The report “School for an Innovator,” commissioned by the Ministry of Development, shows that the education system is a concrete-block Methuselah which, even if innovation bit it on the backside, would still fail to recognize it. It simply lacks life: practice, unpredictability, discovering new things, experimenting, failures and shared successes. School is dead and produces zombies, and perhaps this strike will bring it back to life. Perhaps it will show what life looks like. If, of course, we allow children to experience that life—which does not look likely.
What does the report say?
School teaches outdated content, which undermines its authority and deprives students of the experience that knowledge is constantly developing.
Spontaneity is killed at school, while imitation—ready-made answer templates—and “perfect impoverishment” are promoted: children are taught that they cannot fail and that there is one correct goal.
Compliant students are favored, those called “well-behaved,” the quiet ones who cause no trouble. The report states plainly that, for creativity, it is better to punish only those who drastically overstep the rules and not reward children for never venturing beyond the prevailing norms.
Tests and exams: pure evil!
The worst seem to be tests and exams, which the report calls the promotion of superficial learning—that is, learning “for the test”—because 90% of such knowledge is lost. “A test exam taken by a student is a very unnatural situation that does not reflect the student’s real behavior or ability to cope with problems.”
School is not a “learning organization”
The report states that schools “are not expected to be learning organizations.” Teachers do not engage in dialogue, and their working model “does not allow for the possibility of changing and correcting behavior.” “Cooperation is the foundation for building a model of learning organizations in schools. Meanwhile, teachers are accustomed to working alone and not leaving their comfort zone.”
Teacher versus entrepreneur
Even more strangely, teachers themselves believe that school teaches children innovation effectively. However, a major discrepancy was noted between how teachers assess the system and what entrepreneurs think about it. According to entrepreneurs, students lack the most important competencies after leaving school:
- curiosity and discovering new opportunities
- problem-solving skills
- non-standard thinking
- the ability to change perspective
- how to work on several ideas simultaneously
- how to develop a future-oriented outlook
Entrepreneurs identified the following causes of this situation: a curriculum overloaded with content, students’ lack of soft skills—communication, social skills and emotional intelligence are failing—and the school’s inability to develop a future-oriented outlook, which is essential for creating innovation.
You can download and read the full report on the Kuratorium Oświaty website. After reading it, your hair will stand on end, so I recommend that only people with strong nerves read it.