The purpose of education has long been a point of discussion for parents, politicians, educators and society more generally. The diversity of responses and the passion with which ideas and beliefs are presented have grown, especially since the invention of social media. Everyone has an opinion about education – and so they should: it is the most important consideration of any society – the value given to children, their childhoods and the pathways to adulthood that lead to a flourishing life. But what does it mean to flourish? What does it mean to achieve and become educated? And what is the purpose of school?
The teaching profession holds the key to the evolution of schooling and to considering answers to these questions. To this purpose, the Chartered College of Teaching, an international, professional body designed to empower teachers and teaching assistants by providing them with support, challenges and access to research, was founded in the UK. We encourage the development of practice through reflective collaboration, providing learning pathways to new ideas and opportunities. Increasingly, the role of the College is to stimulate and lead professional enquiry into practice that supports teachers (and those who work with them), not only to support them in their thinking about what they do and how they do it but also to reflect on why they do it.
To truly reimagine the purpose of education, educators must believe that all children can be educated and can flourish within the classroom. Inclusion is vital. We know that there are many changes (and challenges) ahead. For our teaching profession, the art is to continue to teach as well as we can, whilst providing space for children to imagine and to dream – and also providing those spaces for the educators who enable learning to happen. A reimagining of education raises the following aspects:
To support the development and flourishing of children beyond the family
To introduce new areas of study and to show the interconnectedness of all human knowledge
To provide role models and offer spiritual guidance, moral guidance, and leadership
A future focus for education policy should be to develop a forward-looking workforce, including teachers, leaders, teaching assistants and those who engage with children in schools, which is ready to embrace change and for whom challenge is part of the exciting journey. This journey arises when supported by high-quality professional development, within cultures of learning enabled by leaders and when given the professional autonomy and responsibility to do what is right for the children and young people in their care.
When the College published the academic journal Impact, the purpose was to bridge academic research and evidence with practitioners’ understandings as experienced in schools. It was to give a meaningful resource to help busy teachers to rethink and build evidence into their practice. This inspiring series, called Education Visions, of which this book is the first, goes an additional step in seeking new visions for education and bringing diverse ideas together. In the dialogue between academic manifesto chapters and the practitioner wisdom chapters, the reader can see the grappling with ideas, the articulation of practical ideas and the passion to explore new ideas.
The authors demonstrate a compassionate response to consider new ideas for children and young people. In a world that seems increasingly fractured, we need compassionate teachers, teaching assistants and leaders more than ever. Educators must focus more on what it means to flourish as a human. We need to bring that dialogue into our educational spaces. Language is thought, and developing language builds cognition. We need thinking classrooms full of debate, decision-making and social interaction – where children explore what it means to be an educated, compassionate person. And because of this, we need the same in our staffrooms: places of debate, autonomy to make decisions and celebratory social interaction.
In this book, the variegated ideas contribute to a kaleidoscope of possibility thinking about how our children and young people could be as they journey through their lives. How do we reduce the impacts of stress in our classrooms? How can spiritual questioning bring children and young people closer to a sense of awe and wonder? Where are the voices of children represented in our schools? How do we move away from seeing separate entities in siloed thinking and towards a more interconnected approach? Can democracy be strengthened because children have a direct, early experience of it? And can sustainability education move beyond making posters about endangered species? All these questions are raised in the eclectic mix presented herein – in a unique dialogue between academic and practitioner.
With the advent of artificial intelligence, schools face a crossroads. Either technology will replicate much of the traditional work of the teacher, reducing her role to that of supervisor, or, in the hands of skilled educators, technology will provide powerful tools (say, video and virtual reality) capable of inspiring discovery and enhanced understanding of our world. If knowledge is freely and instantly available to everyone, it will cease to be the purpose of formal education. Instead, it might focus on interpreting and interrogating the veracity of ‘facts’. Humans will need to become skilled, critical consumers of information. Teachers will need to embrace interdisciplinarity, work in cross-curricular teams and focus on the characteristics that make us human – our capacity for empathy, kindness, curiosity and humour.
The biggest threat to schools and the teaching profession is that lesson content is becoming increasingly automated, at the same time as children’s learning is becoming measured by machines. We might end up in a situation in which lessons are centrally planned by leaders who never enter the classroom, with teachers simply required to deliver them. Teachers will not need to think anymore. It is possible that the role of the teacher could be reduced to being a guard – ensuring safety and compliance and not much else. In some regions of the world – where centralised instruction delivered by a combination of machine and supervisor is cheaper than employing a qualified professional teacher – this is a familiar scenario. In response, the teaching profession must be adaptable; learning how to utilise new technologies, while also advocating for the benefits of group learning through interaction, shared perspectives and the building of collaborative solutions.
Increasingly, I believe, society will look to the teaching profession to provide moral and spiritual guidance, not only to children but also to families. And that is why this book is a good contribution: it says that academics have ideas, school educators have ideas, and with the diversity of ideas come new pathways to enable flourishing children – and an education that fosters a more wholesome, happier society, perhaps?
As we look to the world of future employment, we need to focus on the values of humanity and on addressing the deep concerns about our environment. We can’t stem the tide of ‘progress’. However, I was interested to read recently that some supermarkets are removing automated tills in favour of tills manned by humans who can talk to customers, some of whom may not have other social outlets. Maybe the work of the future will value imagination and compassion much more. Our societies have many ills: inequity, loneliness, poverty, greed, consumerism, selfishness, attention deficits and an increasing need for instant gratification. We need to help teachers do more to build recognition of the power of humane ways of engaging with one another. Recently, I visited an intergenerational nursery housed in sheltered accommodation for the elderly. I accompanied a small group, including several adults with dementia and their carers, for a story-based activity. The joy on the faces of both the children and the adults as the children arrived was wonderful to witness. More could be done to provide inter-generational learning spaces. Both examples are about people thinking differently. Doing, differently.
Biddulph, Pearse and Shuckburgh, the co-editors, rightly say that this collection of visions is incomplete. Everyone has an opinion about education, and so everyone should. It is for each educator, and indeed anyone interested in education and the future of the world, to read each chapter within the context of their own community and school; to consider, question, doubt, find possibilities and opportunities in what they read. Reject what the authors say, by all means. Create a better idea, build on the ideas, open up your communities to new visions. Engage in the ideas. It is through this knowledgeable engagement that the future is held in safe hands. A trusted, knowledgeable profession would be much better placed to deal with accountability pressures of governments and parents and to support governments in making the right decisions about education that is truly aimed at helping everyone to flourish. We need society to recognise the importance of education and the fact that teachers are essential agents of change. The Chartered College of Teaching stands ready to support, inspire and nurture our amazing educators, with love.
Open access