Bid4papers Essay Contest, Pratick Roy: "Education in 50 Years: A Futurist’s Perspective"

1. “Education In 50 Years: A Futurist’s
Perspective”
Any response to the above topic is bound to allude to futuristic classrooms, use of google
glasses, stimulated learning environments, etc. However, according to me, the advancements in
technology and phycology will not come to describe the classroom of tomorrow themselves, but
rather be the reason for the changes that we shall see in the decades to come.
Victor Hugo, had once said, “Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come.” Indeed it’s
one of the most powerful of forces, and when in flow, it’s no less potent than any fury of nature.
This simple harmless looking one syllable word is going to be the sanctum sanctorum of the
education system of tomorrow.
Standing in 2015, we focus on learning facts and techniques, but even today, in the age of
the World Wide Web, such information is but a few clicks away. If we don’t know who the first
man to walk on the moon was, then all we need to do is to whip out our smartphones and make a
quick google search. Fifty years down the line, we may not even need to whip out our smartphones!
Ideas on the other hand, are of a different breed. Before, going to its applications, let us first try to
understand this mythical creature. An idea in its simplest form is the resultant of an experience, be
it theoretical or practical, objective or subjective. It’s the conclusion that we garner, from either an
unadulterated Ulysses (Einstein’s theory of special relativity), or form observing some events or
daily happenings (Marxism). Thus, it’s the final conclusion that we draw when presented with any
new information.
Today in our curriculum, this section of the conclusion is always skipped. This fact can be
easily brought to the fore, by conducting a simple test. Let us go to every odd chemistry student,
and ask a simple question, a question that was asked by our teacher during our chemistry practical
viva-voce, “Why did the equivalent concept come into chemistry? Now, every one of us in the class
was adept at doing the sums based on the concept. We knew what it was and how to apply it, and
yet for the life of ours, we couldn’t answer it. The simple question had a simple answer, but the
answer is not important here, what is important is that we never even questioned why we are

2. learning the equivalent concept in the first place? It’s understandable when one or two students
don’t ask this simple question, but when we all shy away, a question arises. The answer to this
question is important as well as obvious. We were never taught to question.
In the Classrooms of the future however, when reading literature, students will not only be
expected to read and learn the interpretations given to them, by their teachers and guide books, but
also to interpret themselves. Students will be encouraged to read the quintessential fairy tale, and
question. Are dragon’s evil? Princes’ noble? And women, always the weaker vessel? Question
whether it’s so because that is what they are or that’s what society expects them to be. When
studying the records of the past; History, students will no longer just read it, learn by rote the dates
(which is forgotten, the second after the exams) and… well that’s it, but rather analyze the episodes
of history, say the Roman Massacre at Teutoburg, and ask the questions, What led to this? How
could it have been avoided? And the like. By this approach, the students would be able to apply
the answers gained, in the similar situations that await humanity in the future. By peering into the
past, and analyzing how events had unfolded, the students of tomorrow can predict the future.
Let’s take the above example of the Teutoburg massacre, where three of Rome’s finest
legions were ambushed and desecrated by the German chieftain, Arminius. The reason for this
massacre was because of the Roman Governor of the region, Publius Quinctilius Varus (On a side
note, when writing, I had forgotten the name and so I Googled it). He wanted to Romanize the
population and began replacing Germanic customs with Roman ones. This resulted in grave
discontentment among the people, directly leading to the massacre. However history also shows
that as long as the people were unaware that their identity, noble or otherwise, was being altered,
they, slowly but surely, migrated towards the more evolved roman culture.
Now let us consider a remote Indian village where Casteism and Male Chauvinism is still
all the rage. (Such villages number in the thousands). If radical measures are to be implemented to
bring these villages into the 21st
century, then the result can be predicted. Sure, there will be no
blood bath, but the effect will be the same. The people will regard these “foreign” measures not as
an attack on these outdated institutions, but against themselves. They will hold on to them more

3. stubbornly, than before, and hence instead of abolishing these institutions we will only bring them
back on to the mainstream agenda. In other matters it can have far greater consequences. For
example, organizations like the ISIS have successlly instigated into the minds of many an
impressionable Muslim youths, that the war on terror is actually a war on Islam. Once the question
of self-preservation comes up, Idiosyncrasies will assert themselves much more vigorously than
reason. Thus young Muslims from around the globe have joined in the efforts, thinking that they
are fighting for Islam.
Thus in tomorrow’s classrooms, ideas will get the center stage. Ideas however, can never be
found from a single google search. They are difficult to learn, but they are impossible to forget, and
what’s more is that they are much more than just theoretical knowledge. Being the conclusions, or
in other words the selective bundle of information that is relevant, they can be applied whenever
the bearer of the idea needs it, directly or in an appropriately modified manner.
Thus just as in the past, when the advent of pocket calculators rendered the knowledge of
shortcut mathematical techniques unnecessary, the advent of search, and the proliferation of devices
to conduct it on, will cause factual knowledge to become less valuable. Thus, indirectly technology
will force a seismic-shift in education. Though, its indirect effect is much greater as it will impact
the very basis of education, directly technology, in the years to come, might render classrooms
obsolete. Already, Sites such as Udacity and Khan Academy as well as the educational channels of
YouTube and other video hosting sites, have proven themselves to be valued well of learning. Since
the classes can be taken anytime, and also any number of times, and from any place, time and space
are no longer barriers to learning. With the advancement of simulation technology, we might be
able to simulate our presence in a virtual classroom, completing the final step in any successful
lecture; feedback. Students from all over the world can connect into this classroom. Thus the
classrooms of tomorrow will not be restricted to any region or any community. Furthermore, if the
explosion of digital electronics enunciates any omen, the cost of technology unlike that of the
current skyrocketing price of higher education, decreases over time, allowing students, from all
strands of society, rich and poor, to learn together. Thus, the classrooms of the future will be truly

4. international, and genuinely democratic. Such an environment might be the best or maybe the only
possible way to eradicate prejudices; societal, racial, religious etc. Education in such an environment
would go beyond the curriculum. Students will not only become literate, but also educated. Being a
virtual environment, Teachers would be able to give students a practical, audio-visual experience
like never before. No longer, will teachers have to be limited to white boards, and at the better
funded institutions, projectors. From walking on the moon, in astronomy classes, to following a
charge as it flows through an IC, for the teacher of the future, even the sky is not the limit;
Literally.
Now, it’s true that my vision of the future of education has been overly optimistic. There
lies little doubt that lumbering bureaucratic politics and commercial self-interest will produce
substantial retardation. And while, a futurist makes predictions based on current trends, he is, or at
least I am, by virtue (or vice) of being human, an Idealist. I have little doubt that the above stated
system awaits us in the future, but must admit that due to the practical forces of friction, fifty years
might prove to be too small a time-frame. But then again, our future leaders who will have been
brought up, in the times and climes of ideas, will know too much change too quickly, is not the
best course of action. And so in conclusion, there lies little doubt that in the field of education at
least, irrespective of the rate of progress, “The Golden age is not behind us, but beyond us”