Why Schools Are “Arenas Begging For Reinvention: A Deep Dive On Education’s Past Strengths, Present Imperfections, And Future Prospects 

“School”: a word familiar to everyone since childhood. But who would’ve thought the word comes from the Greek word “scholē,” meaning “leisure?”

It’s ironic.

Students nowadays may agree that school has become anything but fun leisure. In the Philippines alone, most students are said to have a “high to very high perceived academic stress” (PAS), according to a study by Geronimo et al. (2023). Amid this, people also have their beliefs about the efficacy of the education system itself. Even in the Adamson University Psychological Society’s recent academic event in early February, it became a topic during the debate competition: “Does the current education system of the Philippines effectively improve students’ critical thinking?” With each argument, issues such as resources, reforms, and other conventions of the system were brought into question. 

Granted, issues regarding education’s economic and political aspects are unquestionably important, but its core issues addressing the human mind seem less attended to. Ideas about the education system’s effect on a child’s mental health, curiosity, and creativity are numerous, just not as mainstreamed as they should be.

Indeed, questions may remain. What has the traditional system done to learning? How has society made the word “scholē” dirty with lifeless academic lives? What caused education to change…and stay that way? Do parts of the system still serve their purpose, or has its foundation become jaded entirely? What can we learn as we assess the past, present, and potential future of the education system?

THE PAST: What Was Learning Originally Like?

Interestingly, the idea of “school” deriving from the word “leisure” comes from how learning used to be a way to spend time and resources for the upper class, who could afford education. Different nations have had varying experiences with the history of their education systems. Some early civilizations, like Ancient Egypt, had the elite youth rigorously schooled to become scribes and priests and focused on memorizing scripts. Meanwhile, in places such as Ancient Greece, the arts, military combat, and philosophy were highly regarded. In most places in the world (even in Asia and Ancient America), early marks of education on humanity appear to have a trend of prioritizing moral philosophy and religion. As time progressed into the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods, education took on a more scientific face yet also integrated creative applications of knowledge and developed prime humanistic virtues. 

READ MORE: Britannica on Education and Its History 

Although mostly available to the rich, past education was multifaceted, explorative, and holistic. It served as an avenue to express new ideas through existing bodies of knowledge. Educators nurtured the individual human mind, in all its highs and lows, to the fullest, allowing students to set out to the world with authentic, open, and world-changing minds. That said, it is no surprise that good education was a desire of the lower class and women confined to domestic education.

Then, as the Industrial Revolution marked its place in history and demanded numerous factory workers, education was opened to the masses—rich and poor, men and women. However, due to the common requirement for workers to meet certain intellectual criteria and technical skills, education became heavily built on standardized testing, a way for educators and teachers to quantitatively grade the achievement and competence of students and determine who may be more reliable in the labor market. Standardized testing made student evaluations based on what is deemed “correct” and “incorrect” rather than unique ideas and attentive nurturance. Education became about generating workers rather than carefully disseminating and cultivating visions and creation.

Hauntingly, this appears to be the prevalent education system even today, even though the world's demands have changed. 

READ MORE: Our education system is losing relevance. Here’s how to unleash its potential

THE PRESENT: What Happens to Education Now?

The prevalence of stagnant, traditional education is undoubtedly due to many factors. As mentioned, an underdeveloped education system can result from economic crises, resource deficiencies, political oversights, and others. And unfortunately, with something as crucial as educating and nurturing the thinking of future generations, each setback in the system comes with consequences. These consequences don’t fare well for the psychological workings (intellectual and emotional) of young students for many reasons.

To start, because of the common standardization of education as a whole, critical thinking is pushed aside for the sake of memorizing information verbatim. Combining this with lesson plans that constantly deal with fast-paced lectures that can barely wait for anyone, lessons move too fast to digest. As psychology students must know, information may not commit itself for the long term in our memory if not constantly practiced. And in a system that can only afford the time to present and test each lesson just theoretically, comprehension and learning are never truly challenged. As more educators rely on textbook questions and answers, it’s almost like students concentrate more on the type of test questions they will get to answer rather than on what they can absorb using their unique abilities (painfully, in the name of refuge from bad grades). 

READ MORE: Effective Studying - Spaced Practice

It is in this endeavor for good grades that genuine and comprehensive learning becomes “overshadowed,” as stated in an article by the Mapua Malayan Colleges Mindanao. Because of this, students would also face academic pressure, a problem that could even lead to high stress and anxiety, which in turn could cause two other issues: competition and stifled creativity.

In a page by the Trinity University of Asia, it is referenced that the closed approaches of a conventional education system can stifle creative skills, which ironically should be a harnessed and valued skill, especially in current society’s dire need of experts who can sustain the world that is changing faster than ever before.

Likewise, as the current education system continues to rank and award students according to grades, schools and classrooms have become a spectacle for student competition instead of collaboration, which should be a priority of education all along. From our past understanding of education, collaborative virtues can foster better ideas for the improvement of future humankind. However, although collaboration is taught, competition is constantly implicitly patronized and integrated into schools. It isn’t that children are taught explicitly to be mean to each other; it’s that the current education system seems to glorify those who come out on top and overlook the people who don’t meet the standard. 

READ MORE: Education at a Crossroads: The Perils of Competition in K-12 Education

Still, who could blame the students, the young Filipinos? In an education system so curated to shape students to be perfect hires for high-paying industries, students have little leeway to plead for more forgiving assessments of their learning and knowledge. Moreover, students would do anything. It’s no secret that we want to be successful, help our families, and bring prestige with our academic awards. Sadly, this chase has erased the very essence of education itself. Education should be about learning and equipping oneself with knowledge, not used as a meager measure that determines a person’s accessibility for necessities and survival.

THE FUTURE: What Can Education Grow To Be?

Luckily, there is still hope for better education. While reformation will most certainly be difficult, it isn’t impossible. Many other countries worldwide have considerably stable and effective education systems, although opinions and findings may vary. In a study conducted by Wilk (2017), countries such as South Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong were mentioned to have great education in terms of their funding and the competent, disciplined students they produce. Still, competition, academic pressure, and a lack of a school-life balance were also attributed to these countries. However, Finland stands out as one of the more frequently acknowledged countries with the best education systems. According to the World Economic Forum, Finland ranks the best in the world for many reasons: it minimizes standardized testing, provides heavy teacher training, prioritizes cooperation instead of promoting aspects of competitiveness, entails less homework, and so on. Apart from making basic needs accessible for students, some remarkable strengths of their system also include providing a relaxed atmosphere for learning, being more focused on each student’s growth, and not promoting the one-track option of getting a college diploma.

Like many European countries (as mentioned in BBC’s “Five countries with the best work-life balance”), work-life balance is a norm for adults and children alike in Finland, meaning that education is less tense and less crammed with worries over assessments. Furthermore, Finland’s classes are usually small, allowing the trained teachers to build rapport with the children and get in touch with their strengths and weaknesses. Such a bond allows for teachers to tap into their natural talents and circumstances and teach them in ways that best suit them instead of practicing a one-size-fits-all instruction. If that were not enough, because of Finland’s fair attitude towards all types of professions, their education system is much more flexible and welcoming to educate children as future workers of various careers. Not only are the children free to exercise their talents as they see fit, but they are also not pushed to seek “better” professions. Instead, their abilities are cultivated as the students are directed to a career that best suits their needs, wants, and skills.

This is the dream destination of education systems everywhere—to turn into a haven of learning that fosters creativity, individuality, cooperation, peace, and wise, patient teaching. In the same way that school gives students armor to brave the real world that awaits them, all schools should ensure that their “armor” can fit all student needs. After all, in the wise descriptions of American psychologist Howard Gardner, all people have different types of intelligence, all equally important.

Yet, as much as we aspire to adopt a utopian education, all signs point to the fact that many other sectors of life will have to change for new education to settle appropriately. To promote a relaxed learning environment, a nation’s general work-life balance has to evolve. To revive critical thinking skills, the existing standardization must adjust, if not cease to exist completely. Even the job market will need to shift to accommodate the budding innovative thinkers formed by the reinvented education system. Instead of employees who follow instructions and tasks to the letter, industries must cater to a wave of entrepreneurs and pioneers who will reshape the world in the name of progress and not sheer convenience. Not to mention, investments for education must be properly reassessed to afford such a dramatic shift.

And so we revise our question: Is the world ready for an education system makeover?

Many claim to have no power to change the world, but that remains to be challenged. Hopefully, this text provides ample insight and may spark even the slightest inspiration for transformation. We may not reach exceptional education just yet, but we hope that with this knowledge, educators, administrators, and institutions may make an effort to reignite a passion for learning and revolutionize the way the world supplies, employs, and sustains knowledge. 

Just as arenas evolved from an ancient place of brutality to a modern place of gathering and excitement, may a school return to its former glory as a space for nurturing natural curiosity and harnessing skills and not be the cause of anxiety for many young ones.