“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Nelson Mandela
Recently, there are important developments in the field of medicine. We have come to a point where, instead of treatment for diseases, individualized treatments are being discussed. This approach covers a very limited area currently, but it looks promising for the future. Can we take a similar approach to education?
Although I don’t know about all the education systems in the world, many countries around the world have an education system that creates ordinary people from students whose talents and dreams are totally different from each other. We encounter less creative people today compared to the past. Could this be because of our education model? There is a very good story known about this;
“One day, animals in the forest gathered together and decided to open a school. The school’s board of education had comprised of a rabbit, a squirrel, a bird, a fish, and a snakefish.
Every animal on the board wanted to put the lesson of the talent he was good at on the education plan. The rabbit insisted that running should be on the plan. The squirrel insisted about climbing a tree. The bird had to swim while insisted that the fish should fly. Thus, four different abilities were added to the education plan and all animals were asked to attend all of these lessons. The rabbit was very talented at running, always getting “A”. However, he could not show the same success in climbing a tree. The rabbit, which often fell upside down, had brain damage and was unable to run as he used to be. He was getting C now. Also, he couldn’t get rid of poor grades in climbing a tree. The bird was born capable of flying, but he had a lot of trouble in the classes of “tunneling in the soil”. He was pushing himself too hard, causing his beak to break, sometimes even damaged his wings. He began to get bad grades from flight classes where he was gifted by nature, and never was a good soil digger. Beyond the difficulties of living outside of the water for a fish, and squirrel’s inability to swim and fly, the most successful animal in the class was a half-capable snakefish. This animal, which could not be considered too smart, was the most successful according to this education plan. Educators were pleased that all animals continued to attend all classes, and they called it a “broad-based model of education.”
This story has been told for many years and is often laughed and forgotten, but is there any reality in this story? We raise single type of student, single type of individual, consciously or not. However, it is obvious that successful and creative people could not be raised within this education system. I anticipate and also have a hope that this approach will change in the near future with today’s information and technology level, and a personal education model will emerge for each of us.