Course content. Module 1

General education

When people speak about education, they sometimes associate it with schooling. When seeing or hearing the word, many think of places such a schools or universities. Education, however, is more than that – it is a social process of living, not a preparation for future living (Dewey, 1916). In this view, education is an act with people rather on them.

Education is a process that promotes learning or the development of knowledge, skills, values, morality, beliefs and habit. In broad terms, education may be:

• Formal – in school, for example.

• Non-formal – this course is a good example.

• Informal – in your everyday life.

Field experts consider that we are learning all the time, and that we may not be aware of this happening. Learning is considered in two ways:

• as a process it is part of living in the world, part of the way our bodies work. 

• as an outcome it is a new understanding or appreciation of something.

Citizenship refers to individuals working together, locally, nationally and internationally, to create meaningful changes in the community in which they live. This process is good for people and necessary for the strengthening and preservation of our democracy and our democratic way of life. It comes without saying that citizenship is not just about getting one country's passport. Moreover, over the last couple of decades, a new concept emerged along with the advancements of computer, internet smartphone technologies: digital citizenship. Digital citizenship refers to the responsible use of technology by anyone who uses computers, the Internet, and digital devices to engage with society on any level.

Citizenship education includes the creation of awareness, skills and trust to allow individuals to make their own choices and take responsibility for their own lives and communities (including those online). Citizenship education is becoming more and more relevant in many countries, where democratic society and its institutions face threats.

As you can imagine, education, learning and (digital) citizenship are not just separate concepts, but are part of a bigger picture of our everyday life. In fact, there are numerous examples of thought leaders who combined these, including Aristotle, Socrates, Rousseau, Leonardo da Vinci, Einstein, Gandhi and Sugata Mitra. In the following, read the case study of Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Prize winner and activist for girls’ education.

A world without education

What if there weren't any more schools? Compulsory schooling is the standard in almost every culture on Earth. In the EU, most countries require children to go to school from 5 to at least 16 years of age. What would happen, though, if primary and secondary schools, high schools, technical institutes and universities were all gone?

The benefit of the human brain is its innate capacity to learn from other experiences, making it possible for people to learn faster and learn more by transferring skills from one person to another. This helps you develop your skills quicker and frees up time to learn other skills. Education institutions develop their curricula so that you can learn quicker, better and more effectively. This is especially important given the rapid development of (digital) technology.

Without school education, people would need to rely solely on apprenticeship and job shadowing. This would be detrimental for your personal and professional growth for two reasons: lack of opportunities to learn, because you would actually need to get into a trainee job to start learning that job and much slower learning because you would need to experience each task, skills, etc.

These results at the individual level will be replicated on a larger scale in our culture. Without schools, our society will not be able to meet the intellectual demands of existing and emerging technologies. Instead, we would be forced to abandon most of our inventions and return to a more primitive and simple age, with no intellectual demands on the individual.

Although formal schooling would vanish, it is possible that we would instead see the return of the Middle Ages and later apprenticeships for most of the professions with young children entering the workforce in order to acquire the lifelong skills required for their careers: vehicles, planes, rockets, and other devices needing years and years of engineering and technical training would be a thing of the past. 

But with the loss of schools, there would also be a disappearance of choice and personal independence, as individuals would be forced to choose and train only within the work immediately available to them. So, note that the mobile phone in your hand, the satellite to which it communicates, and the rocket that carried the satellite into space all exist because of the schools. 

Watch the video What if all the schools disappeared:

https://www.youtube.com/watchv=_OE2rNP8fb0

Case study - Malala Yousafzaiedia?

Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani female education activist and the youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize. Malala's fight for education started at the age of 11 when she wrote an anonymous online diary about the life of a schoolgirl in Pakistan's Swat Valley under the Taliban. A New York Times documentary about her life as the Pakistani military interfered in the area was made by journalist Adam Ellick the following summer. 

A masked gunman boarded her school bus on 9 October 2012 and asked, "Who is Malala?" Then, in an assassination attempt in revenge for her activism, the Pakistani Taliban gunman shot Malala and two other girls. Badly injured on the left side of her head, Malala woke up in a hospital in Birmingham, UK, 10 days later.

Following her recovery, Malala became a prominent activist for the right to education. She co-founded the Malala Fund, a non-profit organization. In 2013, she co-authored I Am Malala, an international best seller.

“For her struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education”, Malala was co-awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, thus becoming the youngest ever Nobel laureate. She graduated with a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford in 2020 and continues her fight for the right of girls to education.

Watch Malala’s story here:

Self-reflection: What are the links between education and citizenship in the case of Malala Yousafzai?

The learning process

Learning is the process of acquiring new knowledge, understanding, behaviors, skills, values, attitudes and preferences through study, experience, or being taught. It is believed that learning is much deeper than memorization and knowledge retrieval. Deep and long-lasting learning includes comprehension, connecting ideas and ties between prior and current experience, independent and critical thinking, and the ability to use knowledge to new and different contexts. Learning is a process that:

• builds on prior knowledge - involves enriching, building on and changing existing understanding. For example, learning how to use the Instagram App is based on prior knowledge on how to use smartphones and to take photos.  

• is active – includes engaging and manipulating objects, experiences, and conversations to build mental models. For example, it is not enough to read a blogpost about how to edit a video; you need to start doing it, interact with the video camera, with the processing app, with colleagues for help and feedback, etc.

• is situated in an authentic context - provides learners with the ability to engage with unique ideas and principles on a need-to-know or a desire-to-know basis. For instance, you need an online or face-to-face context which supports your learning; you are reading this now on your free will and comfort.

• occurs in a complex social environment – you need to think of learning as a social activity involving people, the things they use, the words they speak, their cultural context and actions. For example, when learning how to use Google Maps, you need to relate the app to the physical environment, local guides, language and your needs as a user.

• requires learners’ motivation and engagement - since considerable mental effort and persistence are necessary, you need to find your motivation and to engage in the learning process

Source: Luana, 12 years old. Creativity word cloud

Learner’s attributes

You may wonder what are the learning habits you need to be successful in school, higher education, the workplace and life in general. Research indicates that good learners habitually approach learning by being confident, responsible, reflective, innovative and engaged (UCLES, 2018). In order to effectively control their performance, they are able to skillfully use a wide range of cognitive skills and socio-emotional skills (including personality attributes such as resilience, self-motivation and self-regulation). Confident – Learners are confident, comfortable in their understanding, reluctant to take anything for granted and able to take academic risks. In an organized, critical and reflective manner, they are keen to discuss and test ideas and arguments. They will interact and defend beliefs and views as well as respect those of others.

Responsible – Learners take control of their education, set goals and focus on intellectual integrity. They are collaborative and positive. They know that their conduct has an effect on others and on the world. They understand the meaning of history, context and society.

Reflective – Learners identify themselves as learners. They care about their learning processes and products and build knowledge and strategies to be life-long learners.

Innovative – Learners embrace and meet new challenges resourcefully, creatively and imaginatively. To solve new and unknown problems, they are able to apply their experience and understanding. They will adapt to new circumstances that involve new ways of thinking in a versatile way.

Engaged – With curiosity, learners are alive, possess a spirit of inquiry and want to explore deeper. They are ready to learn new skills and are open to fresh ideas. They act well independently, but with others as well. They are trained, locally, nationally and internationally, to engage constructively in society and the economy.

Source: authors, based on (UCLES, 2018)

The attributes are interdependent and should be regarded as a whole. For instance, confidence needs to be grounded in reflection and accountability so that the learner shows capacity and modesty to assess how sure they can be that they are correct. In order to be creative, able to take academic risks and not afraid to make mistakes, learners need to be willing because they see them as a learning opportunity. 

Learning from failure

Many active learners see failure as both necessary and desirable, since it is difficult to develop as a human being without learning from failure. Humans are born with an instinct to learn from mistakes in a way that does not give rise to fear or stress. This changes if young people are pushed to be competitive, focused on performance rather than learning.

One of the goals of the learner attributes is to inspire learners to be risk-taking, optimistic in taking on new tasks and learning from mistakes. This requires learners not to be afraid to ask for support and assistance, and not to worry about losing face to others. It is important to have an innate self-motivation to become a flexible, independent learner. Supported by instructors, coaches and schooling, the resilient would have coping strategies to deal with disappointment.

“Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up.” -Chinese proverb

Across the entire globe and in all periods of history there are numerous examples of people who failed, learnt from their failures and got up again and again. Here are some examples:

Source: Pinterest

Case study - J.K. Rowling

Source: Wikipedia

When she finished her first Potter Novel, she has sent it to 12 publishing houses, all of which rejecting the text. A year later, Rowling found a publisher, but was told to get a day's work because she probably wouldn't make money from children's books. But that wasn't stopping her.

She ultimately wrote seven books in the series and gained a worldwide following. She says, “Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected.” (Cherry, 2020)

Guiding questions

We hope that these examples will equip you with the extra motivation to embrace failure, get up and make it part of your learning process: 

“The secret of life is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.” Paulo Coelho

But how to learn from failure? A good way to begin this process is by asking yourself some tough questions:

1. What can I learn from this?
2. What could I have done differently?
3. Do I need to acquire or improve some skills?
4. Who can I learn from?
5. What will I do next?

Self-reflection: Please think about an example of failure you faced and ask yourself the 5 guiding questions for learning from failure.

Intelligence

Some may ask themselves what is the relationship between learning and intelligence. But let’s first see what intelligence is. Narrow definitions focus on problem-solving and mental agility in specific analytical problem-solving tasks and are often associated with intelligence quotient (IQ).

Howard Gardner suggested that standard IQ definitions and tests could not be used to assess or describe cognitive abilities (Gardner, 1983). In turn, he suggested the presence of multiple intelligences: musical-rhythmic, visual-spatial, verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalistic. 

Source: simplypsychology.org/ Multiple Intelligences of Howard Gartner

Daniel Goleman advocated the concept of emotional intelligence as the ability to understand one’s own and other people’s emotions and modify one’s behaviour appropriately (Goleman, 1995).

Source: Authors, adapted from (Goleman, 1995)

Robert Sternberg viewed intelligence as the ability to accomplish life goals by capitalizing on strengths and compensating for weaknesses in order to communicate efficiently in various situations using analytical, creative and practical skills (Sternberg, 2009). This may be the reason why successful people are not necessarily those with the highest grades but those that demonstrated practical intelligence combined with wisdom and creativity. The concept of wisdom is very relevant to the learner attribute of being responsible, which is very important in the digital environments.

In a wider sense, therefore, intelligence can be understood as a person's ability to adapt to the world and learn easily from experience, showing successful problem-solving techniques in a number of contexts.

A key thing to remember from this discussion about intelligence in its different forms is that the IQ is not the only, complete indication of one’s ability to learn. Also, there are many kinds of things you can learn, in many ways. Therefore, we encourage you to learn what you need and want, the way that best suits you. Fortunately, the digital environment offers you a lot of options. For example, our course includes text, photo, video, audio materials and a lot of methods, e.g. presentation, case studies, discussion forum, etc.

Exercise 1: Young people who changed the word

Objective:

• Identify young word-changers.
• Write the story of at least one young leader.

Duration: 45 min

Tools: device with Internet connection

Methods: research, discussion

Description of the exercise: No matter the age people do have a huge impact on the society. Some people have been extremely successful with their accomplishments, and now the rest of the world can admire and even take note. Their stories could be a good example and a powerful motivation for other people too. 

Tasks: Find out the stories of other young leaders of our times from internet sources. A good source you may wish to consider is the “10 Young People Who Changed the World” blog article available here: https://www.waterford.org/education/kids-who-changed-the-world/. Write down interesting facts about those who impressed you mostly.

Debriefing: Please feel free to share at least one of your findings in the discussion forum. We encourage you to write down names, 50 words bios and a link to the internet source.

Lessons learned: Youth do have power in order to change the word

Recommendation: Guide the students some ideas to follow in their research:  age, place, issue, solution, impact.

Supplementary reading

1. Multiple intelligences and learning styles: Read