So we have now moved beyond our current industrial education system and have a system based on mastery. Where does that leave us and our students? What new roles do we have? What does the student need to do to be successful?
This new system does not diminish the role of the teacher. In fact it becomes more integral. Just because we are no longer the absolute experts does not mean we do not have an important role. I believe that a teacher's true expertise lies in critical thinking and in making connections to previous learning. That is the essential skill which should have been honed through university and then in teachers college, and that is the essential skill that we should be trying to impart to our students.
I've started reading Howard Gardner's Five Minds for the Future. In it he states, what he believes are, the five essential skills, or Minds, that will be required by people to succeed in the future. I won't go into great details about the five minds, but I would highly recommend reading the book. The focus of the book seems to be that as teachers, and the book is not solely targeted at educators, we need to foster these skills in our students. We need to rethink the way we teach.
We should no longer focus on the content of a discipline, but instead we should focus on the ways of thinking in that discipline. For example the method of thinking is science relies on the use of the Scientific Method. Students need to learn to posit a hypothesis, devise an experiment to test it, record the data and then make sound conclusions based on that data. Beyond that they need to accept the possibility that their hypothesis was incorrect and not be disappointed by it, but see it as a way to learn more. As they progress through these exercises they will undoubtedly pick up the content. However, the acquisition of this knowledge will be deeper, because of the critical thinking that was involved in the process.
This teaching to the five minds will serve our students best because in the future, as in the present, the recall of information can be done more quickly and effectively with the use of any number of search engines or databases. The required skills will be exactly those fostered through teaching to the five minds. Students greatest assets will their abilities to think and not the 'stuff' they've learned and forgotten since.
The students have an important role as well. Probably the most important one of all. Ultimately, in a system predicated on mastery, the final responsibility lies with the student. They are the ones who must put forth the effort to gain mastery. In today's educational system responsibility has been taken away from the students. Many students are not interested or invested in their own education. They are not interested because they are forced to study what has little or no meaning in their lives. They cannot see how the french vocabulary sheet or the lecture on the pythagorean theorem affects their lives in any way.
They are not invested in their education because they have little or no control over it. They have very little choice in courses available to them, in assignments given to them or in the way the course is presented to them. By having no control over their education they have not invested in their own education. As such they often could care less what they are doing, as long as they are doing enough to get the credit. Is that what we want our students to get out of their education? If not then what should the students be doing?
They need to care and be responsible for the choices they make. It is approaching exam time here at my school and teachers are pulling their hair out trying to help students achieve credits many could care less about. I've already touched on why students don't care, but why are the teachers so stressed out? It is the push for 'Student Success'. While it is a noble ideal it does little to make students responsible for their choices. We are 'pushing' many students through, again with just enough to pass, in the name of their 'Success'. If doing just enough is termed success than we need to redefine the term.
In a system of mastery, a student doesn't move on until they have shown exactly that. There is no longer any 'just enough'. On the student's part this makes them responsible for their true success or failure. I think failure is an important lesson that our students just don't get. No one is ever completely successful. Failure is a part of life. We try something and it doesn't work, we fail. But what students need to learn is to persevere through that failure and learn important lessons. A system of mastery allows that. You keep at it until you get it and can show it.
Not only do students get some control over the content, but also over the pacing of their education. If a student needs more time to grasp a math concept, no problem, but if they are accomplished poets why should they have to spend as long as others who struggle with them? In giving the students control over their education you engage and interest them. And that is the key to a responsible student.
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