Pitch
With information at every child's mobile fingertip, we can trim the syllabus, reduce pressure and restore their precious childhood.
Description
Make life easier/more difficult for Singapore?
Easier
Describe the change
A lot of information today is accessible, even at a child’s finger tip. We live in a "just in time" age where one can find out what one needs to know anytime, anywhere, at almost any age. It is also clear that a child’s attention span today is much shorter than a mere decade ago. Millennials socialized by instant technology platforms zone out after 20 minutes in class. Learning less in class, students then depend on tuition to catch up. Here's a chance to change the way we organise school - how and how much we need to teach. Instead of wringing our hands in despair, we can face the inevitable and reduce the class time set for teaching a syllabus and also reduce the syllabus itself. Teach the redefined core in smaller bites. Leave details for self-discovery. No rush through the year to complete the syllabus. Schools can start later (research shows teens need much more sleep). Saved time can be re-channeled to the cultivation of smart-learning skills, life-skills, and more play (yes!).
How will this change impact Smart Nation Singapore in 2030?
Teachers and parents will doubtless be concerned (up in arms?) at any hint of a cut in content. And this has policy and political implications. But the truth is, content has been piling up through the years with the best of intentions in the global brain-race to keep up. In this new teaching scenario, content is not cut but strategically re-streamed and re-formatted to embrace how our kids of today and the future are increasingly tuned by technology to learn.
By: