ICT - How can it serve or not Quality education
ICT is but one of the means to transmit information to students. Socioemotional training requires experiencing change within one's inner motors and brakes, and experiencing the changes that come in human and social interactions through Socio-emotional learning (SEL).
To achieve transformation of teacher attitudes, postures and pedagogical practices, and of student attitudes and behaviours regarding themselves and regarding those they interact with, ICT can serve to self-evaluate and reflect cognitively, but not transform emotionally-related attitudes and behaviours. It can serve to consolidate knowledge once the transformation has been triggered towards openness, but not before because of resistance or blindness.
Attitudes such as:
- defiant/respectful
- dominating/dominated
- confident/fearful
- passive/engaged
- helpful/egocentred
- converging/diverging
- open/racist
can in no way be transformed by text or video without strong experiential human interaction.
Proponents of ICT-only as THE cost-effective means to achieve teacher quality and teaching quality are themselves blind to what is being aimed for and blind to the costs of poor learning, affected health and unhappiness due to physical, psychological or sexual violence for business, communities and lives.
Having made this clear, ICT for some classroom and home learning of Language, Maths and facts may have the great advantage of freeing classroom teaching time and energy to focus these on fundamental learning time, ie
- learning to be and grow humanely
- learning to develop and practice shared values
- learning to interact harmoniously, constructively and warmly
- learning to resolve situations and wider dilemmas creatively
- learning to discern beyond reacting critically
- learning to engage proactively with these abilities.
This is what Quality education with Quality teachers is about. This is what is required during our 21st Century to help children, youth and adults find meaningfulness.
These are the distinct capacities, which differentiate human beings from AI constructs.
Delia Mamon, Graines de Paix, during the WISE Summit for Education, Dubai, December 11, 2019
