The social media is flooded many grandiose views of the many alternate pathways to education from everywhere. Are they for real, are they just competing for airtime or are they meant for entertainment only?
Why are people debating on class size, when students cannot even attend class. Is going to university really an aspiration in the next few years, as some families struggle to put food on the table?
I watched and wondered what kind of impact these policies might have on our children. Parents must be concerned. Are things going to be just as pressurizing? More tuition? Or super relaxed?
Now that the election is over, is the show over? So, can we get back to reality? Does it mean we are just returning to the old system?
Wait.
What old system are we referring to? Are we still waiting for the coronavirus crisis to be over so that our kids can resume their usual routine of going to school and we can resume our lives? Is the old system really coming back?
Let’s get real. It is not. So is this good or bad news? Not too long ago, weren’t we complaining about how outdated the education system was? In 2007, Sir Ken Robinson asked us if schools kill creativity. His speech became the most watched Ted Talk. While the technology has been ready for a while now, educators and policy makers have been dragging their feet in implementing any groundbreaking policies. After all, why change when things are not broken.
But things are broken. The pandemic has forced us to relook at education as we have limited abilities to send our kids to sit in classrooms. On July 7, US ICE issued the policy that foreign students who can attend classes online will not be allowed to stay in America. Granted, they were forced to reverse that decision very quickly. But how long will this hold up?
Clearly, online education is here to stay, with its role getting more important. I am amazed that in this time and age, there are still people who insist that certificates or degrees earned with some online components are not as rigorous or should be less regarded than those that were done in person.
While there are some fields that can only be taught in person, those that can be taught online will be better delivered through the use of technology. In fact, many of these programs will have better instructional design, more modern and with better instructors than face-to-face instructions.
Teaching online requires some additional skill set and a different disposition from teaching in person. It also involves different issues.
These days, will we still risk to send our kids to any educational institution that does not have effective online strategies? In fact, do you think any school should exist if its online program lackluster? We know that in future, any kind of studies will have at least part of its program delivered online.
Besides having teachers trained to deliver curriculum online, a good online program should also incorporate proper planning and good instructional design. The days of pressurized teachers slapping together zoom and video classes quickly and delivering in formats they were neither familiar nor comfortable with should be over.
In fact, the new norm presents many alternatives to education. Whether our children excel in education depends on how we cut through this noise and address things that matter before they grow up.
I conducting a webinar on alternate pathways to education. We took 10 years to refine our online education programs. Our programs have helped hundreds get into the most prestigious universities in the world. Come and listen to our methodologies and witness how we have motivated them with all levels of learning abilities to achieve what they themselves didn’t believe they could.
Thousands have already changed their children’s lives through our seminars. Commit 3 hours one Saturday, and see how your kids’ education transform. Suitable for parents of kids above 10 years old, from any part of the world.
