Friday 29 Mar 2024
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This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on February 19, 2018 - February 25, 2018

“There’s only one thing more painful than learning from experience, and that is not learning from experience.” — Archibald MacLeish, American educator and poet (1892-1982)

 

Edward de Bono once famously said, “Almost all of what a child learns at school after the age of 10 is totally irrelevant to his needs in later life.” I was reminded of that quote while listening to billionaire Jack Ma speak about the state of global education at the recently concluded World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Ma opined that the traditional way of teaching our children at schools and colleges is archaic and requires a drastic shakedown. He believes that if we humans are to compete with and beat artificially intelligent machines at their game, higher thinking skills — and not just information — need to be taught. Twenty-first century problems require 21st century solutions.

If we are to be brutally frank, our present education system has succeeded for generations at only one task — that of giving our young children something to do, keeping them occupied and keeping them out of the way. But there are no villains here. The teachers we have are motivated and energetic — more so than in many other professions. It is the system that needs a revamp.

At the risk of raising the ire of educationists, I posit that our education system is self-sustaining and has its own self-defeating momentum. Teachers train and appoint teachers like them to teach the same subjects as prescribed by curricula drafters much like themselves. What is taught in schools is taught for two very good reasons — it is there and it has been taught before.

Information is easy to teach, so the system teaches information and we test it in examinations. Process skills, like thinking, are much more difficult to teach and to test, so we tend to ignore them. The pressure for sheer continuity is enormous, and therein lies the trap.

I agree with Ma. Maybe we should relook what is being taught in schools in order for us to prepare for the future.

Mathematics, for instance, is an excellent subject and most of our technological development has arisen directly from the use of mathematics. Yet, the teaching of mathematics has not changed over the years. There’s geometry, trigonometry, algebra, quadratics and everything else.

I admit some children will require a sound mathematical background because they are going to be engineers and physicists, but they could learn the mathematics required for that as part of their vocational training.

Most people use amazingly little mathematics in their daily lives. A basic curriculum comprising simple addition and subtraction, simple multiplication and division, and the use of decimal notations would suffice for the majority, along with the use of a pocket calculator.

So, what would the system teach a 21st century child? The fundamental four subjects would probably be reading, writing, practical mathematics, and thinking and social skills. These, I believe, are the basic skills the child needs. If our education system provided nothing more than skills in these basic areas, it would have done enough.

All this may seem rather utilitarian but that is a value, not a “sneer” word. Many of these subjects would be more difficult to teach than straightforward knowledge subjects.

One other subject that needs to be taught from young is leadership. We humans have the power to lead other humans — that is a trait programmable machines do not have. Yet…

The art of leadership, to me, is in the ability to make people want to work for and go with you, while they are really under no obligation to do so. That needs to be taught, fast. Effective leaders all have that trait.

But one leadership subject is non-negotiable — that a leader must be primed to stand on high moral ground and lead by example. There are some lines on the ground that one positively and definitely must not cross.

That, readers, is what I shared with my wards, the graduating MBA class of 2018. They ended their classes last week. The coursework and assignment ordeals are over for them. I was part of a team that taught them Leadership and Ethics.

The Greek philosopher Plato said, “The greater part of instruction is being reminded of the things you already know.” That’s what the best learning is. As a teacher and guide, what I try to do is help my students understand in a new and clear way something that they have long sensed intuitively. Experience, some say, is the testing ground for wisdom. I agree.

Some of the things I shared were very painful to me at that time. And I could still feel the sting as I passed them on to my students. When I share, I am reminded of how often I have made mistakes. Yet, I am encouraged because I recognise that I am much wiser today than I was in years past.

And I learnt too, from the students who signed up for my courses. Many of them have colourful backgrounds — child education specialists, civil servants, computer geeks and extreme sportsmen, among others. I learnt how millennials think and why they think that way, and I learnt new ways of conveying my messages without boring their attention-span-challenged minds.

True, leadership is not easy to learn, but what worthwhile thing is?

There are a lot of people who are willing to give advice about leadership they have never experienced. Accounting teachers who have never done real audits before and law lecturers who have never been in court — you know the deal. They are like bad travel agents. They sell you an expensive ticket and say, “I hope you enjoy the trip”. Then you never see them again.

In contrast, good teachers are like tour guides. They know the territory because they have made the trip before, and they do what they can to make the trip enjoyable and successful for everyone.

Tour guides and leaders have a lot in common. They both say, “Let’s go”, instead of telling you where to go. I tell my students that the main purpose of leadership is to take others with you to the top. And when you take others there who might not have made it otherwise, there’s no other feeling like it in the world. To those who have never had the experience, you can’t explain it. To those who have, you don’t need to.

Will I continue to teach and guide the younger generation of Malaysia? The answer is a resounding “Yes!” Why? Because good leadership always makes a difference. I have seen what good leadership can do. I have seen it turn around organisations and positively impact the lives of thousands of individuals.

There are no villains in our education system. But there is a locked-in system that has not evolved very much in itself. In the future, I think the academic side of education is going to be less important than the people-developing side. I pray that we respond to our changing world quicker than we do now.


Zakie Shariff is a member of the board of directors at Universiti Malaysia Pahang. He is also a director of FA Securities, a boutique stockbroking firm in Kuala Lumpur.

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