A narrative of the future
A plea from the present.
Is it the whisper of students?
Or their cry for help?
Dear Guardians of Our Nation’s Mind,
I write to you not from the past nor the present, but from the near future which can be the reality if you will.
The year is 2040. It’s Bangladesh where the happy giggles are echoing from the school campus. The thing that excites the teenagers most is attending their educational institutes? No! Not only to spend time with their friends, neither to participate or attend variety of events; rather to attend classes. Questionable? Yes. But impossible? No. But how did this astounding change take place? Well, still a mystery the students from last decade are trying to solve. A remarkable change in the field of education brought students the “perks” of being a student.
Let’s take a look into the schools and their curriculums. Everything looks so different and organized than before. Are these the current classrooms?
The teacher enters the classroom and the students greet her with enthusiasm. Before starting with their lessons, the teacher asks how the students are doing or do they have anything interesting to share or not. Then they exchange a few stories for around 10 minutes before starting the lessons. So now the crucial part begins. The study. How did they make this interesting? Well we are about to witness that. The subject is English. So the students knowing the rules starts making conversations in English after getting a hint from the teacher and in their conversations, they need to include the grammar or vocabulary that’s been taught in today’s class. They get the opportunity to go on with their everyday chit-chats with their friends alongside practicing the grammar,
vocabulary and pronunciations. Sometimes they are assigned with fun guessing games where their knowledge of vocabulary, spelling, pronunciation and sentence making is polished.
Now let’s move to maths class. As technology is developing, by making sure the fair use of it, maths class can be turned into something magical. The teacher comes in and there’s this projector. I don’t know yet what will be the use of a projector in a class which is generally taken with regular blackboard and chalk. The teacher starts teaching formulas of geometry. But wait! That’s not how we learned it in our times. In the projector, there’s 3D images of a cylinder, circle, triangle and square. With the help of the 3d animation, the teacher is making the students understand the concept of how these formulas were created providing visual justification. They don’t have to memorize them?! They can only learn one formula and the rest are connected with them which is being sewn into their minds through animated 3d color coded visuals! No more going into the YouTube searching for fun contents huh!
Also children don’t have to carry all these heavy books? They can just go home to study from the books because for classes teachers have sufficient resources already.
Enough about classrooms. Let’s move onto the other activities the schools offer. They offer an entire hour to let children play and test their creativity by all the stacked-up items like, human size chess board, puzzles, IQ testers etc. They even get to learn to make a new dish everyday under the supervision of the teachers as a bonus score challenge.
There’s also a mandatory session of “speak your heart out” for every single student once a week. And also, multiple times a week if required. This opens the door for students to discuss their problems with someone professional and instead of getting rebuked or discouraged, their opinion is valued and proper help is provided to them when needed. A safe space for children to talk about anything and everything which sometimes cannot be get with friends neither with family.
But how did this happen? What are the differences here that is making the face of education stand out from the educational system that existed around a decade ago?
• Changing the curriculum from something boring and forceful to something entertaining and interesting– The attention span of children can only be held through the showcase of making every class interesting where they’ll be intrigued to know what’s coming next.
• Pushing their limits out of the bookish knowledge– Only reading books have never helped someone to go far enough. Practical practice and awakening the side to go to the depth of any topic to know how it actually works. Pushing their explorer version towards finding the logical explanation in everything rather than memorizing.
• Preparing them for exams but not putting pressure on them– Exams are must to judge to what extent one has learned. But that shouldn’t be reason of the death or depression of many children. Statistics shows that 86% students suffer from depression. It should be encouraging and motivating for students where they’d want to test their own knowledge out of willingness.
• Turn the fast-evolving technology in our favor– Creating awareness against the bad use of technology isn’t enough. If children from a very young age are getting access to the technology, let’s introduce them to the actual helpful sides in a fun way.
• Focusing on mental wellness– Providing children with a safe space in this fast-revolving world, a place where they can take a moment to breathe and to be themselves without any hesitation. Providing strong structure before they break.
• Respecting the teachers– We do say that teachers are the torch bearers of society but at the same time fail to put them in the highest position and showcase the respect they deserve. Motivating teachers by appreciating their noble job will make them stay and shape the children as their own.
Let us come forward together and finally open the doors of opportunity that were hidden in plain sight for so long.
Author: Rubaia Rusayed
Position: 9th (WC 2025)
Institution: North South University