Centro de la Cultura Herediana, Heredia, Costa Rica

Picture taken by Jonathan Acuña (2017)

The Need for Disruptive Education

Some considerations

By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.

Head of Curriculum Development Senior Language Professor

Academic Department School of English
Centro Cultural Costarricense- Faculty of Social Sciences
Norteamericano Universidad Latina de Costa Rica

Tuesday, September 22, 2020

Post 378

Do students want or have to listen to their teachers? Long ere this thought
of a disruptive education, in which educators only wanted their students to sit
down and listen to them, but the fact is that there are several education
paradigms like the one above that prevail and that only make us think of how
things have always been done in only one way. And there we have instructors on
top of paradigm watchtowers preventing colleagues from making changes in the
education their pupils are getting today. Learners should want to listen to their
teachers because they can help them construct their knowledge and will not
make them regurgitate what was mentioned in class.

If tickets to attend one’s class were sold, will one’s students buy them?
With this question Lewin (2020) makes educators question their role in the
classroom and the teacher’s soliloquy employed at times in class where no higher
order thinking skills are employed by learners. Lewin longs to have sight of
disruptive classrooms where paradigms are constantly broken for the sake of
student learning. Education is not just about regurgitating information; it has to
go through various channels to become learning. As pointed out by Peter, de
Roche, Graf, & Gatziu Grivas, (2019), “skills are used to designate the ability to
use one’s knowledge with relative ease to perform relatively simple tasks.” And
when these skills are pracited in class they can become competencies. And when
students can develop competencies in class one’s class tickets will always be sold
out. Learning will always be present to engage pupils at all times.

For a while, the traditional educators will remain in thought, and they will
continue to be the warders of education with recurrent paradigms or will
embrace a disruptive education willfully. It is not right to sulk about the need for
refocusing learning; what educators have to do is to start selling tickets for their
classes because, as Lewin (2020) insists, this disruption will generate critical
thinking, creativity, and a desire for learning, which will make students’ skills
become competencies. In other words, the competence of a learner or cohort of
pupils must “describe the relationship between the tasks assigned to or assumed
by the person or group and their capability and potential to deliver the desired
performance” [CITATION Pet19 \l 1033 ]. When a desired performance is achieved,
students will be learning by doing and coming to class for the pleasure of
constructing their knowledge and participating in experiences that will strengthen
their competence.

A disruptive education, free of aged, decrepit, enfeebled paradigms, will

feed a growth mindset with room for risk-taking experiences and failure. Lewin
(2020) states that capitalized mistakes is pure learning, which is pretty much
what Oscar Wilde (2005) once said about experience: “it is merely the name men
give their mistakes,” and students need to make mistakes to consolidate their
learning. Engaging students in their learning is by far the best lesson of life you
can give them; “I can do it” [ CITATION Lew \l 1033 ]. And they will be able to make
mistakes and learn and will learn to become autonomous, self-disciplined, and
self-regulated.

References
Lewin, L. (2020, Setiembre 15). La Innovación LLega al Aula. Escuela para Directivos, Laureate
Languages. Buenos Aires, Argentina: ABS International.

Peter, M., de Roche, M., Graf, M., & Gatziu Grivas, S. (2019, June). Skills and Competencies for Digital
Transformation. Retrieved September 21, 2020, from ResearchGate.Com:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336375389_Skills_and_Competencies_for_Digital_Tran
sformation_Initiatives_-
_Development_of_a_model_to_identify_relevant_skills_and_competencies_for_a_company's_indi
vidual_digital_transformation_roadmap

Wilde, O. (2005). The Picture of Dorian Gray. Clayton, Delaware: Prestwick House Literary Touchstone
Press.