What does this mean?

It really marvels me when dedication for work becomes the pleasure to make an impact. My good friend William Effah Owusu gladly welcomed the responsibility as an opportunity to teach Seidi D/A Junior High School and make an impact with his profession as a teacher. Trust me; very few city residents would accept this task.  Seidi is rural community located within the suburb of Ashanti region of Ghana with population less than 1000 and maize farming as their main profession. They don’t have flowing tap water but recently got connected to the electric grid through cash contributions by school teachers in the village.

William now lives in Seidi but occasionally comes home (to Kumasi city) and gets the chance to check his emails. It was a delight to reconnect with William on Facebook to share his experiences.

According to William, very few students are able to graduate to the Senior High School at Seidi, let alone obtain a University degree. Not because the students are not intelligent but the school lacks the basic educational resources to equip the students development. Profession of parents is automatically inherited by their children in Seidi. Students need to be continuously persuaded and motivated to attend school each day. Some students even prefer to assist their parents on the farm in the morning and join the class in the afternoon.

Even though Information Communication Technology is part of their curriculum, William says “the mention of it in class seems like one of the planets somewhere on the solar system”. The only computer which William helped to purchase is now the school’s computer lab. Seems like the pace of the 21^st Century change differs globally and what does this mean for education?

Research has disclosed that the top 10 in-demand jobs for 2010 did not exist in 2004. The amount of new ‘technical information’ is doubling every 2 years. So for students starting a 4-year technical related degree, this means that half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study. And what does this mean?

Of course, this brings a lot more questions in mind after thinking of how the world was when we were kids and what the world has become today.  All boiling down to where exactly is the world heading – or – what would the future of the kids of today be? The information age brought more knowledge workers due to the demand for their services. Obviously, we are preparing students for jobs that do not exist today, in order to solve problems that we do not even know exist yet. 

The invention of IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) has led to the increase of internet devices from PCs to mobile phones, TVs, watches and counting. What does this mean? To share with you some interesting facts....

Google says over 31 billion searches are done on its servers every month. In 2006 the number was 2.7 billion. To whom were these questions addressed before Google? Wikipedia was launched in 2001 and now features over 13 million articles in more than 200 languages.

Studies show the number of unique visitors on Facebook, Youtube, and Myspace every month collectively exceed 250 million. But none of these sites existed 6 years ago. We’re living in exponential times indeed.

How are you using social networking sites?

Social media is not a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate, connect and relate to each other in the 21^st Century. Interestingly, the virtual world created by the internet is also presenting a virtual culture. A typical example is the language widely adapted online with numerous abbreviations especially on chat sessions to express our mood. For example, “l8r” for “later”, “g2g” for “got to go”, “brb” for “be right back”, “lol” for “laughing out loud” etc. Anyway, how many of us honestly were actually laughing out loud before typing “lol”? – Well, I wouldn’t be surprise to see these chat expressions appear soon in dictionaries if it hasn’t yet. What does this mean?

Everyone should have a passing interest in technological development as eventually they may change everyone’s life for the better. The 21^st Century Skills brings the skill set needed to continuously prepare workers and students to survive today’s challenges and enjoy tomorrow’s opportunities. What does this mean?

It means that education is no longer a pathway to opportunities but a prerequisite for success in the 21^st Century. I share with President Obama that in the 21^st Century, “…a nation most valuable currency is the knowledge and skills of its people”. And like Sarah Brown Wessling (2010 National Teacher of the year, USA) said, “we need 21^st Century teachers not just adults teaching in the 21^st Century” to prepare our students for the future.

© Harry Tetteh

Is there a Balance?

“Yippee!!” Oh yes, Maame Abena couldn’t help but to join in the celebration of the last penalty kick by Agyeman Badu which made the Ghana Black Satellites, champions of the under 21 World Cup competition.Maame Abena is just a little over one year old but always proves to be a quick learner even though she is still learning how to give the right answers to “How old are you?” and “How are you?” Her response has always been “I ya fan,” with a smile, of course. Maybe that’s her easy way out. Interestingly, her big sister who is close to 3 years old takes pride in her ability to keep her eyes closed to recite from memory letters “A” to “Z”. Does this make any difference by keeping her eyes opened? You’d better keep mute and congratulate her on that!

The question I ask myself is “are kids of today better off in their mental development in school than our time?” Hmm, I still remember basic and primary school days when one was forced to keep countries and their capital cities in memory. Wow! those early morning “Mentals” code named “morning tea” in school . Mental was arithmetic drill from student to student by the teacher in the classroom. Failure to provide the right answer within a stipulated time (usually within some few seconds) results in lashes in your palm, buttock or back (not fun!) And then, Spelling Bee code name “dictation” followed in the afternoon with the usual lashes upon those unable to spell some words correctly. We usually got scared when we encountered big words like crocodile, hippopotamus, trypanosomiases etc. Well, no wonder school wasn’t fun for some of us during those days, but I think it also helped us to be able to memorize definitions and formulas in the junior high school.

The senior high school was a lot more fun because we were allowed to use calculators in the classroom and even get access to formula tables during arithmetic, science and economics exams.

Today, some educators still find it hard to embrace technology in the classroom because they complain it’s reducing brain development and encouraging laziness on the part of students due to easy access to information for homework, project work or assignment. “Students of today think they know more than their teachers and parents” is what most tutors say but I don’t think it’s true. 

During the introduction session at “The Breakthrough Learning in a Digital Age” workshop by Sesame Street recently, Dr. Eric Schmidt (CEO, Google) stated that “our challenge today is to narrow the gab between Education, Learning and Internet” which I concur.

The basic tools and context for learning has changed from pens and pencils to mouse and keyboard, papers and books to applications and software, classroom and school community to the internet (global virtual community).

But sadly, some of our local lecturers in some universities still insist on producing the replica content of their handout/lecture notes as answers to exam questions without any additional facts from the internet. Others restrict you to only books from the shelves of the school library but the reality, often times is, these books (if even available) are too old. 

Search engines speed up research with access to diverse related and recent facts. More time is spent on critical-thinking and critical-analysis, summarizing and synthesizing, then designing and problem solving. The days of direct instruction in the classroom for the 1^st position student are gone. This age is a collaborative construction classroom. No more teacher-directed classroom, it’s now student-directed classroom. The theory-based lessons should be practically based with more skills as knowledge.

Ultimately, we learn for life and not for school in the 21^st Century for a better balance of education.




© Harry Tetteh