Transforming education to transform lives

By Xavier Aragay-Expert in leadership, change management and educational innovation in universities and school networks. He is the founder of REIMAGINE EDUCATION

In many parts of the world we finish a new course or academic cycle; We are skipping years and advancing in the decade of the twenties of this XXI century.

We will enter the 2023 academic year without looking back, every day we are forgetting about the pandemic, a little more baffled by the speed of change. What new disruptions will come? Will we continue dragging a certain fatigue that is chaining to face the management of the covid-19 crisis that meant a lot of wear and tear?

Despite this, now more than ever, above these sensations, above the noise and existing difficulties, we need a new impetus for educational transformation. There are many initiatives by educational institutions and governments to promote transformations and changes. Just to cite a few examples, the governments of Mexico, Uruguay, and Spain, which are promoting profound and necessary curricular and focus reforms in their educational systems, and hundreds of schools and universities are enthusiastically facing projects to modernize, digitize, innovate, or transform their models, organizations and educational offer.

Education is currently undergoing profound changes, along with technology. We are facing the challenge of reimagining, reinventing, rethinking, looking for new perspectives, tools and strategies to experience a profound transformation.

And, of course, difficulties appear; because innovating and transforming education is not easy. Even so, although government initiatives or institutions often do not have the necessary methodology for the change process or the essential construction of a coalition that supports the transformation (society, State and students), they are making their way and making progress. reality many and very interesting innovations.

In the case of South America, AUDEC, the Uruguayan Association of Catholic Schools, dared to bet on change with the “Experiencing Educational Transformation” program, in which more than a hundred school managers from Uruguay and Argentina live, reflect and they share the reality of eight nursery, primary and secondary schools with transformations underway. Another example is that of the Franz Tamayo University in Bolivia, which is immersed in the experiences and emotions of students and professors who are leading a change in the way of learning and growing as people without precedent in this country.

What awaits us this new management?

The educational model of the 19th century is still applied in much of the world, where the teacher speaks and the students listen millimeter apart, one behind the other, looking at the teacher, with the same subjects, taking notes and memorizing only for the exam. . What was fine for the last century, today is obsolete. The new education combines the best of the professional, their knowledge, means, neurosciences, pedagogy, technology, learning by doing, with their life skills, such as leadership, flexibility, motivation, patience, persuasion, resolution capacity problems, teamwork, among others.

It is time to propose new dreams and transformations for education throughout the world and at all levels. People, institutions and countries need systemic change projects that we can join or that we can define and lead, that help us move towards new ways of living, of relating to each other, to the world and to nature. And, at this point, educational transformation is key.

Beyond digitization initiatives and the growing importance of technology as a mediator, beyond the incorporation of the competency-based approach in curricula, beyond the incipient appearance of what is called metaverse, we need to educate people for life .