When I tell my friends and family that I go to Barbados to work with the Ministry of Education, the looks usually tell a story of disbelief. “Work? Yeah, right” – is the answer as they picture me sitting under a palm tree looking at the sea.
Be discreet, smile more, soccer is for boys, play with this doll, don’t raise your voice, be a lady, eat a salad, girls are better at reading. Although women in Latin America and the Caribbean have advanced a lot in the past quarter century – gaining equal access to schooling and increasing their participation in politics and the labor market – kids are still raised with stereotypes about what a girl should be and do. Research has shown that children pick up on cultural stereotypes at a very young age.
My daughter, AnnaMaria, recently finished 4th grade. She loved her teacher, Ms. Margi, because she made learning fun. That got me thinking. My 4th grade teacher was my favorite teacher too, Miss Guertin. Why? She made learning fun. So, I wrote her a letter that evolved into a candid and heartfelt conversation about teachers. She co-authors this blog. Delivering appropriate content in a way that evokes curiosity, excitement and passion for learning is the harder part of being an effective teacher.
The day we visited the San Juan School in the Chiriqui province of Panama, the preschool students were laughing, dancing and singing. But their play was not unstructured; it followed a well-researched pedagogical sequence. These students are part of a new bilingual and intercultural preschool program called Ari Taen JADENKÄ (Let’s Count and Play, in Ngäbere) that helps children develop essential early mathematics skills.
A recurrent theme in conversations about education is that millennials are demanding more technology inside the classroom, and that teachers are resistant to educational innovations. I dare to disagree. In the six years that we have been running Geekie—a company that brings together cutting-edge technology with innovative pedagogical methodologies to boost learning—we have seen with over 10 million students and 5 thousand schools an enthusiasm for technology that is shared by students and teachers alike.
All around the world, leaders from government and industry debate the “future of work.” We have all seen predictions of a massive shift in the workforce needs of the future. The latest prediction from McKinsey Global Institute is that approximately 50% of existing work activities can be displaced, replaced or changed by automation of some form, whether caused by traditional software, robotics, or new artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms. Despite near unanimous agreement about the wave of change, the world is not reacting fast enough to update our system of education.
Imagine that our son or daughter is about to decide which profession to study in a country in Latin America or the Caribbean. Would you recommend that they become a teacher? What factors would we consider? Of course, we would like our son or daughter to study a career related to their preferences and interests (and in addition, their abilities), we would like a profession that provides a good income, that rewards their effort and that, in some way, is valued by the society. Now let's think about the teaching profession in the region. Which of these characteristics does it meet?