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London 2050 Summit – City of the Future
This week Ann Beatty was invited onto the panel of the London 2050 Summit to join the discussion on how technology will continue to shape our lives, and to offer a perspective of what the implications are for global education.
In the U.K. and globally, the pandemic has seen large numbers of people forced to work and socialise from home. Most of us are discovering new technology and experimenting with how it can be used to fill the gaps left by the various lockdowns. For some it means looking at entire home automation to enhance home life, work and entertainment life, and including these ideas in the new housing construction work of the future. For others it means questioning the pervasive role of technology in our lives, and building a future directed by human needs, not the needs of productivity and profit in isolation.
Technology is exciting, the possibilities are limited only by our imagination, and our development funding. So much is possible, but we need to make sure it is always fit for the purpose it is being used for. Algorithms are not better than teachers at predicting grades. Internet lessons can be a good way to deliver some aspects of education, if you have a stable internet connection and a device to study on, but online learning cannot replace professional expertise and the passion of teachers who inspire learning in students.
We have to be aware of the way we use technology to educate ourselves too, the potential for “Generation Google” is a double edged sword. It’s brilliant what we can learn and discover on YouTube and Google, but we have to be aware of the algorithms that are putting the content we consume up onto page 1 of a Google search.
The fact is we need the right technology for the right situation. In The Gambia we found that solar radios were the right solution, to take into account not only a lack of internet connection, lack of equipment, and a lack of access to power. Working in a diverse range of countries makes us acutely aware of the limitations of the technology we have. Our technological advances are still very dependent on infrastructure put in place decades ago. Where that infrastructure does not yet exist, our technology fails. Likewise, if our infrastructure fails so does the technology that we now wholly rely on too. By including everyone in the picture of development we are finding a more robust and sustainable way forward for everyone.
The new 5G network forces a network structure based on digital capitalism. Potential threats to cyber-attack, sharing and use of our data. We need to keep our focus on how to use data to benefit humankind rather than just distract us from the gravity of our current situation.
We are already testing the boundaries of the tech world we have built. The Social Dilemma documentary by Jeff Orlowski (2020), highlights the dangerous impact of digital social networking. The need to connect is a very important drive, and if our connections, our communities and even community spaces are all brought online, then we lose a fundamental part of that connection, especially the power of physical touch. The Covid-19 lockdown periods have been like an experiment in how far can digital socialising go. Our experiences with this range from frustration and isolation to the joy and convenience of being able to chat with someone on the other side of the world without having to travel.
In education there is definitely a global digital divide, not all children have access to technology and yes, many children are addicted to smart phones but you cannot learn effectively on smart phones. In many families they do not have a quality laptop or computer, they may not have the space to learn in their homes. We are in a situation where the U.K. government set up a scheme for laptops to be provided in April of this year to families who needed them but the outcome was that only 37% of children who needed them were able to access these devices (Children’s Commissioner Aug 2020). If we cannot feed our children adequately and many families have to visit food banks there needs to be a review of the whole system as hungry children cannot learn even if they have access to the technology. We now have the time to Reflect, Re-imagine and Reset learning but it will need investment and we must not miss this opportunity globally.
We need to invest in education, and for that we need to go back to basics. we need a method of delivering quality education to people, we need to connect with each other, to make the connection with each other, ourselves and the world.
Clearly technology is a brilliant tool to transform our world, and tackle our deepest challenges too. It just has to be fit for purpose. So sometimes we have to remember that the low-tech solutions can be the best. Not everyone has access to the technology that others take for granted. Most of us are not in control of the technology we are surrounded by.
So, this is what we need to be asking. Is this technology being used for the advancement of the human race, is it inclusive and is it sustainable? If it is driving the divides between people, if it is only being harnessed for productivity and the profits of a minority and driving the chasm between the wealthy and poor, then maybe we need to take action to alter the direction. When do we have enough technology? Doesn’t that depend on what we are using it for?
To move forward, we need to ask the right questions.
Gary Whitehall ended our panel discussion with this: If you want to do one thing that will make a difference, ask yourself this, “What can I heal?” Use technology to do that thing.
Thank you, please tell us in the comments below what you will heal with technology.
The Steve Sinnott Foundation • Nov 12, 2020
Education has been identified as a key aspect to achieve societal development. This has been highlighted with the 2015 sustainable development goals, with goal 4 being to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Education has also shifted to being a means to transmit peace and global tolerance through increasing the understanding of other cultures. This has tied in with the rise of capacity development initiatives in development practice that seek to empower and enable individuals and communities to build upon their preexisting capacities. It is a key strategy to ensure educational development by international organisations, governments, and communities. The main principles of capacity development are participation, locally driven agenda, ongoing learning, long term investment and building upon local capacities. By integrating these principles into educational development, it allows for school communities to become involved in peace building activities. Through following a locally driven agenda schools can become centres for fostering peace and understanding and address local issues that may prevent children from attending or staying in school. This is what the UNESCO Associated Schools network aims to achieve by involving schools and educational institutes at a global level, creating networks of educators and students that share information, knowledge and spread UNESCOs value of peace. It aims to join schools through four pillars of learning: learning to know, learning to do, learning to be and learning to live together to create sustainable learning and teaching environments that involve communities in conservation activities, petitions and cultural events. Schools undertake social and educational projects that allow students to get involved with supporting developmental and humanitarian organisations, through fundraising and field trips. Recently The Steve Sinnott Foundation organised an international trip to Japan for the 70th Anniversary of UNESCO ASPnet for the Arts and Culture for peace exchange, bringing together students from The Gambia, Oman, Singapore, Korea and Coventry. By expanding education to include individuals and communities’ local agendas and addressing international issues, education can provide a platform for ongoing learning and development. It allows for students to develop their ability to think critically and connect with others meaning they can both learn and understand issues that might not be highlighted otherwise. By allowing schools, students, and communities to connect and direct their own development and focusing on developing existing capacities, the meaning and aim of education shifts from traditional roles to being focused upon understanding and peace.
Women’s and Girls’ Full Participation in Society: “Are Palestinian women reaping the benefits of education in similar ways to the rest of the world?” Palestinian women continue to be some of the most educated women in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region. While women’s academic participation is indeed measurable, they are not reaping the benefits of education. Palestinian women, especially educated Palestinian women, are overlooked, and under-represented in Palestinian society. Current indicators reveal that access to education has not significantly improved women’s status in Palestinian society. It is therefore imperative to benefit from Palestinian women’s education and skills in society not only as a social right, but as a development necessity. The percentage of educated women in Palestine is remarkable and one of the highest around the world with a 99.6% in 2020 for completion in primary and upper secondary. While Palestinian women have always been visible in the national struggle, they have limited leadership and decision making-opportunities. Their participation in civil society and the formal government has been restricted. In decision making positions, women comprise only 8.3% of all ministers, 0% of ministerial representatives, and 6% of assistants to the ministerial representatives. Within all ministries women comprise 30% of staff. In the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, women are the majority, comprising 68.1%. Education unions leading by example: Education unions have viewed the education of future generations, with a focus on girls, as a form of protest, resistance to the country and Arab region’s ongoing-conflict, displacement, and upheaval. Accordingly, women and girls’ education has thrived in recent years. COVID 19 crisis a catalyst for transforming education unions: Education unions voiced that an appropriate response to COVID -19 in the education sector should consider the rights and best interests of students, teachers and education support personnel and involve education unions in developing the containment and recovery measures. This response accelerated the transformation process of the largest union in Palestine, the General Union of Palestinian Teachers (GUPT). They want to have a truly representative union and integrate women educators in the union decision making structures. Despite the pandemic, GUPT continued to engage in social dialogue with the government, continued to fight for decent working conditions and welfare for teachers and education personnel and engage in a process of trade union transformation reflecting the realities of the 21st century. The union stepped up during the rapid shift to distance learning, they have developed online programmes, trained teachers on distance learning and supported students to decrease inequality among learners. The union also urged that the transformation should also challenge discrimination and increase women’s involvement in education, in trade unions and in society. This process was a driver to enhance women’s leadership within the union’s structures. From words to action: Mechanisms put in place to enhance women educators’ participation. With the support of international sister organisations, GUPT developed their own strategy to promote women’s participation and leadership within their union and in education. They developed a strategy, and we identified the following objectives: Increase the number of women in key union leadership and decision-making bodies at the regional and national level, through capacity development training on leadership for women. They have also introduced policies such as gender quotas and allocated budgets for their gender equity programmes. Activate the role of their Women’s Committee and prioritise the recruitment of young female teachers. The union is also working to identify and address the barriers to women’s participation in union leadership and decision making. In education the union is working with the Ministry of Education to review school books so that gender discrimination is not inherently written into the curriculum. GUPT is also organising sensitization training for educators so that discriminatory stereotypes are not perpetuated in the classroom. Finally, for the GUPT it is important to secure the right to education for all Palestinian students, especially girls. Teaching and learning must occur in quality, safe environments. Every effort must be made to eradicate the different types of violence that occur all too frequently in and around educational settings.
Early in my work as the president of my local teacher’s union I was invited to a community leader meeting about reforming the teaching profession. Amidst the discussion of harsher teacher evaluations, raising standards for teaching, creating easier entry into the profession, merit pay for “good” teachers, and more, I brought up the fact that working conditions and salaries hadn’t meaningfully changed since the 1960s. “We’re in favor of paying math and science teachers more so they can be compensated closer to what they’d get in the private sector,” a business community representative replied, offering an idea that was not new to me. Full disclosure: my dad was a career math teacher from that era of math and science majors who answered their government’s call to become math and science teachers who would boost the United States of America’s bench in the space race. I could easily picture how a larger salary could have changed our family’s budget. Teachers’ unions like mine (and my dad’s) addressed pay disparities based on gender that were common a generation earlier by fighting for a salary schedule focused on experience and education. So, I offered back, “If we want to differentiate pay related to the most important job in education, then we should seriously consider paying kindergarten and first grade teachers more than anyone because they teach students to read, which is the rocket science of education,” alluding to an influential issue of AFT’s American Educator magazine from 1999. “Well, I’m sure those teachers are fine but I have volunteered in first grade classrooms and their work doesn’t compare to math and science teachers.” Oh. Interesting. We clearly weren’t going to see eye to eye in our differentiated pay conversation. More so, there are decades long gender stereotypes lurking behind that conversation. In addition to the history of gender based pay inequities, elementary school teachers are assumed to be female while more secondary teachers are male. There has long been a disconnect between the importance communities, elected officials, and countries have placed on education. From local funding efforts to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality Education, support for education is nearly universal in most communities. That support for education doesn’t always translate to support for educators and, with a majority of educators worldwide being female, that sets a dangerous precedent. Our teachers deserve professional working conditions because teaching and learning begins with their expertise. Additionally, a teacher’s working conditions are a student’s learning conditions and so administrators, public officials, or policymakers mistreating, undermining, or disrespecting teachers sends a message to students that teachers do not deserve respect, fair treatment, or professionalization. In addition to a stubborn lack of recognition of teachers as professionals, a vicious cycle exists around salary. Teachers have historically low wages because it is feminized and because it is feminized teacher’s wages are suppressed. The evidence that belonging to a union, with the ability to negotiate collectively, improves teacher compensation is key in disrupting this vicious cycle. Teaching has been a feminized profession for over a century and, despite efforts to diversify the profession, remains a feminized profession. In fact, the OECD reports that the gender gap increased from 2005 to 2019. In order for our students to have the most representative learning conditions, we need the most representative teachers so we must continue to diversify teaching to represent everyone in our communities, including by gender. Efforts like Black Men Teach, active in my home state of Minnesota, can make a meaningful difference. I would posit treating the current majority female teaching population as professionals—with professional wages, recognizing their expertise in teaching and learning rather than infantilizing them, respecting their commitment to education rather than exploiting it—would both model for students the way to treat women (and thereby model for female students how they can expect to be treated in any profession) and create the conditions for everyone to see teaching as a profession worth pursuing.
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