It is interesting to observe the reaction of the Ministry of Education (MOE) of Singapore with regards to the H1N1 virus outbreak in Singapore. With enforced quarantine of students and teachers a possible scenario with the start of the new school term this week (in fact, it has become a reality)an opportunity has arisen for Singapore to show the world how far it has gone with the use of ICT for education at the school level.

Initially, there were announcements that schools are ready to go online when the MOE was contemplating extending the school holidays for one week. The MOE claimed that schools were ready to do so. Then the MOE announced that all schools would open except for those that had a certain number of H1N1 victims.

Strange then, that after all that assurance of online lessons being ready, suddenly the MOE is talking about students being given learning packages for them to bring home to offset the school hours missed. There is no more mention of online learning.

One wonders why? Is the MOE not confident that its teachers can deliver suitable online learning materials for students confined at home? Why is this so after more than a decade of the much lauded MasterPlan for IT in Education (MPITE)? Sure the MPITE is not just about online learning, but surely MOE would have to think that online learning is one important aspect of it? Why waste an opportunity to show what ICT can do in such times as this?

In fact one even wonders why MOE decided to go ahead with the starting of the new school term at all when it is clear that the situation is becoming worse with local infections rising? Is it just to show that the show must go on and pretend that there is a semblance of normalcy? Or is it because MOE knows that its teachers are far from prepared to provide good online learning for their students? I wouldn’t be surprised at all if MOE has been receiving feedback from the schools that they are worried about “lost” curriculum hours.

Whatever the reasons are, it is an opportunity lost! We have spent billions on the ICT infrastructure and lots of man hours on training the teachers to be able to use ICT for education. Schools have even spend more money on licensed use of online learning portals operated by commercial vendors. Seems like none of these is good enough to replace the physical white board and traditional teacher talk.

PS. Please do not erase this post.

Today’s schools are blessed with connections to the outside world. Where at one time, the only connection a school had was perhaps the telephone in the administration office, today students and teachers can even have access to the internet to connect with the world. Yet, schools today, especially in Singapore, are perhaps one of the most disconnected places to be.

The disconnection stems not from the lack of physical infrastructure. It is actually, in spite of the availability of good communications infrastructure. Much of the disconnection is of a human nature. At the intellectual level, the “learning” that takes place is often devoid of connections with true deep understanding. Superficial knowledge is the norm as that is what is required for the written examinations.

The disconnection in school is especially true with regards to the meaning of the school experience itself. School by definition should be a place where learning takes place. But what is the meaning of the learning that takes place for the students themselves. One is reminded of this funny graphic below:

While funny, yet if we are to look at it seriously, how many of our students in our schools understand the full meaning of it? How many of them understand the real meaning of the equations that they have been asked to solve? Here, I do not mean just their being able to solve the equations because the equations can be solved merely through knowing the mechanical routine. What do they really mean for these students? Students routinely solve equations and other problems in school without understanding the meaning of what they have learned (except that they are needed to do well in the high stakes written examinations)? Little attempt is made at meaning-making. This disconnectedness is not limited to just Math.

Is it a surprise then that many students do not “connect” with the “learning” that goes on in the schools. Often we say many of these students chose to disconnect and begin to become “problem” students but the reality is that perhaps little is done in schools to make that connection for the students. The students’ decision not to participate in the “learning” in school is precipitated by the teachers not making great effort to make that connection for them. Far too often they are told that they need to “learn” so they can get a “good job”. Very uninspiring isn’t it?

For the teachers, the disconnection is from their own traditional role as curriculum directors and developers. Teachers too find little meaning about what being a teacher entails. Some (many?) live the lie that they are preparing their young charges for the workplace but then again as I have indicated in my other posts, this is far from true as the skills taught and pushed for in schools today is rarely consistent with what the employers want.

So what we have in schools today is a disconnect that is all too often unnoticed or ignored. Yet today, we want our schools to be connected to the world through the internet when perhaps the most important connections should be within the more intimate confines of the schools themselves.

Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.

- Wikipedia

I am sure you have seen how young children totally absorbed when they are playing. They become almost indifferent to what goes on around them. Their being in this state is because they are in a state of flow. What is important about being in this state of flow, is that young children get absorbed in their learning.

To be in a state of flow is characterized by what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (originally Mihály Csíkszentmihály), the “Father of Flow”, described as:

“…being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.”

I long wondered why learning in schools is seldom done in such a state. Where learning is often associated with drudgery and pain even, in comparison if a person is allowed to learn in a state of flow, he will be doing it with a “feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.”

With “energized focus”, the student will be giving his best to the learning. He will not be lethargic or be waiting to be spoon-fed or told what to do. He will show initiative or pro-activity and take responsibility for his own learning which implies a complete involvement in his own learning, rather than the detached soulless learning that often takes place in school.

Most of all because of this vigor from within, he will experience success in his learning. Whatever, results he gets is a success in the form of feedback for him to continue to learn from his experience. he will not feel like a failure. With failure a “non-word”, learning becomes pleasureable and continuous. Life-long learning, the “new” holy grail of learning, I believe will only take place if people are allowed to be in this state of flow.