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.