Can learners teach themselves?

I think most of us was raised to believe that the teacher knows everything and that the learner knows nothing. This perception has carried over from generation to generation and it is only in recent times that people are beginning to question this.

It is only this year that I myself have started to look at the whole education system differently and has started to question whether or not we are doing it right. High dropout rates and low pass rates is a good indicator that the current way things are being done is not working. It is time that we as educators look at alternative ways to educate and how to better involve the learners.

After watching The Independent Project my mind was literally blown! Well not literally but the documentary really opened my eyes to alternative ways of teaching. I now believe that learners know best what they want and that they will definitely learn more efficiently if they are in control of their own learning process. The Independent Project showed that learners who were failing and who hated school, were able to do exceptionally well when they were in control of their own education.

Most schools are structured in a way that prohibits learners from being creative and thinking for themselves. They rather force learners to study subjects that they hate and have no interest in. I think we all can see how this is a problem. By letting learners do what they enjoy will automatically make them excel in that field. It is also important to consider what students want to do after school when deciding what subjects they should take in school.

The statement made in the article by Hamilton, “Teachers have plenty to learn and students have plenty to teach.” might not be accepted by many because teachers would like to think that they know more than their students, after all they did study at a university and have a degree to prove that they are educated. The problem with this is that if teachers don’t acknowledge the fact that learners have a lot to bring to the table in a teaching setting they are already failing at their job.

If teachers are not familiar with the standards regarding Information and Communication Technology they won’t be able to apply digital pedagogy the way they should and would therefore not be able to call themselves digital pedagogues.

It is therefore important for teachers to educate themselves in Information and Communication Technology in order to be efficient digital pedagogues but also to acknowledge that learners have a lot to teach and that including them in the teaching process might be the answer to a lot of our current problems in education.