom, of course, parents are a central figure, although it also has to do with self-management of learning, autonomy, responsibility and commitment. So you not only work with the content but with skills that are very important for life. Another added value can be everything that is based on challengesin scenarios, in problem solving…
-And in tolerance to frustration…
-It is a super important topic too. As teachers we have to work on everything that has to do with socio-emotional issues. One of them is managing frustration. Many times it happens that kids arrive at university and in the first year, when they do poorly in the first partial, they abandon the race. And it simply has to do with the fact that no one taught them how to handle frustration.
Teachers have to work with social-emotional issues, such as frustration.
-Is there any technique to teach it?
-They have to learn to separate the grade they get from their self-esteem. One thing is how it went for you and another is who you are. We have to teach them to see their mistakes in a rational and non-emotional way. And there is another point that seems important to me about this educational innovation: it has to do with a classroom that welcomes errors. The idea is to capitalize on them, learn from them.
-Are there any institutions in Argentina that are already implementing this proposal?
-Without a doubt. There are a lot of schools that are updating and are already working more aligned to, for example, what does neuroscience sayor where they work on student-centered teaching. They are institutions that in some way can add added value to the education of children.
-What does this change that they apply depend on?
-Well, mainly the figure of the manager. In these schools, the principal has evolved from being merely an administrative manager to becoming a strategic visionary, a pedagogical leader and a proactive change agent.
-What is the great challenge that current education faces in order to innovate?
-I think that Every classroom, in every corner of the country, is different. Needs vary from north to south and from east to west. And the truth is it is very difficult to transform education with overcrowded classrooms, scarce resources and meager salaries.
-The first thing we have to do to transform education is think it’s really possible. And then redefine learning to didactic innovation, to improve the quality of teachers and to humanize education. Go from the school of knowledge to the school of being.