Allowing people the freedom to think beyond survival and create their own employment would provide a level of satisfaction and self-control far beyond any other job offered by somebody else. It is one of a number of tools that could prepare the world for the future, but we have to start with our children – through a different method of education.
5. EDUCATIONAL CHANGE
“Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this: ‘You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a method of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best we can do. What you are being taught here is an amalgam of current prejudice and the choices of this particular culture. The slightest look at history will show how impermanent these must be. You are being taught by people who have been able to accommodate themselves to a regime of thought laid down by their predecessors. It is a self-perpetuating system. Those of you who are more robust and individual than others will be encouraged to leave and find ways of educating yourself – educating your own judgements. Those that stay must remember, always and all the time, that they are being moulded and patterned to fit into the narrow and particular needs of this particular society.”
Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook
A)
CHANGING OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
Nelson Mandela – Former President of South Africa
Suggesting that people will lose their job to Artificial Intelligence is one level of controversy; suggesting that children should be educated differently is far more emotive.
Likewise, encouraging managers to allow employees to bring out the best of themselves is simple compared to persuading teachers to change the way they teach. Although teachers don’t have competitors nipping at their heels, they do have government-set methodologies to follow and try to navigate whilst bringing out the best in each child. These facts ensure that change within schools, both at an administrative and personnel level, is hard.
However, unless we change the way our children are educated, they will not be prepared for a world in which machines carry out repetitive tasks and people carry out the tasks that require versatility.
My own children study in a school that is going through a change process and I have discussed further potential changes with its senior management. New experiments and initiatives have been started – but there is a long way to go. However, the task that they are undertaking is far more complicated than that undertaken by us at Pod Group. Their customers are parents – the majority of whom don’t want their children to be guinea pigs in what they perceive may be an ill-fated experiment. Their employees are teachers, many of whom have taught at the school for many years. They see no reason to change what ‘works’ and certainly don’t see any benefits in taking practices from the commercial world.
One of the things that has not changed between my school experience and that of my children is that in both cases we have spent countless hours in lessons achieving and learning nothing. At the end of each year we had gained a certain amount of academic knowledge, but when compared to nine or ten months of full time input – the output is low. Every day I know that each of my children will have attended at least two lessons that were ill suited to their level, and so they would not have paid attention. And therein lies the problem; the current educational system does not capture children’s attention.
Life is short and the first 18 (or 21 if you include university) years are an amazing opportunity to get to know lots of interesting things. However, there appears to be an attitude that the goal of education is for children to reach a minimum standard of knowledge by the time they leave school, regardless of different aptitudes and interests.
Whilst controversial, project and personalised learning offer two routes to make education more interesting, increase the time teachers can spend one-on-one with pupils and ensure that learning is focused on the abilities of each child in order to make more efficient use of their time.
i. Project-based learning
Many schools across the world have implemented project-based learning. Most of the time this has resulted in looking at the curriculum for that year and teachers working together to ensure that the requirements are pulled into a number of projects.
Whilst this is better than creating silos of subjects, it is only a marginal improvement. Working on a project rather than separate disciplines allows students to get a better feel of how these disciplines relate to each other. More importantly, project work is more interesting for students as disciplines are brought into a real-life environment rather than being taught as isolated and theoretical subjects.
Setting up a project-based curriculum requires an enhanced level of trust between teachers. Teaching disciplines separately allows teachers, for the most part, to work solely within their department and coordinate mostly with other teachers specialising in the same discipline. Project-based work requires coordination across disciplines, a basic knowledge of other subjects, trust that the student’s time will be shared appropriately and, most of all, a willingness to embrace a harder way to assess results. In short – potentially more work.
However, for as long as basic teaching methods remain the same, even within a project-based system, students are unlikely to be better prepared than they are today.
To address this, two things need to happen:
1) Students need to be more involved in their learning programme and take more ownership of their studies.
2) Curricula and learning methods need to reflect each student’s learning abilities, preferred method of learning and understanding at the time. It is impossible for 30 students to have the same interest and ability to master a topic at the same time. Allowing students to learn in different ways, at different times and on different projects (not necessarily split by year) would help each student to gain a knowledge of everything that they should cover by the end of their school years. Furthermore, it allows them to advance beyond the minimum level in disciplines that they find easier.
Now, and for the foreseeable future, there is a huge shortage of data scientists. Computers are great for crunching numbers and finding patterns – but they lack the ability to bring disparate and unrelated thoughts together.
On the surface, a project around data collection and interpretation would seem a very dull project for the average teenager. However, an enthusiastic teacher could devise an interesting project that would incorporate most subjects that they study. For example, by explaining the success of their favourite YouTube idol, social and natural sciences, maths, languages, music, art and technology could all be brought into a project. This could easily be extended to include data analysis on a variety of questions around the subject. The success of such a project would be enhanced by allowing students to work at different speeds and concentrate on different angles.
By moving away from yearly learning targets, students could progress at their own pace. For example, bilingual students would be ahead of the average student in a language and could help others with pronunciation or comprehension in return for assistance in other subjects. This mutual aid would build self-esteem and create a cooperative working environment.
Most of all, by allowing students to work on projects that they find interesting, the ingredient that is so often missing in school - enthusiasm - is added. By allowing children to choose how and what they want to study (within a framework), motivation will be much higher.
ii. Personalised learning
The ability to cover topics by which students are enthused is one of the biggest advantages of personalised learning. It also moves the ownership of each student’s studies from the teacher to themselves.
Many (especially teachers and parents of teenagers) would argue that, given the choice, most teenagers would not study. I agree that sometimes they need a verbal kick to get work done, but this i
s a chicken and egg situation. The more you tell children (or adults) what to do, the less they take the initiative and motivate themselves.
So, what is personalised learning and how can it help? Advanced personalised learning can be split into three different systems increasing in sophistication: Data Driven Learning (comparable to recommendations from Amazon – you understand this, so now you can start this); Adaptive Learning (the program identifies areas where further learning is required); and Intelligent Tutoring.
Intelligent Tutoring is the most sophisticated personalised learning methodology but is still in relatively early stages of development. Where it has been used effectively, the results have been extremely positive. Carnegie Learning Corporation reported that students taking their Algebra I Tutor performed 85% better than the norm on assessments of complex problem-solving skills.[xcvii]
The potential of Intelligent Tutoring Systems lies in the fact that it combines the experience of a senior tutor with the most effective learning methodologies for each student – sometimes incorporating cognitive intelligence (eg facial recognition software and conversational interaction) to understand when students are flagging, struggling or bored.
One concern relating to personalised learning is that it reduces interaction with other students. However, by monitoring the performance of each student constantly, teachers can bring students together: either of different levels to help each other, or of similar levels to work together.
However, the major concern is whether personalised learning will create a sense of entitlement and a refusal to undertake work that students (and later employees) don’t want to do?
There is a thin line between persuading students to take ownership of their studies and ensuring that learning covers all the core skills that they will need in later life.
However, if designed properly, personalised learning could prove the solution rather than the hindrance to this. By providing continual assessment and feedback, coursework can be oriented to each student (in terms of method, speed and level), which will improve understanding and therefore student engagement.
Huge sums have been invested into personalised learning systems. The Gates Foundation has invested $5 billion over the past decade on learning initiatives, with nearly $175 million going toward personalised learning development.[xcviii] However, it should not be seen as a replacement for teachers.
Personalised learning systems will help students learn, make them more engaged and encourage students to take more ownership of their own learning. The systems will really excel when they are embraced by an experienced teacher who can spend more time with each student building on the skills that they have learnt – in fact, changing the role of the teacher to that of a mentor or coach.
iii. Teaching Emotional Intelligence
Project-based work and personalised learning will improve enthusiasm and effective learning, but more is needed to prepare children for the future of work. There are many ways to address this, but one addition to the armoury is to teach Social and Emotional Intelligence. When reviewing the list of attributes that make up Social and Emotional Intelligence, it is noticeable how each is required and used both in the lives of those at school and in our day-to-day lives at work.[xcix] They include: self-awareness, self-management (including setting and monitoring personal and academic goals), social awareness, relationship management and responsible decision making.
The Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence has devised a programme called RULER to train teachers how to teach Emotional Intelligence. RULER (as with other Social and Emotional Intelligence programs) has resulted in better academic performance and improved Emotional Intelligence and social skills, whilst reducing anxiety and depression. Students have also gained better leadership skills. Interestingly, teaching these skills seems also to have improved the work of teachers, who have reported better relationships with students, less burnout, better relationships with the administration departments and a more positive attitude towards teaching.
If children and employees were to acquire the skills that form the basis of of WEIRD, including Emotional Intelligence, they would be well placed to face the future of work. In order for organisations to embrace these characteristics, they would need to create an environment which encourages that change. To do this, it is necessary to look at the theory of WEIRD.
6. THE THEORY OF WEIRD
“We need to walk into the future, no matter how unnerving, with open eyes if society is to keep pace with technology.”
Lawrence M. Krauss – Theoretical Physicist and Cosmologist
A)
CHANGE STARTS AT THE TOP
“People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.”
John C. Maxwell – Author
One of the main qualities that we look for in our recruitment process at Pod Group is a tendency to assume that nobody else will do something as well as you. Our employees are therefore unwilling to delegate or go home until they (alone) have completed their tasks.
Having found these people, we then focus on de-programming this trait.
While this sounds at best contrary, at worst downright stupid, it works because we try to build an environment where colleagues trust each other to do the right thing - not because a process is directing what the right thing is; on the contrary, each individual has the flexibility to get things done by adjusting the process as required.
If colleagues trust each other, they are willing to accept that they may not be the best person to do everything, although this is a hard change for most people to make.
An organisation can only embrace change effectively if the CEO is 100% behind the change, understanding the need to let go of control and trust others to do their best.
Recently, one of our commercial partners wanted more details on some of the costs of our solution. We have an open book policy with partners, so I asked one of my colleagues to send over the details. Due to the way that she had presented the information, this raised some questions and concerns due to different cultural attitudes. Her reaction was: “This is an important partner, it would be better if I send the information to you first to check.” Or, put another way, “Why don’t you take the responsibility for this?” In the short term this would be a less risky approach, but as I explained: “We all make mistakes (especially cultural mistakes); you learnt from this and if you make another mistake we will handle it; but if I can’t trust you with your work, is this your problem or mine?” On the surface she preferred to delegate the responsibility to me, but if I took that client over, in the longer term this would create a downward spiral whereby she would lose motivation and confidence as a result of not being responsible for her work. The reverse would also be true – I would feel more important and valued as I am taking more responsibility (as well as adding more tasks to my workload and therefore more stress).
There is a tendency for people to assume that, as individuals, they are vital to the organisation – and the higher you go up the organisation, the stronger that assumption becomes.
My mentor was CEO and Chairman of a public company in the US. In this position, everybody wanted a minute of his time. Within three months of his retirement, 90% of his employees, fellow managers and board members, had no time to spend with him. To be fair, it didn’t bother him as he understood that he was not irreplaceable.
CEOs (and I have done this previously) have a tendency to create an environment where their role appears to be central to the day to day running of the company. They ensure that the number of decisions that they need to approve is just a little bit more than can be done efficiently. It creates a very satisfying sense of importance. This is not only done by CEOs, but by every level of management.
Then a reality check happens - often in the form of either a heart attack or a divorce. This typically leads to a reassessment of priorities. At this point, three options exist – brave (quit), stupid (carry on as before) or difficult (change how you approach life and work).
&nb
sp; The third option is obviously the hardest, but at the end of the day the best for everybody (including family and colleagues). It requires the strength to understand that CEOs and managers don’t have to take all the responsibility, and actually people prefer to shoulder their own responsibility if it means that they are in control of their own destiny. If you take the responsibility for somebody else’s work – you are also taking control of a part of them and removing part of their reason for being.
If a boss is not willing to delegate responsibility, it is not possible for others to implement change further down the organisation. This is why change has to start at the top. But what to change?
B)
FOCUSING ON THE THINGS THAT YOU CAN CHANGE
“The only thing that can grow is the thing you give energy to.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson – Essayist
Changing attitudes is hard. It is achieved more easily when things are going badly than when they are going well.
However, it is very inadvisable to let a company reach rock bottom before introducing change as many of the key staff will already have left. Therefore, change is more effective when things are going well, to ensure that this continues. That said, it is difficult to persuade people to make changes when they are comfortable within their environment. This lack of desire to change was one of the key factors that hampered our move to WEIRD. I will explain in more detail the difficulties that we faced in the next chapter.
Rather than focusing on trying to change attitudes, it is easier to focus on taking steps that result in a change of attitudes.
The Weird CEO Page 10