Sandhya Senthilkumar; period 3 online

Summary:

Education needs revolution, not reformation. Robinson says that education needs to

revolutionize from a liner model to an organic model. This organic model makes

education to be offered in a personalized curriculum for each and every student.

Robinson talks about how each student is different and have their own unique strengths,

weaknesses, and talents. Making them to learn in an environment where education is

based off of conformity won’t help them in being successful, but rather deviates them

from their passion and gets them out of education. He conveys that current system of

education are based on principles of conformity and standardization, which rather than

making students grow into education, makes them get out of it.

Robinson stresses on the fact that human talent is tremendously diverse. Each individual

have their own interests. People can be good at somethings that they don’t even like. But

it’s all about passion that needs to be focused while providing education; not based on

conformity and batching people on common grounds. Education needs to move from

being based on a mechanical model to a model based on principles of agriculture. Human

flourishing is an organic process and hence, according to Robinson, you should provide

the suitable conditions in order for humans to flourish and grow. Providers of education

need to act like farmers and create the right circumstances and conditions for their

students to flourish. Since each student need unique conditions, education should be
customized and personalized to suit that individual. These personalized curriculums

provide external support for an individual to grow and become successful.

Reflection:

Just like how Robinson talked about each individual being unique and having different

interest, education need to show priority to all subjects and forms of art. Hence, this will

allow students to not feel left out just because their talents were not given importance. In

order to bring students who have dropped out of education back into education,

alternative education is used. This education has a customized and personalized

curriculum, helping them to succeed in their area of interest. The reason why education

makes people get out of it is that it is based on conformity. It groups together people, who

are in no way common in terms of talent and interest. Just like Robinson had said,

educational providers need to create suitable conditions for each individual to grow and

flourish. Rather than providing personalized education to just people who dropped out of

school, it should be used as the mainstream model of education. If this happens, this

“alternative education” becomes the “education.” There would be no need for an

alternative education in the first place if this was followed from the start.

Finland is a great example of this type of education. They provide customized curriculum

for each student, embracing their talents and passion. As a result, Finland has no drop out

rate. That is because, no one has the need to drop out in the first place. Just like Robinson

had said, education needs to be revolutionized, not reformed.