The latest Office of National Statistics (ONS) report paints a disconcerting picture of the state of education in the UK, particularly for young people aged 16 to 24. The alarming statistic that over 1 in 10 are not engaged in education, employment, or training (NEET) emphasises the urgent need to re-evaluate our education system. The ONS’s latest report also showed that 7% of UK adults aged 16 to 64 had no qualifications in 2022, and overall, 35% of adults in Great Britain were dissatisfied with the education system in September 2023.
Louise Livingston, an expert with over 30 years of experience in education and a background in educational neuroscience, suggests possible reasons behind these numbers and advocates for a paradigm shift in our approach to education.
Collaboration and creativity
The current education system, which predominantly focuses on academic subjects, may not adequately prepare young minds for the challenges of the real world because it does not give them the capacities relevant to today’s workplace. We no longer need to memorise facts – we can access these at the touch of a smartphone or a question to Alexa. It is much more relevant for education to help our young people learn to organise information, discriminate relevant from irrelevant, think creatively and come up with as yet unknown ideas – but this is hard to find in a system that teaches a fixed curriculum, expecting everyone to learn the same thing at the same time irrespective of whether they were born in September or July. Moreover, the incumbent system requires students to listen, memorise and sit a test to evidence what they can remember, giving little credit for ideas and knowledge not prescribed by the curriculum. But, in today’s workplace, people don’t just need to listen; they also need the skills to communicate and collaborate creatively–these skills set job seekers apart from other applicants. How can young people become collaborative, flexible, creative thinkers when they have experienced limited opportunities to develop these skills at school?
Today’s workplace also requires adaptability and resilience. However, these are not skills that can be easily brought to the fore as needed – they are character traits that start to develop early in life and can be encouraged by an education that exemplifies that mistakes are opportunities for further learning and change is an opportunity to practice adapting. But how will children learn to be flexible when all that they have experienced is that they will be chastised if they don’t obey the rules? They need some freedom to decide their own educational activities and rhythm, starting with and building on what they are interested in, such that they experience success and grow in confidence to express and contribute their ideas to others.
The visionary educational pioneer Maria Montessori recognised this when she wrote: “Education must no longer be mostly imparting knowledge, but must take a new path, seeking the release of human potentialities.” She recognised that education must prepare children to engage fully in the life they are living today in order to create the one they will live in the future, not the one that their parents or grandparents lived – as she put it, “Education for Life”.
In the Montessori approach, children are guided by a teacher trained to observe children’s interests and capacities as a means to support their development. The Montessori teacher prepares an educational environment for a mixed-age group with a wide range of open-ended, hands-on activities that provide opportunities for children to choose tasks appropriate to their stage of development. Because activities are so targeted to each child’s individual needs and interests, children are motivated and engaged and soon become able to focus their attention on the job at hand, persevere when challenges arise and look for new solutions. In short, they become self-disciplined, creative, and self-starters – exactly what is needed for the jobs that they don’t even know exist right now.
Educational neuroscientists call these soft skills that are particularly nurtured by the Montessori approach “executive function”. Current research links executive function to academic and social skills and a myriad of other positive life outcomes. The modern workplace is crying out for more emphasis on developing and maximising these mental skills, enabling children to navigate complex situations later in life. Today’s employees don’t care so much about what employees know – they value how they think, communicate and collaborate and whether they can take on the challenge.
A growing need for change
As we navigate the complexities of the world today, our education system must evolve to cultivate individuals who are not only resilient, adaptable and, collaborative, socially responsible citizens but who also love to engage in their own education simply because the benefits to them are tangible. Young people should actually want to nurture their own development – which is very different to being prepared to be tested on subjects that are of no particular interest to them. Children encouraged to take control of their own education are empowered to explore their interests and develop a love for continuous learning. Montessori education offers this type of education – grounded in experience from the past but fit for the future.
Louise Livingston has over 30 years of experience in education, an MSc in Educational Neuroscience, and is undertaking a PhD in Educational Neuroscience. Louise is Head of Training at the Maria Montessori Institute www.mariamontessori.org, which offers Montessori teacher training and short courses at the UK’s only AMI training centre and authentic Montessori education for children aged from 2½ years at its London school.
