Roberto Nevilis, an Italian, was responsible for inventing homework in 1905. It was created as a punishment for his students, he thought it was a great way to make his students work more effectively. Since then, teachers have used homework as a large portion of a student’s independent work.

For a very long time, the educational system has remained almost the same as it always has been. Students keep repeating the same information during school, then study even more at home to prepare for a test. Still, these tests define who you are. The educational system promotes this, instead of actually finding out how you have used what you have learned. The system should change to develop citizens of the future; not machines from the past. 

Currently, students all around the world are not learning some of the most basic skills as they are more focused on how they will do on the test.

“An education should prepare students to become true humans who can adapt to an ever-changing world,” said Eric Ngo in his article “How can we change the education system as we know?” “Instead of trying to cram a large amount of knowledge into students, testing their memorization of such knowledge, and concluding about their life-readiness based on test scores, we can focus on training students with skills that can help them to deal with a variety of problems and succeed in many types of jobs (even in those that do not exist yet),” Ngo said.

The world needs people who can adapt easily. To achieve that, students need to be taught problem-solving skills. If you really spend the time to do some introspection, tell me: how prepared are you to face the real world?

It is clear to see that these people-machines are designed to just memorize information, while what we actually need is to develop people who think creatively and who are capable of mastering skills. Skills that will be needed for the real world, not just a bunch of information for an exam.

Students are taught to repeat and memorize information in order to learn, however, a citizen from the future should be analytical; both of themselves and of the world they live in.

Elena Lizarazu, a junior, explained how to be a proper citizen of the future. According to her, “A student needs to be aware and analytical of their surroundings, their world.” However, the educational system focuses more on the repetition and memorization aspects than on actual critical thinking.

Schools are still creating people who were useful in the past, but now, the world has changed. The educational system needs to think about the future. They need to think about improving.

Teachers all around the world teach the same lessons to a ton of students, which students later have to repeat until they learn it, in order to get a passing grade. After that test, most will forget what they’ve just learned.

The flip method allows students to gain research skills on their own and it still allows them to get support from the teacher.

The flip method is a method of teaching which proposes that students do research on the topic before class and do practical work during class. This allows students to learn at their own pace, in a more effective way, leaving more class time for group work and projects. 

With this method, students can learn a huge variety of skills. For example, when they do research before a lecture, they are learning research skills and as they have more time for group work, they can learn teamwork skills.

Some may argue that in order to learn new things, we need repetition. But when students learn before a lecture, this type of knowledge can be applied in class and ensure that students pay attention while learning and develop that knowledge while working in class.

Others may say that schools do a good job preparing us academically; however, this method, consisting of simply studying for a test, makes students forget the topics eventually.

Throughout history, the educational system has remained the same, while the world has changed in a major way. People from today are very different from the past. If we want to make a positive change, we have to start changing the education system to develop people who will be citizens of the future.