After a long and hot summer, next week the city's educational institutions will once again be buzz with activities relating to teaching and learning. The school run will restart and minds will be set on absorbing knowledge and applying it.
Teaching and learning are two sides of the coin that symbolizes a pristine culture, a culture which through the history of human civilization has characterized the best in most civilizations. Historians and philosophers today remember with great respect the contributions made to this pristine tradition in China by the likes of Confucius, Mensius, and Lao Tzu; in India by Adi Sankara, Siddharta Gautama (the Buddha), and the sages (gurus) in gurukulas (schools of gurus); in the Arab and Persian world by Al Kindi, Al Farabi, Avarroes, Rumi and others; and in Europe by Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and the endless line of philosophers and great teachers.
The culture of education and enlightenment does not only delve on the disbursement of information. It creates a thinking, reasoning, and practicing community whose good influence eventually spreads through all of society and strengthens a nation.
At the heart of the teaching and learning enterprise are connectivity and communication. In order to communicate, good connections must first be established.
One cannot be a teacher if no one's learning from them. And another cannot be a learner if there isn't an objective source they look to as their teacher. Good teachers inspire. Good learners carry on the inspiration to influence culture in their generation and in subsequent ones.
Teaching and learning takes place in an environment of humility and mutual respect, wherein teachers recognize that it is only because of time, learning, and work opportunities that they take on the responsible role. Learners, on the other hand, show yeildedness and openness to new learning to better themselves and their skills. Education empowers people with knowledge and skills to take their place of service for the common good in society.
One of the most recent trends especially in higher education (HE) is to focus on innovative methods, techniques and approaches to teaching. Yet, the success of any innovative method, technique, and approach in teaching begins with rightly identifying learner audiences. To know the specialties of students and to understand their needs and rightly cater to them, is what makes the educational enterprise successful.
What then are the constituencies from which Canadian educational institutions, especially those of higher learning, have drawn and are likely to draw students in the future? Canadian students have and will continue to come from the following main categories: Canadian permanent residents and citizens, First Nations and international students.
While socio-economic security is the common factor that draws and will draw students from these backgrounds into higher education, every one of these groups, broadly speaking, seeks to serve particular ends.
Canadian permanent residents and citizens who seek HE will, to a significant degree (depending on their capacities, of course), want to qualify to serve in the higher-end professional sphere and give leadership to the nation across many fronts. Study programs and educators that will shape and equip these leaders of tomorrow must hence cater to the need not just of information disbursement, but also of sharpening critical thinking, widening the horizons of learning to incorporate a global perspective, and the cultivation of knowledge and application of the highest standards of human intentions, behaviors, and service.
Students from an aboriginal background will largely seek higher education to qualify to be involved professionally with First Nations (FNs) communities and FNs issues such as justice, rights, addiction issues, education of FNs children, eco-conservation, cultural studies, etc.
There is a growing openness among Canada's FNs youth to embrace Canadian HE. This is a good thing given that the FNs are probably the fastest growing single ethnic group in Canada. Going into the future Canadian education must further indigenize to incorporate rational learnings from indigenous cultures to distinctly contribute to Canadian identity and to bring Canada's FNs closer at heart to the rest of Canada.
A major chunk of the international student population sees education as the route to settlement in Canada. Canada needs them and is willing to take them in because this is that segment of the population which is willing to work and slog often even for little.
Canadian HE must cater to their needs and form them in a manner that will make them adapt to Canadian culture and values easily and help them succeed in the job market.
Due to a number of factors of which employment and cost related issues are the main ones, more and more domestic students have been unable to commit to full time study. This has forced Canadian educational institutions to embrace online and distance education alongside the traditional system of class-room based study. Video-conferenced classes to distant campuses and the use of electronic educational databases and platforms such as Blackboard and Moodle have become very important.
It has offered convenience and flexibility for students and the opportunity to dabble with new skills for teachers and professors.
Teachers also continue to innovate teaching techniques beyond the traditional. Outdoors learning, learning through drama and performance arts, visuals and art work, and learning through travel are some of them.
Education is an expensive responsibility for the nation. And while students and their sponsors pay much for the training, the government and donors still carry a heavy financial load to make education sustainable. Hence educators are constantly under pressure to tailor education to meet direct and skills-based local, provincial, and national socio-economic needs and demands. The medical school and the Wood Innovation Center at UNBC, and the dental, nursing, and trades programs at CNC are indicators of this.
An educated nation is a strong nation. And this is especially when all levels of education imbibe a Platonic ambition: that right knowledge inspires the human mind on the right path; and through collective practice of that which is right, wherein each skilled person utilizes their skills for the collective good, with the intention to do harm in any way or degree completely eradicated, an enlightened, secure, peaceful, and prosperous city-state (let's call it a nation) is built.
Education is the means to building a progressive, peaceful, and socio-economically vibrant society. The end goal of education is nation building and global welfare.
Reuben L. Gabriel, PhD, is an instructor of philosophy and history at the College of New Caledonia
