Trends in education and learning: what is fading and what is growing in importance

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"There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen"-- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Much has changed over the last decade or so and at a rapid rate. I had the privilege of working with school leaders, educators and teachers and have been very closely observing and noting these changes. At the end, these 'changes' are nothing but perspective and these perspective change. The point is, 'what' makes these perspective change? Or shall we ask, 'Who' makes this perspective change?

So, a trend is a directional shift in thinking, practices or in something that is developing and changing. The above matrix is divided into four sections:

1. Those trends that are small but fading in importance

2. Those trends that are small and growing in importance

3. Those trends that are big but fading in importance

4. Those trends that are big and growing in importance

Small: trends that are now being recognized, impact yet to be felt

Big: trends that have always been recognized, big impact

Trends that are small but fading in importance: Covid was pushed as an inflection point in how we will learn. Online learning was the way forward and we must embrace IoTs (Internet of things) in education, so, was we told. The world now is 'back' to physical space, soon after Covid is apparently 'over'. Academic performance plummeted across the schools all over-this is a global phenomena. The 'touch' and 'feel' is back, we are surely not totally banking on online learning.

Schools and learning environment are meant to create curiosity in the learner, stuffing in information is of no use, after all, there are 'Artificial beings' that can do that 100x faster than the human being. It is evidently becoming boring for the teacher to pass on 'information' to the learner and the learner anyway do not find this 'relevant'.

With the introduction of 'Generative pre-trained transformer' (GPT), life is becoming easy, ask and the answer is there, outsource your thinking and the 'algorithms' will think for you. Human agency of thinking is now in question and depreciating in importance.

Schools can no longer continue to operate in exclusivity. Educational institutes are a part of the society where all that happens in the school finds expression outside and all that transpires in the world find space in the school. People at large are looking forward to see how the schools can lead change within their immediate eco-systems. it is not just about teaching subjects but positively impacting the physical environment where the school is situated. Learning happens everywhere, children are finding environment outside the school more intriguing, so the physically space is thinning out.

Trends that are small and growing in importance: Technological advance is sweeping all the aspects of life and is now beginning to directly impact 'learning'. There is a compelling reason to bring more and more tech in education and at the same time we worry about how this will inversely impact thinking and cognitive abilities of the human mind.

Increase in screen time is all time high. It is said that our attention spam is now down to 40-46 seconds. What does distraction do to us? Does it impact our learning? Mental health?

With the invent of powerful algorithms, human experience is now rendered as information, that is to say that the human experience is now being put in binary. All that we do is being recorded, all that we should do is being suggested. We are living in the age of surveillance capitalism? How does this impact 'what we learn'? What are the implications on 'how we learn'? The expropriation of the human experience is at all time high. Are our schools becoming vulnerable as becoming agent of change for these surveillance capitalists?

Big and growing in importance: Even as the world converge as one, cultural exchange is giving rise to 'mainstream-culturalism' (I coin this term to explain that as people and world get connected, we see a decline in diversity in culture, people are beginning to behave and think in a uniformity, they are now communicating in similar way and by common lexicon). Whilst all this is happening, we also see that a new understanding of life and Earth is emerging. Learners are now learning what they want to learn and what they want to learn is what they need to learn and this is a function of necessity which is highly internal and subjective. So, we see a certain trend in our younger population that they are more driven by the logic of learning rather than an imposed logic of teaching. Learners are also driven by what they think is relevant for them at that particular age and time rather than follow a strict, pre-decided curriculum that they do not find relevant and that does not matches their interest.

There are those who have started to identify what may be termed as 'reality biases' in terms of how we think and how the real world works. Systems thinking informs us that all that we knew or know of is not sufficient or even 'inaccurate', the world is non-linear, un-predictable, and one thing is dependent and interconnected with the other. Leaving out certain aspects of this 'interconnectivity' to come to a certain understanding of the whole system is then obviously limited and even flawed. What does systems thinking mean for education thinking? What is holistic education in its essence? Does it mean addressing different aspects of the personality or seeing how these aspects are actually connected with each other and informs each other in its functioning and behavior?

Mental health issues can be seen everywhere, our children are now more anxious and depressed than ever. What is driving this trend? Can we see how things are connected?

In my interaction with teachers and parents, I have observed that the challenge is not how to teach subjects to children, the nature of parenting challenges are now shifting towards behaviours and attitudes, towards life and how we live.

What is now emerging as new age, progressive and evolutionary thinking is where capacities of self-exceeding and self-perfection takes prominence, how does one break away from fixed moulds of being and move towards a more creative race.

Big and fading in importance: There is a deliberate shift from pre-set agenda, curriculum towards autonomy and freedom, towards more choices than prescriptions. Textbooks are losing its relevance as they provide little scope of study.

Pedagogy i.e. from methods and ways of teaching towards epistemology i.e. how to arrive at knowledge, thinking about thinking is now finding place in some quarters.

We have almost forgotten as to how it is to be in nature and learn even as most of the urban children are suffering from nature deficit disorder. Bengaluru ranked 2nd in the World in 2022 in terms of average travel time which is 29 minutes 10 seconds per 10 kms (https://www.tomtom.com/traffic-index/ranking/.) And believe it or not, it registered only 147 days with low traffic in 2020 with lockdown imposed for almost 3-4 months! Once branded as the Garden city due to dense vegetation cover, has seen its green cover decline from 68.27% (1973) to less than 15% (2013). Similar to vegetation, Bengaluru was also known as City of Lakes for its numerous lakes (209 lakes). The impact of urbanisation has diminished lake bodies (93 lakes as per 2011) (Figure 2) and also loss of feeder canals (rajakaluve). The water bodies have reduced from 3.4% (1973) to less than 1% (2013).(https://wgbis.ces.iisc.ac.in/energy/water/paper/Decaying_lakes_of_Bengaluru/) As the Silicon Valley of India integrates with the global economy, it deals with challenge of providing infrastructure, that is to say, more real estate and residential apartments are to be built to accommodate a diverse population of people. All you see around is a concrete jungle with noise of motors, construction noise and within this, a school somewhere camouflaged. It is no more a hidden fact that deficit of nature in our lives has resulted in diminished use of the senses, attention difficulty, obesity and other psychological and emotional challenges. How long are we to allow this to happen? How long do we want our children to grow up in this insane insanity?

Teachers are now worried about their role and contribution in learning. Is it about subjects? Can a learner learn better on social media or on any other paid multimedia platform? I once asked a group of 60-70 teachers about what would happen if you come to school and there were no text books or curriculum for your reference? There was a pin drop silence.

Generation Z and Generation I are different in what they expect and how they learn. Social conventions, cultures seems to be outdated. How does this impact parenting and schooling?

How are you, your organisation prepared to deal with these trends?