Modern Thought in Education

What people want from life never stays the same. A few generations ago, being able to read a letter, write one and do simple sums was enough to be called educated. A young person today also needs to use a computer, start a small business, talk with people from other countries and keep up with a world that changes every year. As time moved on, people's wishes, hopes and needs kept growing and shifting.

The traditional system, which is formal education, could not keep up with these wishes. It taught every student the same fixed course, at the same fixed time, in the same fixed classroom, in the same way. Behind it lay the belief summed up in the phrase "One size fits all". Picture a teacher handing every student in a class a pair of size seven shoes. For a few the shoes fit. For some they pinch, and for others they slip off at every step. A single pattern of education works the same way: learners differ in interest, ability and need, so one pattern cannot serve them all. People began to question this belief, and it started to change.

A second push came from knowledge itself. New knowledge, new skills, new science and new technology kept arriving, and a system that went on teaching only what it had always taught began to look out of date, so people started to rethink it. At the same time, education came to be seen as a right that belongs to every person, not a privilege for a lucky few. Out of this background, modern ideas about education began to appear.

Modern thought in education took shape after the Second World War, and especially after 1960. In that period, more and more voices said that the education system of the time was not enough for human life. Many scholars felt that the old pattern of schooling did not fully prepare people for the lives they actually had to lead.

Many scholars made important contributions to developing modern thought in education. The main names are these:

• Jean Piaget
• B. F. Skinner
• John Dewey
• B. S. Bloom
• Paulo Freire
• Michel Foucault
• Ivan Illich

Along with the work of these and other scholars, a major belief took hold: everyone who has been left out of education must be brought into the national mainstream of education. To make that possible, a second belief followed: equal opportunity in education must be given on the basis of social justice.

Social justice here means that nobody should fall behind in education because of birth, caste, gender, wealth or where they live. A girl born in a remote village, a boy who has to work because his family is poor, or a student with a disability should be able to study just as a child from a well-off family in a city can. Groups pushed to the edge of society like this are called marginalised groups. To carry education all the way to them, modern thought stressed the following:

• more investment, so that education reaches marginalised groups
• skill-based education
• financial support
• raising public awareness

Here is how each of these looks in practice. If children in a village are dropping out because the school is too far away, opening a school nearby is investment. Giving children from poor families scholarships, uniforms or a midday meal is financial support. Teaching practical skills, so that learners can trust that study leads to work, is skill-based education. Persuading parents that their daughters should study too is raising public awareness.

In the twenty-first century, new viewpoints have been put forward as part of modern thought in education. Among them, UNESCO has stressed the four pillars of education. A pillar holds up a building. If one pillar is weak, the whole building leans. In the same way, a complete education has to stand on all four of these supports at once.

• (a) Learning to know
• (b) Learning to do
• (c) Learning to be
• (d) Learning to live together

This pillar is about knowledge. Education should be a way of learning new things and searching for knowledge, and it should give the latest knowledge, not only old knowledge. It should help a person understand themselves, their society and the environment around them. It gives a person the knowledge to judge fairly and independently, and the intellectual ability to follow a scientific process in developing their personality.

Learning to know develops these abilities in a person:

• memory: holding on to what has been learned
• logical ability: thinking things through by reasons
• imagination: picturing in the mind what has not yet been seen
• decision making: focusing on one subject, thinking it through and reaching a correct decision about it

Here is an example. Sunita notices that the rice leaves in her village are turning yellow. She remembers what she learned about soil and fertiliser in science, reasons about the possible causes, asks the local agriculture technician, and finally decides to get the soil tested. Remembering, reasoning, searching and deciding: this whole chain is learning to know.

Knowing is not enough. A person must also be able to do what they know. This pillar gives priority to joining knowledge with skill, and it wants education to move from skill towards competence. After learning, a person should be able to do something real with their skill. Education should give the knowledge, skill and efficiency needed to run some industry or business, and it should aim at economic progress. That is the belief behind learning to do.

According to this pillar, education should build these individual and social abilities:

• building good social behaviour
• taking on responsibility
• taking risks
• solving problems
• adjusting to new situations

Bibek studies poultry farming at school. He does not stop at reading about it. He builds a small coop at home, learns to care for the chicks, finds solutions when they fall sick, and starts earning by selling eggs. Putting his savings into the coop was taking a risk, and looking after the chicks was taking on responsibility. His knowledge turned into a skill, and the skill turned into an income.

All-round development means growth in every direction: body, mind, intellect and behaviour. According to this pillar, education should help settle what a person will become: a member of a family or community, a citizen, a businessperson, a thinker, a creator, an inventor or a leader. Education should develop a person's creative thinking, and help everyone become able to solve their own problems.

Another important side of this pillar is good judgement. Education should build the ability to tell apart each of these pairs:

• justice and injustice
• right and wrong
• light and darkness
• bad and good
• truth and untruth

Asha loves drawing and is also good at science. Her education does not press her into the same mould as everyone else. It helps her see her own interests and abilities, and points her towards becoming an architect or a designer. It also gives her the courage to say no when a friend asks to copy from her in an exam, because she can see that it is wrong. Both of these are learning to be.

Today's society is a global society. Even one classroom may hold students who speak different languages, follow different religions and belong to different ethnic groups. Society has cultural, religious, ethnic and linguistic diversity. So education should build the quality of knowing about everyone's ideas, religion, culture, values and beliefs, and of respecting them. It should help create a state in which everyone can live side by side with laughter, happiness and respect.

As society develops, its harmful practices are growing too. So education should be the kind that tackles the harmful practices, contradictions and problems of society, and it should help settle every kind of conflict found in society. All of these are the aims of learning to live together.

Picture a school whose students come from many communities, languages and faiths. On each community's festival day, the whole school joins in. When two groups of students quarrel, a teacher sits both sides down, listens to each, and helps them make peace. The students learn that being different is not a problem, and that living together in peace is a strength.

The four pillars are not separate from modern thought. They answer the very concerns that modern thought raised, and UNESCO stressed them, in line with modern thought, for the full development of human beings. The table below shows which concern each pillar answers.

Put simply, modern thought wanted education to reach all four sides of a person's life: what they know, what they can do, who they become, and how they live with others.