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How to Promote Education: A Comprehensive Guide

By GGI Insights | May 19, 2024

Table of contents

Understanding the Importance of Education

Education serves as the foundation for personal and societal development. It equips individuals with the knowledge, skills, and values necessary for success. Moreover, education enhances critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making abilities, fostering informed citizens and leaders.

When individuals receive a quality education , they have the tools to navigate the world's complexities. They gain a deeper understanding of various subjects, from mathematics and science to literature and history. This broad knowledge base allows them to connect with different disciplines and think critically about the world around them. Understanding how to promote quality education is fundamental in this context, as it ensures the delivery of a curriculum that is rich, diverse, and tailored to equip students for future challenges.

Education not only provides individuals with the knowledge they need to succeed, but it also helps them develop important skills. Through classroom discussions, group projects, and hands-on learning experiences, students learn how to collaborate effectively, communicate their ideas clearly, and solve problems creatively. These skills are essential for success in the workplace and everyday life. This stage of personal and intellectual growth is particularly pivotal during secondary education , where students begin to refine these skills in preparation for higher education or their future careers.

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The Role of Education in Society

Education is the cornerstone of a functioning society. It empowers individuals by enabling social mobility, reducing poverty, and promoting equality. Furthermore, education cultivates active participation in democracy, fosters a sense of national identity, and encourages social cohesion.

Access to quality education, regardless of background or socioeconomic status, opens up opportunities for social mobility. Education can break the cycle of poverty by providing individuals with the skills and knowledge they need to secure better-paying jobs and improve their overall quality of life.

Education also plays a crucial role in promoting equality within society. By ensuring that all individuals have access to the same educational opportunities, regardless of race, gender, or socioeconomic background, education helps level the playing field and create a more just and equitable society.

Benefits of Promoting Education

Investing in education pays dividends both in the short and long term. Education leads to higher employment rates, economic growth, and innovation. It promotes healthier lifestyles, lowers crime rates, and contributes to community well-being and quality of life. In this context, primary education plays a pivotal role. It's the initial stage of formal education, laying the groundwork for future academic pursuits and personal development.

When individuals receive a quality education, they are more likely to find stable employment and earn higher wages. This not only benefits individuals and their families but also strengthens the economy as a whole. A well-educated workforce drives innovation, attracts businesses, and fosters economic growth.

Education also has a profound impact on public health. Individuals with higher levels of education tend to make healthier lifestyle choices, leading to lower rates of chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Additionally, education reduces crime rates, as individuals with access to education are less likely to engage in criminal activities.

Furthermore, education contributes to community well-being and quality of life. It fosters a sense of belonging and community engagement, as individuals with education are more likely to participate in civic activities, volunteer their time, and contribute to the betterment of society.

Strategies to Promote Education

To effectively promote education, various strategies can be employed. To fully grasp the concept of effective learning , it's essential to explore various teaching methodologies and their impact on student engagement and comprehension. Advocacy and awareness campaigns are crucial in highlighting the value of education and mobilizing stakeholders. Utilizing technology in education enhances access, engagement, and personalized learning. Encouraging lifelong learning creates a culture of continuous growth, adaptability, and skill development.

Advocacy and Awareness Campaigns

Advocacy and awareness campaigns raise public consciousness about the importance of education. These campaigns create a sense of urgency through targeted communication and informative events and inspire collective action. Additionally, collaborations with influencers, NGOs, and media outlets can amplify the message and reach wider audiences.

Advocacy and awareness campaigns can take various forms, such as public service announcements, social media campaigns, and community engagement events. These initiatives aim to educate the public about the benefits of education, including improved economic opportunities, enhanced social mobility, and the overall well-being of individuals and communities.

Furthermore, advocacy campaigns often focus on specific issues within the education system, such as access to quality education for marginalized communities, gender equality, and early childhood education's importance. By shedding light on these issues and advocating for change, these campaigns contribute to the overall improvement of the education sector.

Utilizing Technology in Education

Technology has revolutionized education by expanding access and improving learning outcomes. It enables distance learning, interactive virtual classrooms, and personalized learning experiences. Education becomes more engaging and inclusive by integrating technology into curriculum design, teacher training, and infrastructure development.

One of the key benefits of technology in education is its ability to bridge geographical barriers. Through online platforms and virtual classrooms, students from remote areas can access quality education previously unavailable. This increases educational opportunities and promotes cultural exchange and global understanding.

Moreover, technology allows personalized learning experiences tailored to individual student’s needs and learning styles. Adaptive learning software, for example, can analyze students' performance and provide targeted feedback and resources to support their progress. This personalized approach enhances student engagement and motivation, improving learning outcomes.

Encouraging Lifelong Learning

Promoting lifelong learning involves creating an environment that nurtures curiosity, self-directed learning, and continuous development. Encouraging individuals of all ages to engage in formal and informal learning opportunities enhances their employability, adaptability, and overall satisfaction in life.

Lifelong learning can take many forms, including pursuing higher education, attending workshops and seminars, participating in online courses, and engaging in hobbies and personal interests. It is about fostering a mindset of continuous growth and embracing new knowledge and skills throughout one's life.

Organizations and institutions can support lifelong learning by offering flexible learning opportunities, such as part-time and online programs, and providing resources for self-directed learning. Employers can also play a role by promoting a learning culture within the workplace, encouraging employees to develop new skills, and providing opportunities for professional development.

Furthermore, lifelong learning has numerous benefits beyond individual growth. It contributes to a more innovative and adaptable society, as individuals with diverse skills and knowledge can tackle complex challenges and drive progress. It also promotes social cohesion and inclusivity by providing opportunities for personal and professional development.

Role of Government in Promoting Education

The government plays a vital role in promoting education through policy development, resource allocation, and implementation of reforms. However, the impact of government involvement in education goes far beyond these basic functions. Let's explore additional aspects of the government's role in promoting education.

Education Policies and Reforms

The government establishes education policies and implements reforms to ensure quality education for all. These policies set standards, frameworks, and guidelines for curriculum, assessment, and teacher qualifications. But what factors influence the development of these policies? Well, the government considers various stakeholders' perspectives, such as educators, parents, and experts in the field of education. Through extensive research, consultations, and collaboration, the government strives to create policies that align with the evolving needs of society.

Moreover, education policies and reforms are not static; they are dynamic and responsive to the changing educational landscape. For example, with the advent of technology, governments are increasingly focusing on integrating digital tools and resources into classrooms. This enhances students' learning experiences and prepares them for the digital age.

Funding and Resource Allocation

Providing adequate funding and allocating resources is essential for building and maintaining effective educational systems. Governments must prioritize education and allocate funds to infrastructure development, teacher training, educational materials, and technology integration. However, the process of funding allocation is not a simple task.

The government faces the challenge of balancing competing needs and demands within limited resources. They must consider various factors, such as the number of students, geographical distribution, and socioeconomic disparities while allocating funds. The government also seeks to ensure equity in resource distribution, aiming to bridge the gap between well-funded schools and those in underprivileged areas.

Furthermore, governments recognize the importance of investing in human capital. They provide scholarships, grants, and financial aid programs to support students access to education, especially for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. By doing so, the government aims to create a level playing field, giving everyone an equal opportunity to pursue their educational aspirations.

In conclusion, while policy development and resource allocation are crucial aspects of the government's role in promoting education, additional complexities and considerations are involved. The government's commitment to education goes beyond mere administrative functions; it encompasses a broader vision of creating an inclusive, equitable, and high-quality education system for all.

Community Involvement in Education Promotion

Promoting education requires collective efforts from communities, parents, and stakeholders. Engaging the community fosters a supportive environment for learners and enhances the effectiveness of education promotion initiatives. Discussing the critical role of early childhood development in the edu cational journey of a child highlights the need for structured and nurturing learning environments from a young age.

To truly create an educational ecosystem that thrives, it is important to recognize parents' vital role in their children's learning journey. Parental engagement is a fundamental aspect of education promotion. Parents can contribute to improving education systems by actively participating in parent-teacher associations. These associations provide a platform for parents to voice their opinions, share their experiences, and work with teachers and administrators to create a positive learning environment for all students.

Furthermore, parents can support educational activities at home by creating a conducive environment for learning. This can include setting aside dedicated study spaces, establishing consistent routines, and providing access to educational resources. By taking an active interest in their children's education, parents can instill a love for learning and help develop important study skills.

Advocating for quality education is another crucial way parents can promote education. By engaging with local policymakers, attending school board meetings, and participating in community discussions, parents can voice their concerns and push for positive changes in the education system. This involvement ensures that the needs of students are heard and addressed, leading to a more inclusive and effective educational experience for all.

Community Outreach Programs

Community outreach programs are vital in bridging the gap between schools, nonprofits, and local organizations. These programs establish partnerships that provide disadvantaged students with educational resources, mentorship, career guidance, and scholarships. Community outreach programs help students overcome barriers and achieve their full potential by offering additional support outside of the classroom.

In addition to providing direct assistance to students, these programs facilitate collaboration between schools and local businesses. Students can benefit from real-world learning experiences and gain valuable insights into various industries by forging these connections. This exposure to different career paths helps students make informed decisions about their future and opens doors to potential job opportunities.

Moreover, community outreach programs foster a sense of belonging and inclusivity within the community. These programs promote unity and understanding by bringing together individuals from diverse backgrounds and creating a space for collaboration. Students can learn from the experiences of others and develop important social skills that will serve them well throughout their lives.

In conclusion, community involvement is an essential component of education promotion. Through their engagement, parents can actively contribute to improving education systems. On the other hand, community outreach programs provide valuable resources and opportunities for students, fostering a supportive and inclusive learning environment. By working together, communities can create a brighter future for all learners.

Successful Education Promotion

Examining successful case studies provides valuable insights and inspiration for effective education promotion strategies.

Education promotion plays a crucial role in shaping the future of societies and individuals. Countries can empower citizens, foster economic growth, and create a more equitable society by investing in quality education. In this article, we will explore two case studies of successful education promotion: Finland's Education System and Singapore's Approach to Education.

Finland's Education System

Finland's education system, known for its high-quality and equitable education, is a model for many countries. It emphasizes play-based learning, qualified teachers, comprehensive support systems, and a focus on student well-being. Finland has achieved remarkable educational outcomes by prioritizing education as a national asset.

One of the key factors contributing to Finland's educational success is its emphasis on play-based learning. Finnish schools encourage children to learn through play, exploration, and hands-on activities. This approach fosters creativity and critical thinking and ensures that learning is enjoyable and engaging for students.

In addition to play-based learning, Finland's education system strongly emphasizes qualified teachers. All teachers in Finland must have a master's degree in education, ensuring that they possess the necessary knowledge and skills to deliver high-quality instruction. This commitment to teacher professionalism has resulted in a highly respected teaching profession and a strong trust between teachers, students, and parents.

Furthermore, Finland's comprehensive support systems ensure every student has an equal opportunity to succeed. These support systems include early intervention programs, special education services, and counseling support. By addressing the diverse needs of students, Finland's education system promotes inclusivity and provides a nurturing environment for all learners.

Lastly, Finland's focus on student well-being sets it apart from many other education systems. Schools in Finland prioritize students' overall well-being, recognizing that academic success is closely linked to emotional and social well-being. This holistic approach to education helps students develop a strong sense of self-esteem, resilience, and overall happiness.

Singapore's Approach to Education

Singapore's education system is widely recognized for its focus on academic excellence and preparing students for the future. The government, schools, and industry collaborate to ensure that education meets labor market demands. A rigorous curriculum, teacher professional development, and robust assessment systems contribute to Singapore's educational success.

One of the key strengths of Singapore's education system is its strong collaboration between the government, schools, and industry. This collaboration ensures that education remains relevant and responsive to the evolving needs of the labor market. By actively involving industry professionals in curriculum development and school programs, Singapore prepares students with the skills and knowledge required for the workforce.

Singapore's rigorous curriculum is another crucial element contributing to its educational success. The curriculum is designed to provide students with a strong foundation in core subjects such as mathematics, science, and languages. This emphasis on academic excellence helps Singaporean students consistently perform well in international assessments and gain admission to top universities worldwide.

Furthermore, Singapore places great importance on professional development for teachers. Teachers in Singapore undergo regular training and professional development programs to stay updated with the latest pedagogical approaches and teaching techniques. This commitment to continuous learning ensures teachers have the necessary skills to deliver high-quality instruction and effectively support their students.

Lastly, Singapore's robust assessment systems play a crucial role in monitoring student progress and identifying areas for improvement. Regular assessments, such as the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) and the General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level (GCE O-Level) examinations, provide valuable feedback to students, parents, and educators. These assessments help identify students' strengths and weaknesses, allowing for targeted interventions and personalized support.

In conclusion, Finland's Education System and Singapore's Approach to Education offer valuable insights into successful education promotion strategies. Finland has achieved remarkable educational outcomes by prioritizing play-based learning, qualified teachers, comprehensive support systems, and student well-being. On the other hand, Singapore's focus on academic excellence, collaborations with industry, rigorous curriculum, professional development for teachers, and robust assessment systems contribute to its educational success. By learning from these case studies, countries can develop effective education promotion strategies that empower their citizens and pave the way for a brighter future.

Overcoming Challenges in Promoting Education

Promoting education is not without challenges. Addressing these challenges is crucial to ensuring equal access and quality education for all.

Education is a fundamental right that should be accessible to everyone, regardless of background or circumstances. However, several obstacles need to be overcome to achieve this goal.

Addressing Inequality in Education

Inequality poses a significant barrier to education. It is disheartening to see how disparities in school funding, teacher quality, and access to resources can perpetuate the cycle of poverty and limit opportunities for many students.

One way to address this issue is by implementing inclusive policies prioritizing equal resource distribution. This means ensuring that schools in low-income areas receive adequate funding and have access to well-trained teachers. Additionally, targeted interventions for marginalized groups, such as students from minority backgrounds or those with disabilities, can help bridge the educational divide and create a more inclusive learning environment.

Dealing with Lack of Resources

Limited resources can hinder education promotion efforts, especially in underprivileged communities. It is disheartening to see how a lack of textbooks, technology, and basic infrastructure can impede the learning process for students.

To overcome resource limitations, governments, in partnership with NGOs and international organizations, should explore innovative funding models. This could involve seeking investments in education from both the public and private sectors and allocating a higher percentage of the national budget towards education.

Furthermore, leveraging technology can play a significant role in overcoming resource constraints. By embracing e-learning platforms, students can access educational materials and resources remotely, reducing their dependence on physical resources. Open educational resources, freely available online, can supplement classroom learning and provide students with additional study materials.

Public-private partnerships can also be valuable in addressing the lack of resources. Schools can access funding, expertise, and resources to enhance education quality by collaborating with private companies. This can include initiatives such as providing scholarships, sponsoring infrastructure development, or offering mentorship programs.

It is important to recognize that promoting education is a complex task that requires a multi-faceted approach. By addressing inequality and resource limitations, education systems can become more equitable and provide every individual with the opportunity to thrive academically and personally.

The Future of Education Promotion

As we look towards the future, several emerging trends and opportunities reshape education promotion.

Innovative Teaching Methods

Rapid advancements in technology and pedagogy are transforming teaching and learning. Blended learning, gamification, and personalized learning enable tailored educational experiences. Leveraging emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality has the potential to revolutionize education delivery.

The Impact of Globalization on Education

The interconnected world of globalization provides opportunities and challenges for education promotion. Promoting cross-cultural understanding, multilingualism, and global citizenship is essential in preparing students to thrive in a globalized society. Collaborative initiatives, student exchange programs, and international partnerships expand educational horizons and foster international cooperation.

In conclusion, promoting education requires a multi-faceted approach involving government, communities, and individuals. By understanding the importance of education, implementing effective strategies, involving the community, and addressing challenges, we can create a better future for future generations. As we embrace technology, policy reforms, and global collaborations, education promotion catalyzes positive change, empowering individuals and strengthening societies.

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Classroom Q&A

With larry ferlazzo.

In this EdWeek blog, an experiment in knowledge-gathering, Ferlazzo will address readers’ questions on classroom management, ELL instruction, lesson planning, and other issues facing teachers. Send your questions to [email protected]. Read more from this blog.

Integrating Critical Thinking Into the Classroom

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(This is the second post in a three-part series. You can see Part One here .)

The new question-of-the-week is:

What is critical thinking and how can we integrate it into the classroom?

Part One ‘s guests were Dara Laws Savage, Patrick Brown, Meg Riordan, Ph.D., and Dr. PJ Caposey. Dara, Patrick, and Meg were also guests on my 10-minute BAM! Radio Show . You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

Today, Dr. Kulvarn Atwal, Elena Quagliarello, Dr. Donna Wilson, and Diane Dahl share their recommendations.

‘Learning Conversations’

Dr. Kulvarn Atwal is currently the executive head teacher of two large primary schools in the London borough of Redbridge. Dr. Atwal is the author of The Thinking School: Developing a Dynamic Learning Community , published by John Catt Educational. Follow him on Twitter @Thinkingschool2 :

In many classrooms I visit, students’ primary focus is on what they are expected to do and how it will be measured. It seems that we are becoming successful at producing students who are able to jump through hoops and pass tests. But are we producing children that are positive about teaching and learning and can think critically and creatively? Consider your classroom environment and the extent to which you employ strategies that develop students’ critical-thinking skills and their self-esteem as learners.

Development of self-esteem

One of the most significant factors that impacts students’ engagement and achievement in learning in your classroom is their self-esteem. In this context, self-esteem can be viewed to be the difference between how they perceive themselves as a learner (perceived self) and what they consider to be the ideal learner (ideal self). This ideal self may reflect the child that is associated or seen to be the smartest in the class. Your aim must be to raise students’ self-esteem. To do this, you have to demonstrate that effort, not ability, leads to success. Your language and interactions in the classroom, therefore, have to be aspirational—that if children persist with something, they will achieve.

Use of evaluative praise

Ensure that when you are praising students, you are making explicit links to a child’s critical thinking and/or development. This will enable them to build their understanding of what factors are supporting them in their learning. For example, often when we give feedback to students, we may simply say, “Well done” or “Good answer.” However, are the students actually aware of what they did well or what was good about their answer? Make sure you make explicit what the student has done well and where that links to prior learning. How do you value students’ critical thinking—do you praise their thinking and demonstrate how it helps them improve their learning?

Learning conversations to encourage deeper thinking

We often feel as teachers that we have to provide feedback to every students’ response, but this can limit children’s thinking. Encourage students in your class to engage in learning conversations with each other. Give as many opportunities as possible to students to build on the responses of others. Facilitate chains of dialogue by inviting students to give feedback to each other. The teacher’s role is, therefore, to facilitate this dialogue and select each individual student to give feedback to others. It may also mean that you do not always need to respond at all to a student’s answer.

Teacher modelling own thinking

We cannot expect students to develop critical-thinking skills if we aren’t modeling those thinking skills for them. Share your creativity, imagination, and thinking skills with the students and you will nurture creative, imaginative critical thinkers. Model the language you want students to learn and think about. Share what you feel about the learning activities your students are participating in as well as the thinking you are engaging in. Your own thinking and learning will add to the discussions in the classroom and encourage students to share their own thinking.

Metacognitive questioning

Consider the extent to which your questioning encourages students to think about their thinking, and therefore, learn about learning! Through asking metacognitive questions, you will enable your students to have a better understanding of the learning process, as well as their own self-reflections as learners. Example questions may include:

• Why did you choose to do it that way?
• When you find something tricky, what helps you?
• How do you know when you have really learned something?

‘Adventures of Discovery’

Elena Quagliarello is the senior editor of education for Scholastic News , a current events magazine for students in grades 3–6. She graduated from Rutgers University, where she studied English and earned her master’s degree in elementary education. She is a certified K–12 teacher and previously taught middle school English/language arts for five years:

Critical thinking blasts through the surface level of a topic. It reaches beyond the who and the what and launches students on a learning journey that ultimately unlocks a deeper level of understanding. Teaching students how to think critically helps them turn information into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom. In the classroom, critical thinking teaches students how to ask and answer the questions needed to read the world. Whether it’s a story, news article, photo, video, advertisement, or another form of media, students can use the following critical-thinking strategies to dig beyond the surface and uncover a wealth of knowledge.

A Layered Learning Approach

Begin by having students read a story, article, or analyze a piece of media. Then have them excavate and explore its various layers of meaning. First, ask students to think about the literal meaning of what they just read. For example, if students read an article about the desegregation of public schools during the 1950s, they should be able to answer questions such as: Who was involved? What happened? Where did it happen? Which details are important? This is the first layer of critical thinking: reading comprehension. Do students understand the passage at its most basic level?

Ask the Tough Questions

The next layer delves deeper and starts to uncover the author’s purpose and craft. Teach students to ask the tough questions: What information is included? What or who is left out? How does word choice influence the reader? What perspective is represented? What values or people are marginalized? These questions force students to critically analyze the choices behind the final product. In today’s age of fast-paced, easily accessible information, it is essential to teach students how to critically examine the information they consume. The goal is to equip students with the mindset to ask these questions on their own.

Strike Gold

The deepest layer of critical thinking comes from having students take a step back to think about the big picture. This level of thinking is no longer focused on the text itself but rather its real-world implications. Students explore questions such as: Why does this matter? What lesson have I learned? How can this lesson be applied to other situations? Students truly engage in critical thinking when they are able to reflect on their thinking and apply their knowledge to a new situation. This step has the power to transform knowledge into wisdom.

Adventures of Discovery

There are vast ways to spark critical thinking in the classroom. Here are a few other ideas:

• Critical Expressionism: In this expanded response to reading from a critical stance, students are encouraged to respond through forms of artistic interpretations, dramatizations, singing, sketching, designing projects, or other multimodal responses. For example, students might read an article and then create a podcast about it or read a story and then act it out.
• Transmediations: This activity requires students to take an article or story and transform it into something new. For example, they might turn a news article into a cartoon or turn a story into a poem. Alternatively, students may rewrite a story by changing some of its elements, such as the setting or time period.
• Words Into Action: In this type of activity, students are encouraged to take action and bring about change. Students might read an article about endangered orangutans and the effects of habitat loss caused by deforestation and be inspired to check the labels on products for palm oil. They might then write a letter asking companies how they make sure the palm oil they use doesn’t hurt rain forests.
• Socratic Seminars: In this student-led discussion strategy, students pose thought-provoking questions to each other about a topic. They listen closely to each other’s comments and think critically about different perspectives.
• Classroom Debates: Aside from sparking a lively conversation, classroom debates naturally embed critical-thinking skills by asking students to formulate and support their own opinions and consider and respond to opposing viewpoints.

Critical thinking has the power to launch students on unforgettable learning experiences while helping them develop new habits of thought, reflection, and inquiry. Developing these skills prepares students to examine issues of power and promote transformative change in the world around them.

‘Quote Analysis’

Dr. Donna Wilson is a psychologist and the author of 20 books, including Developing Growth Mindsets , Teaching Students to Drive Their Brains , and Five Big Ideas for Effective Teaching (2 nd Edition). She is an international speaker who has worked in Asia, the Middle East, Australia, Europe, Jamaica, and throughout the U.S. and Canada. Dr. Wilson can be reached at [email protected] ; visit her website at www.brainsmart.org .

Diane Dahl has been a teacher for 13 years, having taught grades 2-4 throughout her career. Mrs. Dahl currently teaches 3rd and 4th grade GT-ELAR/SS in Lovejoy ISD in Fairview, Texas. Follow her on Twitter at @DahlD, and visit her website at www.fortheloveofteaching.net :

A growing body of research over the past several decades indicates that teaching students how to be better thinkers is a great way to support them to be more successful at school and beyond. In the book, Teaching Students to Drive Their Brains , Dr. Wilson shares research and many motivational strategies, activities, and lesson ideas that assist students to think at higher levels. Five key strategies from the book are as follows:

• Facilitate conversation about why it is important to think critically at school and in other contexts of life. Ideally, every student will have a contribution to make to the discussion over time.
• Begin teaching thinking skills early in the school year and as a daily part of class.
• As this instruction begins, introduce students to the concept of brain plasticity and how their brilliant brains change during thinking and learning. This can be highly motivational for students who do not yet believe they are good thinkers!
• Explicitly teach students how to use the thinking skills.
• Facilitate student understanding of how the thinking skills they are learning relate to their lives at school and in other contexts.

Below are two lessons that support critical thinking, which can be defined as the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment.

Mrs. Dahl prepares her 3rd and 4th grade classes for a year of critical thinking using quote analysis .

During Native American studies, her 4 th grade analyzes a Tuscarora quote: “Man has responsibility, not power.” Since students already know how the Native Americans’ land had been stolen, it doesn’t take much for them to make the logical leaps. Critical-thought prompts take their thinking even deeper, especially at the beginning of the year when many need scaffolding. Some prompts include:

• … from the point of view of the Native Americans?
• … from the point of view of the settlers?
• How do you think your life might change over time as a result?
• Can you relate this quote to anything else in history?

Analyzing a topic from occupational points of view is an incredibly powerful critical-thinking tool. After learning about the Mexican-American War, Mrs. Dahl’s students worked in groups to choose an occupation with which to analyze the war. The chosen occupations were: anthropologist, mathematician, historian, archaeologist, cartographer, and economist. Then each individual within each group chose a different critical-thinking skill to focus on. Finally, they worked together to decide how their occupation would view the war using each skill.

For example, here is what each student in the economist group wrote:

• When U.S.A. invaded Mexico for land and won, Mexico ended up losing income from the settlements of Jose de Escandon. The U.S.A. thought that they were gaining possible tradable land, while Mexico thought that they were losing precious land and resources.
• Whenever Texas joined the states, their GDP skyrocketed. Then they went to war and spent money on supplies. When the war was resolving, Texas sold some of their land to New Mexico for $10 million. This allowed Texas to pay off their debt to the U.S., improving their relationship.
• A detail that converged into the Mexican-American War was that Mexico and the U.S. disagreed on the Texas border. With the resulting treaty, Texas ended up gaining more land and economic resources.
• Texas gained land from Mexico since both countries disagreed on borders. Texas sold land to New Mexico, which made Texas more economically structured and allowed them to pay off their debt.

This was the first time that students had ever used the occupations technique. Mrs. Dahl was astonished at how many times the kids used these critical skills in other areas moving forward.

Thanks to Dr. Auwal, Elena, Dr. Wilson, and Diane for their contributions!

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at [email protected] . When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo .

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5 Ways Educators Can Start Innovating

• Posted August 20, 2021
• By Jill Anderson
• Organizational Change

Innovation can be a powerful tool when it is built on the opportunities and challenges educators see on a daily basis. However, educators don’t often believe they have time to innovate and the idea of innovation can be daunting. What’s more, educators aren’t always given the necessary trust or ability to act independently to come up with new ideas for schools and see them through.

“The concept that you have to do something that is world changing or changes everything can be a barrier to teachers and school leaders,” says Andrea Sachdeva , senior project manager at Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) and an HGSE graduate. Instead, as she points out in Inquiry-Driven Innovation , the new book she cowrote with HGSE lecturer and Project Zero principal investigator Elizabeth Dawes Duraisingh , innovation can be something small. 

Dedicating time to innovation, they say, can lead to positive school-based change and even reinvigorate practice. They saw this story play out in research they conducted for four years with Project Zero colleagues. “Educators found it energizing to create the time and work together with people they normally wouldn’t work with. It renewed their sense of purpose,” Dawes Duraisingh says. “It goes beyond, ‘Here’s my list of tasks,’ to thinking about what are we striving for and how can I build that into my work as a teacher and revitalize what I’m doing?”

Here are five principles Sachdeva and Dawes Duraisingh recommend for educators who want to make change in their schools: 

• Be purposeful and intentional. Think about why you are pursuing innovation in your school or practice. Innovation can be a buzzword for many people, conjuring up major technological advances. It doesn’t have to be big, but it does need to be relevant and responsive to your local context.
• Include diverse perspectives. Create diverse study groups of educators and listen closely to everyone involved. Put together colleagues who don’t usually have the chance to work together — whether that’s educators from different subject areas or with different levels of authority or types of life experience — and be sure to pay attention to voices that are often left out of conversations about school change, such as students and their parents. By working to include diverse points of view and experiences, you’ll have different conversations than usual and are more likely to get beyond “to do” lists. Your innovation is also more likely to gain traction within your school.
• Push for local ownership. Make sure innovation is starting from needs and wishes in your local community, rather than defaulting to current trends in education or recommendations for change that come from outside. Help everyone involved to feel ownership, pride, and investment in the changes, for example, by giving your innovation a name that connects it to your school.
• Get your structures and support in place first. Educators can’t just innovate right away without the proper supports and structure in place to be successful. This means establishing working teams that enjoy support throughout the school including with leaders, and who are given permission to try new things out.
• Keep it going. Consider how to sustain the initiative even after the initial enthusiasm. Create supportive structures to help people keep developing and refining the innovation over time. Some of the professional development tools that can help with this process can take as little as 10 minutes a day in practice.

Additional resources:

• Register for a free online workshop for educators related to these ideas.
• Download free resources from the book.
• Read an excerpt from the book.

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New advances in technology are upending education, from the recent debut of new artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like ChatGPT to the growing accessibility of virtual-reality tools that expand the boundaries of the classroom. For educators, at the heart of it all is the hope that every learner gets an equal chance to develop the skills they need to succeed. But that promise is not without its pitfalls.

“Technology is a game-changer for education – it offers the prospect of universal access to high-quality learning experiences, and it creates fundamentally new ways of teaching,” said Dan Schwartz, dean of Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE), who is also a professor of educational technology at the GSE and faculty director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning . “But there are a lot of ways we teach that aren’t great, and a big fear with AI in particular is that we just get more efficient at teaching badly. This is a moment to pay attention, to do things differently.”

For K-12 schools, this year also marks the end of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding program, which has provided pandemic recovery funds that many districts used to invest in educational software and systems. With these funds running out in September 2024, schools are trying to determine their best use of technology as they face the prospect of diminishing resources.

Here, Schwartz and other Stanford education scholars weigh in on some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom this year.

AI in the classroom

In 2023, the big story in technology and education was generative AI, following the introduction of ChatGPT and other chatbots that produce text seemingly written by a human in response to a question or prompt. Educators immediately worried that students would use the chatbot to cheat by trying to pass its writing off as their own. As schools move to adopt policies around students’ use of the tool, many are also beginning to explore potential opportunities – for example, to generate reading assignments or coach students during the writing process.

AI can also help automate tasks like grading and lesson planning, freeing teachers to do the human work that drew them into the profession in the first place, said Victor Lee, an associate professor at the GSE and faculty lead for the AI + Education initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning. “I’m heartened to see some movement toward creating AI tools that make teachers’ lives better – not to replace them, but to give them the time to do the work that only teachers are able to do,” he said. “I hope to see more on that front.”

He also emphasized the need to teach students now to begin questioning and critiquing the development and use of AI. “AI is not going away,” said Lee, who is also director of CRAFT (Classroom-Ready Resources about AI for Teaching), which provides free resources to help teach AI literacy to high school students across subject areas. “We need to teach students how to understand and think critically about this technology.”

Immersive environments

The use of immersive technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality is also expected to surge in the classroom, especially as new high-profile devices integrating these realities hit the marketplace in 2024.

The educational possibilities now go beyond putting on a headset and experiencing life in a distant location. With new technologies, students can create their own local interactive 360-degree scenarios, using just a cell phone or inexpensive camera and simple online tools.

“This is an area that’s really going to explode over the next couple of years,” said Kristen Pilner Blair, director of research for the Digital Learning initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, which runs a program exploring the use of virtual field trips to promote learning. “Students can learn about the effects of climate change, say, by virtually experiencing the impact on a particular environment. But they can also become creators, documenting and sharing immersive media that shows the effects where they live.”

Integrating AI into virtual simulations could also soon take the experience to another level, Schwartz said. “If your VR experience brings me to a redwood tree, you could have a window pop up that allows me to ask questions about the tree, and AI can deliver the answers.”

Gamification

Another trend expected to intensify this year is the gamification of learning activities, often featuring dynamic videos with interactive elements to engage and hold students’ attention.

“Gamification is a good motivator, because one key aspect is reward, which is very powerful,” said Schwartz. The downside? Rewards are specific to the activity at hand, which may not extend to learning more generally. “If I get rewarded for doing math in a space-age video game, it doesn’t mean I’m going to be motivated to do math anywhere else.”

Gamification sometimes tries to make “chocolate-covered broccoli,” Schwartz said, by adding art and rewards to make speeded response tasks involving single-answer, factual questions more fun. He hopes to see more creative play patterns that give students points for rethinking an approach or adapting their strategy, rather than only rewarding them for quickly producing a correct response.

Data-gathering and analysis

The growing use of technology in schools is producing massive amounts of data on students’ activities in the classroom and online. “We’re now able to capture moment-to-moment data, every keystroke a kid makes,” said Schwartz – data that can reveal areas of struggle and different learning opportunities, from solving a math problem to approaching a writing assignment.

But outside of research settings, he said, that type of granular data – now owned by tech companies – is more likely used to refine the design of the software than to provide teachers with actionable information.

The promise of personalized learning is being able to generate content aligned with students’ interests and skill levels, and making lessons more accessible for multilingual learners and students with disabilities. Realizing that promise requires that educators can make sense of the data that’s being collected, said Schwartz – and while advances in AI are making it easier to identify patterns and findings, the data also needs to be in a system and form educators can access and analyze for decision-making. Developing a usable infrastructure for that data, Schwartz said, is an important next step.

With the accumulation of student data comes privacy concerns: How is the data being collected? Are there regulations or guidelines around its use in decision-making? What steps are being taken to prevent unauthorized access? In 2023 K-12 schools experienced a rise in cyberattacks, underscoring the need to implement strong systems to safeguard student data.

Technology is “requiring people to check their assumptions about education,” said Schwartz, noting that AI in particular is very efficient at replicating biases and automating the way things have been done in the past, including poor models of instruction. “But it’s also opening up new possibilities for students producing material, and for being able to identify children who are not average so we can customize toward them. It’s an opportunity to think of entirely new ways of teaching – this is the path I hope to see.”

How to promote creativity in the classroom

Dean of the Cardiff School of Education, Cardiff Metropolitan University

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Dan Davies has received funding from the Teacher Training Agency, Education Scotland and the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) in relation to his research in creativity.

Cardiff Metropolitan University provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

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Creativity is a big deal in the 21st century classroom. Many countries include it as a core aim for their students in national curricula and even countries such as Singapore that come top of world education league tables are recognising the need for more of it in their schools.

This surge of interest in creativity among teachers, school leaders, academics and governments is partly driven by a growing belief that a fast-paced global economy requires workers with the flexibility of mind to adapt to constant change rather than follow a traditional career path.

We live in a world where increasingly complex problems require creative solutions and where individuals’ lives can be enhanced by the greater sense of agency that comes with having opportunities to explore their own creativity.

Yet, surprisingly few teachers describe themselves as creative . This is perhaps because they have a performance-related, arts-based model of creativity in their minds, such as playing a musical instrument, painting a picture, acting a part in a play, writing a unique song, poem or story. This is in contrast to a broader definition of creativity as the ability to make connections between two previously unrelated ideas or contexts – what has been called “bisociation” by the Hungarian-British writer Arthur Koestler.

In 2013, I led a team undertaking a systematic review of Creative Learning Environments in Education for the Scottish Government. Looking at a number of studies , we found that in order to promote creativity among their pupils, teachers need to unpick their preconceptions about what it means to be creative as part of the professional learning process.

Let teachers be creative

They need to be given permission to innovate and improvise by school leaders, which is risky in a school culture structured around high-stakes testing . Once given this permission and support, teachers can develop creative learning environments for their students. This comprises both the physical environment of the classroom and a teaching environment with the following characteristics:

• students are given some control over their learning
• there is a balance between structure and freedom
• teachers are “playful”
• time is used flexibly
• relationships between teachers and learners include high expectations, mutual respect, modelling of creative attitudes, flexibility and dialogue
• students work collaboratively and assess each other

While each of these characteristics on its own might seem like a description of good teaching, it is their combination which creates the environment to promote creativity.

Two examples I uncovered during my research can help illustrate this. One teacher I observed in Somerset surprised his class by setting up a series of activities on their tables while they were out at break to introduce the topic of “gases”. These consisted of a candle burning, a series of plastic cups containing different numbers of marbles, and pairs of inflated and deflated balls.

The teacher gave no vocal instruction, but there were question cards with the activities, for example:

Watch the candle as it burns, what do you notice? Look at how the marbles are arranged, shake them, what is happening? Squeeze the two rugby balls, what can you say?

Initially bemused, groups of pupils soon began interacting with the exhibits and discussing their ideas. This unexpected start to the lesson – out of the normal routine – together with an invitation to look at everyday phenomena differently, provided the “hook” needed to engage children’s enthusiasm in a new scientific topic.

Abstract concepts, made fun

Another science co-ordinator at a South Gloucestershire primary school used stop-frame animation with plasticine models (like the Wallace and Gromit films) to help children understand forces in real-life situations. Working in groups of two or three, the children were asked to tell a story with their short animations that would involve everyday examples of forces in use.

One group of three girls shot a simple story of two boys having a fight “pushing each other over” and a dog jumping on top of them. They then annotated the resulting short movie on the computer with labels such as “push”, “pull”, “gravity” or “air resistance”. One child commented:

You can be more creative when you do animation, because you can design what you’re going to do, and you get to think things through, like what forces you’re going to use and how the forces work.

Not only did this experience help reinforce children’s understanding of the tricky and abstract conceptual area of forces, it also enabled them to exercise choice, make links with other areas of the curriculum and engage in critical reflection as they viewed the results of their work.

Examples such as these demonstrate how teachers’ own creativity and willingness to take risks can promote creativity in the way their students are learning. Such teaching for creativity is no laissez-faire, easy option – it requires careful preparation. As Thomas Edison said of genius, it’s “1% inspiration, 99% percent perspiration”.

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Quality education an ‘essential pillar’ of a better future, says UN chief

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Education is an “essential pillar” to achieving the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, UN chief António Guterres told an audience on Tuesday at the Paris headquarters of UNESCO, the UN Educational, Scientific and Culture Organization, ahead of the agency’s General Conference .

We must ensure universal access to basic education for every child, everywhere. Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, President, UN General Assembly

Mr. Guterres, who noted that one-fifth of young people are out of work, lack education or adequate training, praised UNESCO ’s fundamental role in coordinating and monitoring global efforts, such as the agency’s initiative on the future of education.

The theme was taken up by Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, President of the UN General Assembly, in his opening remarks to a ministerial meeting on education at the Conference.

Mr. Muhammad-Bande referred to estimates showing that some 265 million children are out of school. The number is projected to fall to 220 million over the next decade, but he declared that the illiteracy figures forecast for 2030 remain a scandal: “We must remove all barriers to education. We must ensure, at a minimum, universal access to basic education for every child, everywhere.”

He also highlighted the importance of educating children effectively, and equipping them with the necessary analytical and critical thinking abilities, in “an ever-changing and more complex world”.

Recalling his former experience as an educator in his home country of Nigeria, Mr. Muhammad-Bande called for more efforts to ensure that teachers are adequately qualified, because “no educational system can rise above the quality of its teachers”.

We must treat young people not as subjects to be protected, but as powerful agents for change.I was very pleased to meet a few of these changemakers at @UNESCO this morning. pic.twitter.com/DjgZP0jNh9 António Guterres, UN Secretary-General antonioguterres

Other important measures cited by the General Assembly President include strong curricula that fully integrate Information and Communications Technology (ICT); ensuring that girls complete at least 12 years of education (which, according to the World Bank, would add some $30 trillion to the global economy); and the effective monitoring and evaluation of learning.

Mr. Muhammad-Bande called on nations to meet their commitments to education spending, and for donor countries to increase international aid directed towards education.

‘Powerful agents of change’

As well as the difficulties in accessing quality education, Mr. Guterres also outlined several other challenges faced by young people: the fact that millions of girls become mothers while they are still children; that one quarter are affected by violence or conflict; and that online bullying and harassment are adding to high levels of stress, which see some 67,000 adolescents die from suicide or self-harm every year.

World leaders, and others who wield power, he continued, must treat young people not as subjects to be protected, but as powerful agents for change, and the role of the powerful is not to solve the enormous challenges faced by young people, but rather to give them the tools to tackle their problems.

Mr Guterres underscored the importance of bringing young people to the table as key partners, and praised UNESCO’s efforts to include their voices, which include holding a major event at the General Conference, and the Youth Forum .

• quality education

Why education is the key to development

.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo{-webkit-transition:all 0.15s ease-out;transition:all 0.15s ease-out;cursor:pointer;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;outline:none;color:inherit;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:hover,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-hover]{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:focus,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-focus]{box-shadow:0 0 0 3px rgba(168,203,251,0.5);} Børge Brende

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Education is a human right. And, like other human rights, it cannot be taken for granted. Across the world,  59 million children and 65 million adolescents are out of school . More than 120 million children do not complete primary education.

Behind these figures there are children and youth being denied not only a right, but opportunities: a fair chance to get a decent job, to escape poverty, to support their families, and to develop their communities. This year, decision-makers will set the priorities for global development for the next 15 years. They should make sure to place education high on the list.

The deadline for the Millennium Development Goals is fast approaching. We have a responsibility to make sure we fulfill the promise we made at the beginning of the millennium: to ensure that boys and girls everywhere complete a full course of primary schooling.

The challenge is daunting. Many of those who remain out of school are the hardest to reach, as they live in countries that are held back by conflict, disaster, and epidemics. And the last push is unlikely to be accompanied by the double-digit economic growth in some developing economies that makes it easier to expand opportunities.

Nevertheless, we can succeed. Over the last 15 years, governments and their partners have shown that political will and concerted efforts can deliver tremendous results – including halving the number of children and adolescents who are out of school. Moreover, most countries are closing in on gender parity at the primary level. Now is the time to redouble our efforts to finish what we started.

But we must not stop with primary education. In today’s knowledge-driven economies, access to quality education and the chances for development are two sides of the same coin. That is why we must also set targets for secondary education, while improving quality and learning outcomes at all levels. That is what the  Sustainable Development Goal  on education, which world leaders will adopt this year, aims to do.

Addressing the fact that an estimated 250 million children worldwide are not learning the basic skills they need to enter the labor market is more than a moral obligation. It amounts to an investment in sustainable growth and prosperity. For both countries and individuals, there is a direct and indisputable link between access to quality education and economic and social development.

Likewise, ensuring that girls are not kept at home when they reach puberty, but are allowed to complete education on the same footing as their male counterparts, is not just altruism; it is sound economics. Communities and countries that succeed in achieving gender parity in education will reap substantial benefits relating to health, equality, and job creation.

All countries, regardless of their national wealth, stand to gain from more and better education. According to a recent  OECD report , providing every child with access to education and the skills needed to participate fully in society would boost GDP by an average 28% per year in lower-income countries and 16% per year in high-income countries for the next 80 years.

Today’s students need “twenty-first-century skills,” like critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, and digital literacy. Learners of all ages need to become familiar with new technologies and cope with rapidly changing workplaces.

According to the International Labour Organization, an additional 280 million jobs will be needed by 2019. It is vital for policymakers to ensure that the right frameworks and incentives are established so that those jobs can be created and filled. Robust education systems – underpinned by qualified, professionally trained, motivated, and well-supported teachers – will be the cornerstone of this effort.

Governments should work with parent and teacher associations, as well as the private sector and civil-society organizations, to find the best and most constructive ways to improve the quality of education. Innovation has to be harnessed, and new partnerships must be forged.

Of course, this will cost money. According to UNESCO, in order to meet our basic education targets by 2030, we must close an external annual financing gap of about $22 billion. But we have the resources necessary to deliver. What is lacking is the political will to make the needed investments.

This is the challenge that inspired Norway to  invite world leaders  to Oslo for a  Summit on Education for Development ,  where we can develop strategies for mobilizing political support for increasing financing for education. For the first time in history, we are in the unique position to provide education opportunities for all, if only we pull together. We cannot miss this critical opportunity.

To be sure, the responsibility for providing citizens with a quality education rests, first and foremost, with national governments. Aid cannot replace domestic-resource mobilization. But donor countries also have an important role to play, especially in supporting least-developed countries. We must reverse the recent downward trend in development assistance for education, and leverage our assistance to attract investments from various other sources. For our part, we are in the process of doubling Norway’s financial contribution to education for development in the period 2013-2017.

Together, we need to intensify efforts to bring the poorest and hardest to reach children into the education system. Education is a right for everyone. It is a right for girls, just as it is for boys. It is a right for disabled children, just as it is for everyone else. It is a right for the 37 million out-of-school children and youth in countries affected by crises and conflicts. Education is a right regardless of where you are born and where you grow up. It is time to ensure that the right is upheld.

This article is published in collaboration with Project Syndicate . Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.

To keep up with the Agenda  subscribe to our weekly newsletter .

Author: Erna Solberg is Prime Minister of Norway. Børge Brende is Norway’s Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Image: Students attend a class at the Oxford International College in Changzhou. REUTERS/Aly Song. 

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• Strengthening education systems and innovation

Getting all children in school and learning takes strong, innovative education systems.

Education systems are complex. Getting all children in school and learning requires alignment across families, educators and decision makers. It requires shared goals, and national policies that put learning at the centre. It also requires data collection and regular monitoring to help policymakers identify what’s working, who’s benefiting, and who’s being left behind.

Strong education systems are inclusive and gender-equitable. They support early learning and multi-lingual education, and foster innovations to extend education opportunities to the hardest-to-reach children and adolescents.

Innovation in education

Innovation in education is about more than new technology. It’s about solving a real problem in a fresh, simple way to promote equity and improve learning.

Innovation in education comes in many forms. Programmes, services, processes, products and partnerships can all enhance education outcomes in innovative ways – like customized games on solar-powered tablets that deliver math lessons to children in remote areas of Sudan. Or digital learning platforms that teach refugees and other marginalized children the language of instruction in Greece, Lebanon and Mauritania.

Innovation in education means solving a real problem in a new, simple way to promote equitable learning.

Innovation in education matches the scale of the solution to the scale of the challenge. It draws on the creativity and experience of communities – like a programme in Ghana that empowers local mothers and grandmothers to facilitate early childhood education – to ensure decisions are made by those most affected by their outcomes.

Many innovators are already at work in classrooms and communities. UNICEF collaborates with partners to identify, incubate and scale promising innovations that help fulfil every child’s right to learn.

UNICEF’s work to strengthen education systems

UNICEF works with communities, schools and Governments to build strong, innovative education systems that enhance learning for all children.

We support data collection and analysis to help Governments assess progress across a range of outcomes and strengthen national Education Management Information Systems. We also develop comprehensive guidelines for education sector analysis that are used in countries around the world to drive equity-focused plans and policies.

Our efforts promote transparency , shedding light on education systems so that students, parents and communities gain the information they need to engage decision makers at all levels and hold them to account.

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Education Sector Analysis Guidelines: Volume 1 ( English , French , Spanish , Portuguese and Russian )

These guidelines support ministries of education and their partners in undergoing sector analysis and developing education sector plans.

Education Sector Analysis Guidelines: Volume 2 ( English , French , Spanish , Portuguese and Russian )

The investment case for education and equity.

This report analyses the learning crisis and its determinants and makes the case for an increase in funding for education and for more equitable and efficient spending.

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Collecting Data on Foundational Learning Skills and Parental Involvement in Education

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Article on the Importance of Education in 100 to 350 Words

• Updated on  
• Jan 9, 2024

Education entails acquiring knowledge to have a greater understanding of the various disciplines that will be used in our everyday lives. ‘ Education ’ refers to the information we gain and experience outside of books or classrooms, as well as the knowledge that we receive and experience in schools, our homes, and as members of society. Our ideas on life alter as a result of learning, education is crucial for personal development and growth in society . In this blog, we will see why we need education for growth and will also look at some articles on the importance of education.

This Blog Includes:

Importance of education, mental aspect of education’s importance, the power of being an educated individual, how can your education benefit your society, articles on importance of education, article on importance of education: 100 words, article on importance of education: 200 words, article on importance of education: 350 words, article on importance of women’s education.

Also Read: Essay On Education System

Also Read: Importance of Education in Development

The value of education at a much younger age. Our first tryst with learning begins at home, and our first teachers are our parents, grandparents, and often siblings. The importance of education lies in its continuity, learning is a lifetime process that will stop with our death. It is the foundation for the development of a healthy individual and society. Our world cannot have a bright future if our culture lacks education.

Education is the key to change. It is an important tool that allows a person to understand his or her rights and responsibilities to his or her family, society, and nation. It improves a person’s ability to view the world and to fight against misdoings such as injustice, corruption, and violence, among other things.

Education is meant to hone talent, sharpen our mindsets and educate us on a myriad of things. In school, we cover a variety of topics such as history, arithmetic, geography, politics, and so on. These subjects sharpen children’s minds and allow the kid to absorb knowledge from all subjects, and his or her mental level is increased. Here are some cognitive benefits of learning and education that ensure growth and development in children:

Education’s importance in our lives provides us with stability in our everyday lives. Everything may be split, but not your education, you must be told. You can improve your chances of getting a better job with the aid of your degree and expertise.

Financial Security

Our financial stability is helped by education. Higher-qualified individuals receive higher-paying employment in this era, allowing them to guarantee their future.

Self-dependency

Education teaches us to be self-sufficient in our daily lives. A person’s education is his alone, and with it, he may feel safe and self-sufficient.

Equality is a right that everyone deserves. If everyone had the opportunity to pursue higher education, there would be a greater likelihood that everyone would earn a large sum of money, and there would be fewer disparities across social classes. It aids in the pursuit of equality.

Confidence is one of the finest aspects of success. Education boosts a person’s self-assurance. You can go further into a topic that you are already familiar with. With the information you’ve obtained through your schooling, you can converse about that issue far better than others.

If you are a Class 12 student, here are some important blogs for you:

Knowledge and education is power. Education enables individuals. Enables them to innovate, understand, adapt, and overcome. Everything we learn helps us in life in one way or the other. It helps make our life convenient and easy. Good education is basically the knowledge that gives people perspective and information about things which can range from being as simple as fixing a water pipe to building a rocket destined for moon. When we are educated, we can adapt to each and every aspect of life better and it also helps us overcome many hurdle of life and gives perspective about a lot things such as finance, planning, etc. All this can make any individual feel powerful because there remains nothing in life that they cannot tackle.

Every nation’s integral part is it’s society and the growth an development of the same is dependent upon the individuals which in turn helps the social and economic progress of the nation. The education system has been evolving from the very first day and now it has several mods and means of the same. It is quite correct to say that any amount or money spent of being educated never goes waste. The more you learn, the you will be able to grow in life. Every aspect of education will one way or the other, help you in your life. And when an individual is educated, he/she can significantly contribute to the growth of the society and the nation, much more than a rich person. Education helps develop characters, personalities and social behaviours. It helps shape the way people think and act. An ultimately it lead to how a society will grow. For this to happen, it is essential that all of the people understand the importance of education.

The process of learning and increasing abilities through courses, literature, training and other mediums is known as education. It assists us in developing our talents and seeking employment to suit our requirements and obligations.

Education is vital to one’s success in life. It is essential for an individual’s entire growth. The process of learning and improving one’s skills is referred to as education. Wisdom and the ability to handle challenges come with knowledge. Education enhances one’s quality of life while also granting social recognition. Though education is essential for everyone, the need for it is most acute during childhood. Starting with children under the age of 10, school education is critical. It serves as a solid basis for their life skills and goals. A person who lacks education is powerless and vulnerable. H/She will find it difficult to deal with life’s challenges.

Related Reads:

Education is a valuable tool for gaining learning and wisdom. Though books are essential to education, the notion encompasses more than just books and bookish knowledge. It isn’t required for education to be only based on books. 

The most important goal of education is to help people with how to read and write. The first step toward literacy is reading and writing. Education provides a person with endless opportunities for growth and advancement. People who have had an education tend to be more calm and self-assured. People who have been educated are disciplined and understand the importance of time. Education allows a person to be more expressive and opinionated. H/She was able to readily communicate his/her viewpoints, which were supported by a clear aim and rationale.

Education benefits not just the individual but also the community. The most important aspect of education is that it goes from one individual to another, then throughout society, and eventually throughout the country. An educated individual makes an effort to teach and inspire everyone with whom he or she comes into contact. Education brings one up to speed on technological advancements as well. A well-educated person can easily adjust to technological developments. Education, more than anything else, is a source of hope. The desire for a better life; the desire for a wealthy and poverty-free existence.

Must Read: Importance of School Education

Human education is a critical instrument in their lives. It is a significant distinction between a civilized and an undisciplined individual. Even if the country’s literacy rate has increased in recent years, more individuals need to be made aware of the importance of education. Every child, whether a male or a girl, must attend school and not drop out. Education is beneficial not just to the individual but also to society. A well-educated individual is a valuable asset to society, contributing to its social and economic development. Such a person is always willing to assist society and the country. It is true to say that education is a stairway to a person’s and a nation’s achievement.

Education makes a person productive, allowing him or her to contribute to society in a positive way. It teaches us how to face many challenges and conquer them. A well-educated individual understands how to act in a polite and non-offensive manner. It shows us how to live a disciplined life while yet making a respectable living. Our future is built on the basis of education. Education is also the sole weapon that may be used to combat numerous issues such as illiteracy, poverty, unemployment, and so on. A person’s education makes them more sensitive to the predicament of their fellow beings. A well-educated individual not only comprehends the issues but also possesses the essential abilities to address them.

An educated individual possesses competent skills and is more capable than someone who is uneducated. However, it is incorrect to think that education alone ensures success. Indeed, success necessitates a solid education, as well as devotion, attention, and hard effort. An educated individual is more sensible and capable of rational thought.

Education allows a person to become self-sufficient. An educated individual does not rely on others and is capable of meeting his or her own requirements. A well-educated person also educates their family, and education benefits, not just the individual but also society and the nation. Education has a significant influence on our outlook, making us more optimistic about life and its objectives.

Also Read: Importance of Education in Child’s Life

There was a period when it was considered that women didn’t need to be educated. We’ve now realized the importance of women’s education . The modern era is the phase of women’s awakening. In every aspect of life, women are striving to compete with males. Many individuals reject female education, claiming that women’s rightful domain is the home, and therefore that money spent on female education is squandered. This viewpoint is incorrect since female education has the potential to bring about a silent revolution in society.

Female education has numerous advantages; educated women may contribute significantly to the country’s growth by sharing the burdens of males in several fields. They may contribute to society as teachers, lawyers, physicians, and administrators, as well as play a key part in wartime. In this time of economic distress, education is a blessing for women. The days of wealth and prosperity are long gone. Middle-class families are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet these days. Female education is important for a country’s growth, thus it should be supported.

Everyone has hope for a better life if they have an education. It’s a type of magic that works in a person’s life to make it far better than it would be if he didn’t have knowledge. To sum up the blog, we believe that everyone should be educated so that they can contribute to making our country proud. Increasing literacy rates can prevent tens of thousands of crimes. Every country should encourage its citizens to receive an education.

Also Read: Importance of Education for Growth and Betterment

Related Articles

Education is a valuable tool for gaining learning and wisdom. Though books are essential to education, the notion encompasses more than just books and bookish knowledge. It isn’t required for education to be only based on books.  The most important goal of education is to help people with how to read and write. The first step toward literacy is reading and writing. Education provides a person with endless opportunities for growth and advancement.

Education teaches us the importance of teamwork, communication, and interpersonal relationships. Education plays an important role in building intellectual and mental development. Education enhances creativity and allows us to express ourselves through various mediums and discover our unique talents. Education serves as a powerful tool for breaking the cycle of poverty

Moral education teaches us important values such as Respect, honesty, compassion, hard work, kindness, gratitude, sharing, cooperation, etc.

This was all about articles on the importance of education! We hope the information provided was helpful! For more information on such informative topics for your school, visit our school education page and follow Leverage Edu .

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Empowering Patients: Promoting Patient Education and Health Literacy

Pradnya brijmohan bhattad.

1 Cardiovascular Medicine, Saint Vincent Hospital, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Worcester, USA

Luigi Pacifico

Patients are generally keen to understand and obtain more information about their medical conditions. There exists a need to develop updated and thorough yet concise patient education handouts and to encourage healthcare providers (HCPs) to use uniform patient education methods.

A thorough review of literature on patient education material was performed prior to starting the study. A comparison with different resources regarding the appropriateness of patient education was done. Educating HCPs to effectively use patient educational materials incorporated into the electronic health record system, including electronic methods, such as the use of a patient portal, to help educate patients. 

Strategies were formulated to reduce the amount of processing and attending time required for fetching appropriate materials and lead to fast, efficient, and effective patient education. To improve the physical and psychosocial wellbeing of a patient, personalized patient education handouts, in addition to verbal education by the HCPs, augment the betterment of patient care via shared decision making and by improving patient satisfaction and health literacy.

Introduction

Patients are often eager to understand and know more about their medical conditions and health situation, and educating them with the most relevant, current, consistent, and updated information helps patients and their families significantly in the medical care and decision-making process [ 1 ]. 

Patients need formal education on the disease condition; they need to know their ailment, understand their symptoms, be educated on the diagnostics, appropriate medication use, and should be taught when to call for help. Several patient education handouts for various conditions are available, and there exists a need to assess which one is better suited for a particular disease/condition encountered and provides concise information. Patient education materials help educate the patients on their health conditions, improves their health literacy, and enhances and promotes informed decision-making based on the most current and updated medical and clinical evidence as well as patient preference [ 2 ].

The aim of this study was to develop updated patient education handouts and materials in addition to verbal counseling of the patients to help them understand the disease condition, diagnostic studies, proper advice on medications, and when to call for help. And to encourage healthcare providers (HCPs) to use uniform patient education materials.

The objectives of this study are 1) the implementation of quality improvement techniques of Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles on patient education in clinical settings; 2) to enhance the delivery of patient education and create awareness amongst the HCPs regarding the importance of patient education and improved health literacy; 3) to verify if patient education handouts have the minimum necessary information that patient should know; 4) to compare patient education handouts from databases integrated in the electronic health record (EHR) with standard patient education database websites like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, and MedlinePlus® site to make sure that they have the minimum necessary information; and 5) to educate and encourage HCPs on the use of appropriate patient education articles in the EHR and utilize an electronic patient portal for patient education, help transition the patient education to an electronic form, and increase efficacy and consistent patient education.

Materials and methods

A comprehensive review of the patient education materials on the most common medical ailments in various clinical settings was performed. We compared the existing patient education database integrated in the EHR with the standard resources such as the CDC, MedlinePlus via retrospective chart study format to ensure the minimum necessary information is available. 

A comparison of existing educational material was completed by analyzing other patient education materials from resources such as UpToDate (the basics/beyond the basics), MedlinePlus, US National Library of Medicine of NIH, CDC, and the US Department of Health and Human Services to ensure that effective, most updated, current, and evidence-based information is provided to the patients from the educational materials.

Search words were incorporated to help search for the educational articles in the existing EHR by the title of the article. Educational materials studied were relevant to the common medical ailments in various clinical settings. The patient handouts were made available in such a way that these should be able to be sent either through an electronic patient portal or printed out.

HCPs were educated in a session with pre- and post-lecture survey qualitative and quantitative questionnaires. The impact of these interventions was further assessed by pre- and post-intervention surveys after educating the HCPs.

Uniform updated patient education handouts were created after comparing them with standard resources. A pre-test survey questionnaire was obtained to discuss with HCPs regarding the current knowledge and practices of the usage of patient education handouts and the understanding of EHR to utilize uniform and standardized patient education handouts. After educating the HCPs, their knowledge regarding the use of EHR to effectively use patient education handouts was tested in a post-test survey questionnaire. After completion of the pre and post-test survey questionnaire by HCPs, analysis of the data performed (Figures ​ (Figures1 1 - ​ -20 20 ).

HCPs - healthcare providers

"Do you feel that attending and processing times required for fetching appropriate educational articles will be reduced if standard materials are outlined?"

“Do you think that efficient patient education is effective in creating and improving adherence to treatment, medication compliance, and for improving overall patient health?”

Quality improvement (QI), problem-solving, and gap analysis

QI techniques, including PDSA cycles, to improve patient education implemented in various clinical settings [ 1 ].

Reasons for Action

There is a need for updated and uniform patient education materials in addition to verbal counseling of the patient to help them understand the disease condition, diagnostic studies, proper advice on medications, and when to call for help, thereby enhancing health literacy. There exists several patient education materials for various ailments, and the need to assess which one is better suited for a disease condition and contains concise information.

Initial State

We reviewed the available patient education material from the patient education database integrated in the EHR, and compared it with current standardized resources such as MedlinePlus, US National Library of Medicine of NIH, CDC, and the US Department of Health and Human Services. A thorough review of literature on patient education material was performed prior to starting the study.

We compared more than one source regarding the appropriateness of patient education, most specifically, how to use the medications and when to call for help. The quality of educational materials regarding disease education, diagnostics education, education on medication use, and education on when to call for help was assessed. The resources described above were utilized for comparison.

Gap Analysis

A graph of the gap analysis is displayed in Figure ​ Figure21 21 below.

Solution Approach

It was noticed that the educational materials were available only in printed format. Enrolling patients on the electronic patient portal helps send educational materials to the patient as a soft copy in a faster and more efficient electronic format. 

Higher attending and processing time is required for fetching appropriate materials due to the unavailability of exact materials and using non-updated educational materials. Therefore, creating an index of educational articles on commonly encountered medical situations and ensuring that these articles are current and updated might make the process more efficient. 

There is a very limited time availability to impart specific educational elements with the limited appointment times. Appropriately detailed educational materials can be sent to the patient via a patient portal even after the patient encounter has ended. For patients with limited technology/computer use, educational materials can be mailed if they're missed during the encounter. 

Inadequate educational methods were utilized; thus, incorporating educational articles from resources other than the databases in the existing EHR, and using the index of educational articles on commonly encountered medical situations were applied.

Inefficient usage of the operational capacity of EHR for patient education, using database integrated in the EHR, and lack of training were identified. As a result, HCPs were trained on using educational materials for their patients in an efficient manner, and patient education was prioritized.

Rapid Experiment: Plan-Do-Study-Act Cycle

Plan: Plan to use appropriate patient education material from several sources made available in the index of the educational articles.

Do: Counsel and verbally educate the patients, along with providing educational materials. Obtain a verbal read-back from the patients about how to use medications and when to call for help.

Study: Use the teach-back method to make patients explain back the information provided in their own words to see if they understood the disease, diagnostics, medication use, and when to call for help to improve health literacy.

Act: If a patient has questions, address them appropriately and if need be, set up a follow-up appointment. 

Actions Taken

An index of educational materials relevant to the common medical ailments in various clinical settings was created. This index of educational materials was to guide HCPs in choosing appropriate and relevant articles in an efficient, quick, and timely manner for patients in various clinical settings. Effective use of patient educational materials in the database incorporated into the EHR, including electronic methods such as the use of the patient portal to help educate patients, was promoted. Alternate resources other than those from the database in the existing EHR were utilized. Educational materials in printed format were made available for patients with limited technology access. The amount of time required for fetching appropriate materials was reduced by creating and referencing to an index for commonly encountered medical situations.

Efficient and faster patient education was imparted with reduced processing and attending time required. Prioritized health education to improve health literacy. Efficient usage of operational capacity of database integrated in the EHR was undertaken to improve health literacy. HCPs were trained to use patient education materials efficiently. 

What Helped

Fast, efficient, and effective patient education helped patients and their families significantly in medical care and shared decision-making based on the most current and updated clinical evidence and patient preference. Creating an index of educational materials relevant to the medical conditions commonly encountered thereby reduced the amount of processing and attending time required for fetching appropriate materials. Effectively using patient educational materials in the database incorporated into the EHR, including electronic methods such as the use of a patient portal to help educate patients, using soft copy (electronic-copy) reduced requirement of printed materials. Correction of misconceptions that patients may have helped improve health literacy. 

What Went Well

Helping engage, encourage, and empower the patients in participating in their own health care and treatment decisions. Enhanced patient satisfaction and better outcomes (for instance, educating a patient on osteopenia encouraged them to continue/start the vitamin D supplementation, participate in regular exercise, healthy diet preferences, and health promotion). 

What Hindered

High HCP turnover rate with changing schedules hindered consistent use of patient education materials. Insufficient number of HCPs trained for patient education.

What Could Improve

Incorporating educational materials in the video format for patients who do not wish to read or talk about their health situations. Enhanced training of all the HCPs for effective and efficient use of patient education resources to allow consistency in effective patient education.

Personalized patient education engages, encourages, and empowers patients in participating in their own health care and treatment decisions and leading to better outcomes, decreased need for excess diagnostic testing, and enhanced patient satisfaction [ 3 , 4 , 5 ]. This needs motivation on the part of the resident doctors, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, physicians, and the allied staff. 

The Advisory Committee on Training in Primary Care Medicine (ACTPCMD) recommends that Health Resources & Services Administration’s (HRSA) Title VII, Part C, Section 747 and 748 education and training programs should prepare students, faculty, and practitioners to involve patients and caretakers in shared medical decision-making which can happen well with better patient education process [ 6 ].

We as HCPs should cultivate good habits amongst ourselves to ensure patients know about their condition and treatment well. This will help increase medication and treatment compliance amongst patients and enhance the physician-patient relationship to a higher level.

Conclusions

To improve the physical and psychosocial well-being of a patient, personalized patient education materials, in addition to verbal education by the HCPs, augment the betterment of patient care via shared decision making and by improving patient satisfaction. There is a need to reiterate that HCPs understand patients' concerns and provide effective patient education and counseling for effective health care delivery.

The content published in Cureus is the result of clinical experience and/or research by independent individuals or organizations. Cureus is not responsible for the scientific accuracy or reliability of data or conclusions published herein. All content published within Cureus is intended only for educational, research and reference purposes. Additionally, articles published within Cureus should not be deemed a suitable substitute for the advice of a qualified health care professional. Do not disregard or avoid professional medical advice due to content published within Cureus.

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Human Ethics

Consent was obtained or waived by all participants in this study

Animal Ethics

Animal subjects: All authors have confirmed that this study did not involve animal subjects or tissue.

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How to Promote Your Article: 23 Ways to Spread the Word

Publishing With Forbes Councils | November 8, 2020

This post is part of a series on how to best utilize your personal branding and media benefits. This benefit is for Forbes Council members only. Click here to find out if you qualify.

Getting an article or Expert Panel answer published on Forbes.com is exciting. But just as you can't sit and wait for clients to come to you, you can't just hope your article finds an audience.

Actively marketing your published article is key.

Authors who take the time to promote their articles are much more likely to report back to our editorial team with amazing results: a single Expert Panel feature or article might lead to a new potential customer signing up for a lead gen offer, job inquiries from qualified talent, or even a cold email from a potential partner.

How can you achieve similar results? Here are 23 tips on how to promote an article and places to share your articles:

• Start with a list like this one. Adapt it to your specific industry. Make sure you and your team are ready to take action as soon as your article is live.
• Engage with other experts who write about similar subjects. Here are some tips for finding them. Hint: This isn’t a one-way street; share their content, follow them, and comment on their posts before asking them to read or share your article.
• Press your email signature into service; add a link to your Forbes Councils executive profile , which shows off all your accomplishments, including a preview of and link to each of your articles.
• Take it a step further and add an overt mention of and link to your latest article below your contact info . Chances are, you send out hundreds of emails in a given week to clients or customers, colleagues, and vendors. All those contacts are potential readers.
• Email your mentors. Did you draw on lessons learned in your career from working with others? Email your mentors or those who inspired you, with a sincere thanks for their part in your career.
• Email clients, advisors, and trusted colleagues in your industry when you appear in Expert Panels or write an article on a topic that they care about. Tell them how they influenced your thinking; you can even ask them for their candid feedback in a comment.
• Ask industry influencers to weigh in and share. This takes some work and some high-level networking (unless you already have top influencers within an email’s reach), but the potential impact of an influencer sharing your press mention is huge.
• Your Forbes Councils member forum is the place to share your article with fellow executives, ask for their feedback, and start discussions that can benefit everyone.
• Include the link in your next company newsletter . It’s a great way to build credibility with leads or existing clients while sharing information or advice they can actually benefit from.
• Boost your article’s visibility with paid promotion . From services like Outbrain and Taboola to sponsored Facebook posts and promoted tweets, there are a lot of additional channels to explore if you’re interested in investing further.
• Create a compelling image with a key quote or snippet. Quotable, shareable visuals are ready-made for Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and similar networks.
• Create a series of social media posts based on the content of your article. Share interesting quotes or excerpts from the piece or a link with a short blurb about what inspired you to write about that specific topic. Sharing the same article more than once is fine, as long as you reframe your update each time. Keep sharing updates weeks (or months) after the original publish date with a steady stream of content.
• When you share on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networks, make sure to tag the experts , companies, or organizations cited in your article . They might retweet, share, or otherwise link your article in their channels.
• Keep track of social mentions so you can re-share, follow up and say thanks . Most social media software, like Hootsuite, can do the watching for you and notify you when you're mentioned. Your PR team can also handle this for you.;
• Add the article to your LinkedIn publications . Potential hires, partners, investors, and colleagues all use LinkedIn to verify your credentials. Here’s a quick tutorial .
• Your existing publications can inspire future articles or even company blog posts. Don’t forget to link back to the original.
• Repurpose your advice or tips to create a slide deck or PDF . Done well, marketing on Slideshare is a highly effective way to reach a wider audience.
• Create a short video for YouTube featuring the content you've covered in your article, and link to the article in the video description. For extra reach, embed the video in a social post or on your website.
• Republish your post (in whole or in part) with a link to the original on your personal website, Medium, or LinkedIn. Just remember to wait until the exclusivity period expires. (Ask your member concierge for details.)
• Ask your assistant to add a link to your company news or press page . Your personal and company sites are ideal showcases for your recent press mentions.
• Link to your articles from your company career page to give prospective hires a clear sense of your take on industry issues. View count aside, this can help you attract employees who understand your perspective.
• How do you share good news within your company? If you have an internal newsletter, wiki, or Slack channel , announce your publication there.
• Find people talking about your topic on Reddit or Quora , and give your input. Be sure you share a valuable nugget in the response; links with no explanation are usually disregarded as spam.

Above all, if you want readers and colleagues to help you amplify a post, the key is to choose your subject matter wisely. Think about the pain points you've conquered, and how you did it. Then share that knowledge. Keeping your knowledge secret means keeping your expertise secret. If you want to be a thought leader, share widely, and lead.

The anatomy of a perfect educational article

Anne-Laure Le Cunff

Writing an educational article about something you want to learn about may be one of the best ways to study a topic. The Feynman Technique —which I recently discovered may have been coined by Scott Young—helps you understand anything by pretending you are explaining the concept to a child or someone who has no prior knowledge of it. A great way to do this is to write an introductory article about what you want to learn. This is what I’m doing every week at Ness Labs, and you can do it as well. So what does a perfect educational article look like?

The perfect educational article is the one that helps you understand a new concept, and helps teach it to your readers as well. As such, it needs to start from the fundamentals and gradually go into the more complex concepts. It also needs to be practical and offer ways to take one’s learning further if they wish to.

1. Provide a step-by-step explanation

Writing an educational article is akin to writing a story, where you take the reader on a journey of exploration and discovery. Instead of dumping everything in the first few paragraphs, break down the explanation into several sections. Imagine a ladder with each incremental step bringing the reader and yourself closer to a satisfactory understanding of a concept. (I’m saying satisfactory because a complete understanding is not possible, which is why self-education is so fun, there is always more to learn)

One section should only correspond to one idea. If you start writing about a related but different idea, just create a new section. By using an outlining tool such as Roam , you can move the sections around easily. When you’re proofreading your article, make sure the narrative flows naturally.

2. Make it visual

“A thousand words leave not the same deep impression as does a single deed,” once said Henrik Ibsen, a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As with many adages, years of paraphrasing turned it into a modern version which bears little resemblance with the original quote, and which you are probably familiar with: “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

Visuals not only make it easier to quickly grasp the structure of your article, they can be used as explanatory tools. For instance, Feynman was famous for his diagrams, which he used to distill complex concepts into simple visuals.

3. Build context

Have you ever fallen into a Wikipedia rabbit hole? While it may be detrimental to your short-term productivity , such curious wanderings are still amazing experiences. I’m personally extremely grateful I can read about a topic, easily discover connections with other themes, and follow my curiosity just by clicking on links.

Knowledge in isolation is useless. The goal of learning is to form new insights, not to accumulate facts. Make sure to provide context around the concept you are writing about. This can be as simple as linking to other related concepts, which is particularly helpful when these concepts have been covered in a previous article. Doing so will help the readers and yourself progressively create a mental map of the topics you have learned about.

Interlinking concepts is a form of study. You can start this process in your note-taking app by linking new notes to previous notes. Some applications like Roam also feature bi-directional linking and a knowledge graph, which make it even easier to explore topics within a wider context.

When writing an educational article, pay attention to keywords related to topics you may have written about in the past, and link back to these so readers can also follow their curiosity and build better mental maps.

4. Suggest practical applications

A great way to solidify one’s knowledge is to put it into practice. However, readers discovering the topic for the first time may not know where to start. Do include a few pointers so they can put what they just learned into practice.

For instance, if you wanted to put into practice what you’re currently reading, you could take a topic you recently learned about, and write a short educational article to publish on your blog, send to your newsletter subscribers, or even—if you’re like my dad—just email to friends and family. Even better, make this a weekly habit, and you will look back in a year with more than fifty educational articles, and a lot of interesting, contextual knowledge in your thinking toolbox.

5. Encourage elaboration

The generation effect shows that we tend to remember information better when we create our own version of the content we consume. Encourage your readers to share their thoughts and read more about the topic by providing a reading list so they can elaborate on your introductory article.

If you want to learn more about education writing, I recommend the following resources:

• Your First Article on Wikipedia . Full of practical advice on interlinking, citing your sources, and writing in plain language. See also The Perfect Article .
• The Concept Attainment methodology as described by a language arts teacher.
• How to explain anything to anyone on TED Ideas, based on a talk by physicist and science writer Dominic Walliman.

Enjoy these, and please do let me know if you end up writing some educational articles!

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The Mind-Expanding Value of Arts Education

As funding for arts education declines worldwide, experts ponder what students — and the world at large — are losing in the process.

By Ginanne Brownell

This article is part of our special report on the Art for Tomorrow conference that was held in Florence, Italy.

Awuor Onguru says that if it were not for her continued exposure to arts education as a child, she never would have gotten into Yale University.

Growing up in a lower-middle-class family in Nairobi, Kenya, Ms. Onguru, now a 20-year-old junior majoring in English and French, started taking music lessons at the age of four. By 12, she was playing violin in the string quartet at her primary school, where every student was required to play an instrument. As a high school student on scholarship at the International School of Kenya, she was not only being taught Bach concertos, she also became part of Nairobi’s music scene, playing first violin in a number of local orchestras.

During her high school summer breaks, Ms. Onguru — who also has a strong interest in creative writing and poetry — went to the United States, attending the Interlochen Center for the Arts ’ creative writing camp, in Michigan, and the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio . Ms. Onguru, who recently returned to campus after helping organize Yale Glee Club’s spring tour in Kenya, hopes to become a journalist after graduation. She has already made progress toward that goal, serving as the opinion editor for the Yale Daily News, and getting her work published in Teen Vogue and the literary journal Menacing Hedge.

“Whether you’re in sports, whether you end up in STEM, whether you end up in government, seeing my peers — who had different interests in arts — not everyone wanted to be an artist,” she said in a video interview. “But they found places to express themselves, found places to be creative, found places to say things that they didn’t know how else to say them.”

Ms. Onguru’s path shows what a pivotal role arts education can play in a young person’s development. Yet, while the arts and culture space accounts for a significant amount of gross domestic product across the globe — in the United Kingdom in 2021, the arts contributed £109 billion to the economy , while in the U.S., it brought in over $1 trillion that year — arts education budgets in schools continue to get slashed. (In 2021, for instance, the spending on arts education in the U.K. came to an average of just £9.40 per pupil for the year .)

While experts have long espoused the idea that exposure to the arts plays a critical role in primary and secondary schooling, education systems globally have continually failed to hold it in high regard. As Eric Booth, a U.S.-based arts educator and a co-author of “Playing for Their Lives: The Global El Sistema Movement for Social Change Through Music,” said: “There are a whole lot of countries in the world that don’t have the arts in the school, it just isn’t a thing, and it never has been.”

That has led to the arts education trajectory heading in a “dark downward spiral,” said Jelena Trkulja, senior adviser for academic and cultural affairs at Qatar Museums , who moderated a panel entitled “When Arts Education is a Luxury: New Ecosystems” at the Art for Tomorrow conference in Florence, Italy, organized by the Democracy & Culture Foundation, with panels moderated by New York Times journalists.

Part of why that is happening, she said, is that societies still don’t have a sufficient and nuanced understanding of the benefits arts education can bring, in terms of young people’s development. “Arts education is still perceived as an add-on, rather than an essential field creating essential 21st-century skills that are defined as the four C’s of collaboration, creativity, communication and critical thinking,” Dr. Trkulja said in a video interview, “and those skills are being developed in arts education.”

Dennie Palmer Wolf, principal researcher at the U.S.-based arts research consultancy WolfBrown , agreed. “We have to learn to make a much broader argument about arts education,” she said. “It isn’t only playing the cello.”

It is largely through the arts that we as humans understand our own history, from a cave painting in Indonesia thought to be 45,000 years old to “The Tale of Genji,” a book that’s often called the world’s first novel , written by an 11th-century Japanese woman, Murasaki Shikibu; from the art of Michelangelo and Picasso to the music of Mozart and Miriam Makeba and Taylor Swift.

“The arts are one of the fundamental ways that we try to make sense of the world,” said Brian Kisida, an assistant professor at the University of Missouri’s Truman School of Public Affairs and a co-director of the National Endowment for the Arts-sponsored Arts, Humanities & Civic Engagement Lab . “People use the arts to offer a critical perspective of their exploration of the human condition, and that’s what the root of education is in some ways.”

And yet, the arts don’t lend themselves well to hard data, something educators and policymakers need to justify classes in those disciplines in their budgets. “Arts is this visceral thing, this thing inside you, the collective moment of a crescendo,” said Heddy Lahmann , an assistant professor of international education at New York University, who is conducting a global study examining arts education in public schools for the Community Arts Network. “But it’s really hard to qualify what that is.”

Dr. Lahmann’s early research into the decrease in spending by public schools in arts education points to everything from the lack of trained teachers in the arts — partly because those educators are worried about their own job security — to the challenges of teaching arts remotely in the early days of the Covid pandemic. And, of course, standardized tests like the Program for International Student Assessment, which covers reading, math and science, where countries compete on outcomes. “There’s a race to get those indicators,” Dr. Lahmann said, “and arts don’t readily fit into that.” In part, that is because standardized tests don’t cover arts education .

“It’s that unattractive truth that what gets measured gets attended to,” said Mr. Booth, the arts educator who co-authored “Playing for Their Lives.”

While studies over the years have underscored the ways that arts education can lead to better student achievement — in the way that musical skills support literacy, say, and arts activities lead to improved vocabulary, what have traditionally been lacking are large-scale randomized control studies. But a recent research project done in 42 elementary and middle schools in Houston, which was co-directed by Dr. Kisida and Daniel H. Bowen, a professor who teaches education policy at Texas A&M, is the first of its kind to do just that. Their research found that students who had increased arts education experiences saw improvements in writing achievement, emotional and cognitive empathy, school engagement and higher education aspirations, while they had a lower incidence of disciplinary infractions.

As young people are now, more than ever, inundated with images on social media and businesses are increasingly using A.I., it has become even more relevant for students these days to learn how to think more critically and creatively. “Because what is required of us in this coming century is an imaginative capacity that goes far beyond what we have deliberately cultivated in the schooling environment over the last 25 years,” said Mariko Silver, the chief executive of the Henry Luce Foundation, “and that requires truly deep arts education for everyone.”

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Why writing by hand beats typing for thinking and learning

Jonathan Lambert

If you're like many digitally savvy Americans, it has likely been a while since you've spent much time writing by hand.

The laborious process of tracing out our thoughts, letter by letter, on the page is becoming a relic of the past in our screen-dominated world, where text messages and thumb-typed grocery lists have replaced handwritten letters and sticky notes. Electronic keyboards offer obvious efficiency benefits that have undoubtedly boosted our productivity — imagine having to write all your emails longhand.

To keep up, many schools are introducing computers as early as preschool, meaning some kids may learn the basics of typing before writing by hand.

But giving up this slower, more tactile way of expressing ourselves may come at a significant cost, according to a growing body of research that's uncovering the surprising cognitive benefits of taking pen to paper, or even stylus to iPad — for both children and adults.

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In kids, studies show that tracing out ABCs, as opposed to typing them, leads to better and longer-lasting recognition and understanding of letters. Writing by hand also improves memory and recall of words, laying down the foundations of literacy and learning. In adults, taking notes by hand during a lecture, instead of typing, can lead to better conceptual understanding of material.

"There's actually some very important things going on during the embodied experience of writing by hand," says Ramesh Balasubramaniam , a neuroscientist at the University of California, Merced. "It has important cognitive benefits."

While those benefits have long been recognized by some (for instance, many authors, including Jennifer Egan and Neil Gaiman , draft their stories by hand to stoke creativity), scientists have only recently started investigating why writing by hand has these effects.

A slew of recent brain imaging research suggests handwriting's power stems from the relative complexity of the process and how it forces different brain systems to work together to reproduce the shapes of letters in our heads onto the page.

Your brain on handwriting

Both handwriting and typing involve moving our hands and fingers to create words on a page. But handwriting, it turns out, requires a lot more fine-tuned coordination between the motor and visual systems. This seems to more deeply engage the brain in ways that support learning.

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"Handwriting is probably among the most complex motor skills that the brain is capable of," says Marieke Longcamp , a cognitive neuroscientist at Aix-Marseille Université.

Gripping a pen nimbly enough to write is a complicated task, as it requires your brain to continuously monitor the pressure that each finger exerts on the pen. Then, your motor system has to delicately modify that pressure to re-create each letter of the words in your head on the page.

"Your fingers have to each do something different to produce a recognizable letter," says Sophia Vinci-Booher , an educational neuroscientist at Vanderbilt University. Adding to the complexity, your visual system must continuously process that letter as it's formed. With each stroke, your brain compares the unfolding script with mental models of the letters and words, making adjustments to fingers in real time to create the letters' shapes, says Vinci-Booher.

That's not true for typing.

To type "tap" your fingers don't have to trace out the form of the letters — they just make three relatively simple and uniform movements. In comparison, it takes a lot more brainpower, as well as cross-talk between brain areas, to write than type.

Recent brain imaging studies bolster this idea. A study published in January found that when students write by hand, brain areas involved in motor and visual information processing " sync up " with areas crucial to memory formation, firing at frequencies associated with learning.

"We don't see that [synchronized activity] in typewriting at all," says Audrey van der Meer , a psychologist and study co-author at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. She suggests that writing by hand is a neurobiologically richer process and that this richness may confer some cognitive benefits.

Other experts agree. "There seems to be something fundamental about engaging your body to produce these shapes," says Robert Wiley , a cognitive psychologist at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. "It lets you make associations between your body and what you're seeing and hearing," he says, which might give the mind more footholds for accessing a given concept or idea.

Those extra footholds are especially important for learning in kids, but they may give adults a leg up too. Wiley and others worry that ditching handwriting for typing could have serious consequences for how we all learn and think.

What might be lost as handwriting wanes

The clearest consequence of screens and keyboards replacing pen and paper might be on kids' ability to learn the building blocks of literacy — letters.

"Letter recognition in early childhood is actually one of the best predictors of later reading and math attainment," says Vinci-Booher. Her work suggests the process of learning to write letters by hand is crucial for learning to read them.

"When kids write letters, they're just messy," she says. As kids practice writing "A," each iteration is different, and that variability helps solidify their conceptual understanding of the letter.

Research suggests kids learn to recognize letters better when seeing variable handwritten examples, compared with uniform typed examples.

This helps develop areas of the brain used during reading in older children and adults, Vinci-Booher found.

"This could be one of the ways that early experiences actually translate to long-term life outcomes," she says. "These visually demanding, fine motor actions bake in neural communication patterns that are really important for learning later on."

Ditching handwriting instruction could mean that those skills don't get developed as well, which could impair kids' ability to learn down the road.

"If young children are not receiving any handwriting training, which is very good brain stimulation, then their brains simply won't reach their full potential," says van der Meer. "It's scary to think of the potential consequences."

Many states are trying to avoid these risks by mandating cursive instruction. This year, California started requiring elementary school students to learn cursive , and similar bills are moving through state legislatures in several states, including Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina and Wisconsin. (So far, evidence suggests that it's the writing by hand that matters, not whether it's print or cursive.)

Slowing down and processing information

For adults, one of the main benefits of writing by hand is that it simply forces us to slow down.

During a meeting or lecture, it's possible to type what you're hearing verbatim. But often, "you're not actually processing that information — you're just typing in the blind," says van der Meer. "If you take notes by hand, you can't write everything down," she says.

The relative slowness of the medium forces you to process the information, writing key words or phrases and using drawing or arrows to work through ideas, she says. "You make the information your own," she says, which helps it stick in the brain.

Such connections and integration are still possible when typing, but they need to be made more intentionally. And sometimes, efficiency wins out. "When you're writing a long essay, it's obviously much more practical to use a keyboard," says van der Meer.

Still, given our long history of using our hands to mark meaning in the world, some scientists worry about the more diffuse consequences of offloading our thinking to computers.

"We're foisting a lot of our knowledge, extending our cognition, to other devices, so it's only natural that we've started using these other agents to do our writing for us," says Balasubramaniam.

It's possible that this might free up our minds to do other kinds of hard thinking, he says. Or we might be sacrificing a fundamental process that's crucial for the kinds of immersive cognitive experiences that enable us to learn and think at our full potential.

Balasubramaniam stresses, however, that we don't have to ditch digital tools to harness the power of handwriting. So far, research suggests that scribbling with a stylus on a screen activates the same brain pathways as etching ink on paper. It's the movement that counts, he says, not its final form.

Jonathan Lambert is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance journalist who covers science, health and policy.

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The critical role of education for sustainable development and getting every learner climate-ready

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Education for a sustainable future

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) reorients education to empower learners of all ages to act for environmental integrity, economic viability and a more equitable society. As part of the ongoing work on ESD, UNESCO will hold a special side event during the 42nd General Conference, highlighting the critical role of ESD through good practice and activities relating to greening education. The event will feature the UNESCO-Japan Prize on Education for Sustainable Development award ceremony, where the 2023 champion laureates will present their project or initiative on sustainable development and receive a cash prize of 50 000 USD to further develop their mission and objectives.  

Following the conferral of the award, H.R.H. Princess Abze Djigma, Burkina Faso , Chair of the International Jury of the UNESCO-Japan Prize and Chair of the  H.R.H. Princess Abze Djigma Foundation , will moderate a panel discussion on greening education and getting every learner climate-ready, as part of  the Greening Education Partnership’s mission and work. 

This event will be livestreamed.

ESD-Japan Prize on Education for Sustainable Development

The UNESCO-Japan Prize on Education for sustainable development , funded by the Government of Japan, consists of three annual awards of USD 50,000 for each recipient. It was awarded for the first time by the Director-General of UNESCO in November 2015.

The Prize and award winners recognize the role of education in connecting the social, economic, cultural and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. It was established by the Executive Board of UNESCO at its 195th session within the framework of the Global Action Programme (GAP) on ESD and officially announced at the UNESCO World Conference on ESD (10-12 November 2014, Aichi-Nagoya, Japan).

Greening Education Partnership

Climate change is one of ESD’s longstanding thematic areas. The Greening Education Partnership was launched in 2022 as one of the global initiatives of the Transforming Education Summit. 80 Member States and 1000 member organizations have joined the Partnership to work together to collectively address the climate emergency. The Partnership aims to respond to the urgent call for education to get every learner climate-ready through its four pillars of transformative education: greening schools, curriculum, teacher training and education systems’ capacities, and communities.

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5 Ways to Increase Elementary Students’ Knowledge of Other Countries

Awareness and appreciation of different cultural perspectives ensures that students have an open mind when considering global issues.

In any state standards, it’s almost ubiquitous these days to include the preparation of students for a global society. Unfortunately, courses on global education aren’t offered in traditional certification programs, nor are they often a part of professional development at most school sites. 

Nonetheless, if you wish to infuse global education into your curriculum, I have excellent news. You can begin your path to creating globally minded kids as early as your next lesson, and you won’t have to cut anything out of your day to do so. In fact, global education isn’t something else on your plate. It’s an understanding embedded in your curriculum, and neither you nor your students need to be globetrotters to become more globally competent. Here are five easy ways that any curriculum can be “globafied.” 

1. Share the Four Global Competencies With Students 

In your next lesson, consider the Asia Society’s widely used four domains of global education. Consider that in any lesson you teach, students are nearly always doing one or more of the following: They explore their world, they communicate ideas, they recognize perspectives, and they take action. What you want to do is simply provide them with access to do this globally . Here’s an easy example of what it looks like:

Example: You are teaching one of the core algorithms for mathematics: subtraction, multiplication, or even division. In your lesson summary, share a video about how similar problems are solved in other countries . Give students a few minutes to pause and try them out. Then, let them discuss in table groups what they think of the strategies and how they differ from or are similar to their favorite. To help the students get a broader sense of their world, name the strategies after the countries that they are from. Better, show students on a map where the strategies are from, or connect to a forum like Global Scholars and arrange a Zoom with students in that country to share their solutions to the same problem.

2. Provide Incentives for Inquiry

Consider the number of times a day that you offer kids, especially early finishers, a little bonus or a little challenge. In our world of constant internet access, doesn’t it seem that the following example could be infused in nearly any subject?

Example: Global education is perfect when I teach a unit of earth science, weather, plate tectonics, or volcanoes. When my students are constructing a project or completing a presentation, many finish early, and others need some motivation in their groups. I make these students International Ambassadors of Weather or perhaps of Volcanism. Then, I provide a link to a related topic and have them jot notes comparing the various global versions of their scientific phenomena. On the right side of the page, they record what they find as details. On the left, they can create a main idea—a global discovery to add to the group’s presentation in some way.

3. Give More Access

One of the best resources you can use right away is to infuse the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) into your teaching. Fully 193 of the world’s countries are part of the UN. All these nations recognize the need for things your kids will definitely care about. The knowledge that the world’s future challenges are not ours alone reminds modern learners that they are part of a global planet. This collective is looking for solutions to issues like climate change, pollution, and clean access to water.

Example: When I use a nonfiction article about an engaging topic in class, such as “Bullying in Schools,” global education comes naturally. I ask students to consider one of the UN SDGs that matches the context of the piece. To help them better see the global context of the article, I provide them with a link or resource of some kind regarding how other nations are tackling a similar issue. I then give this as a center rotation, or as a seatwork assignment. When we return to the article, I solicit responses from students about what the article’s takeaway is both locally and from a more global perspective.

4. Offer Options  

In the new era of differentiation, let’s not forget that differentiation happens for motivation and authentic inquiry as much as to give access to students with varying needs. 

Example: During your next essay-writing assignment, how about giving that anime lover an opportunity to research how Japanese artwork has influenced cultures like ours around the world? Or what about an option in your Revolutionary War unit for students to explore other revolutions around the world?

Offering choices within an assignment makes for more than engagement. With a simple option, you can help them explore other cultures in a way they already appreciate.

5. Use Student Experience and Cultural Assets

Utilizing and affirming your students’ cultural and experimental assets is what global education is all about. Allowing your students to share what many of them already bring to the class isn’t just good teaching, it’s also culturally responsive teaching.

It’s important to tap into students’ interests on a daily, and lesson-by-lesson, basis. Whatever topic you’re teaching, simply provide students with an option to share from their representative culture to the discussion. 

Example: Try this simple question during your lesson as a teachable moment. “Does anyone know how this might _____ outside the United States or in your family here in the United States?” Giving students a chance to share a cultural component that is a part of their experiences opens up a dialogue that is often overlooked in many classrooms. Providing chances for students to share their global and cultural experiences begins to normalize the view that we are, after all, a global society in and out of the class. 

When in Doubt, Think ‘Glocally’

Perhaps you‘ve heard of the term “glocal.” It means to think global and act local. Remember that this term can apply to any lesson you teach in which a local area of concern is addressed. When you embed any of the above strategies into your lessons, it won’t be just you thinking that way—your kids will be too.

HECS indexation to be overhauled in budget with $3 billion in student debt 'wiped out'

Millions of Australians with student loans will have hundreds of dollars wiped from their HECS debts as the federal government rolls out its plans for cost-of-living relief in the upcoming budget.

Every June HECS debts are indexed and bumped up a few percentage points to make sure the amount owed keeps up with inflation.

For almost 35 years indexation has been calculated based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is now at historic highs.

Last year's 7.1 per cent increase was the largest hike since 1990 leaving some in a debt spiral with loans increasing faster than they could be repaid .

Annual HECS indexation will now be calculated on whichever figure is lower out of CPI and the Wage Price Index (WPI).

The policy will be backdated to June 1 2023, which means last year's 7.1 per cent indexation will be lowered to the WPI of 3.2 per cent.

"This will wipe out around $3 billion in student debt from more than three million Australians," Education Minister Jason Clare said.

HECS debt indexation to 'wipe out what happened last year'

The government released a wide-ranging review of higher education called the Australian Universities Accord earlier this year.

It warned student debt levels, which had reached $74 billion, were turning people off universities and recommended making HECS "simpler and fairer".

Among its recommendations was indexing HELP loans to whichever was lower out of CPI and WPI.

Mr Clare said adopting the reform and backdating it to last year would help ensure HECS debts did not rise faster than wages in future.

"This will wipe out what happened last year and make sure it never happens again," he said.

Students and graduates had been bracing for another large indexation hit this year of about 4.7 per cent .

The increases had led to a growing backlash with some students so despondent they were considering leaving the country .

How much will you save on your HECS debt?

Instead of another dreaded rise, students will now receive an indexation credit.

Last year's indexation rise of 7.1 per cent will be lowered to 3.2 per cent under the new policy.

For a student with the average debt of $26,494 that means an indexation credit of about $1,200 for the last two years if legislation reforming HECS is passed after the budget.

The debt relief will also apply to apprentices who owe money through the VET Student Loan program or Australian Apprenticeship Support Loan.

These loans work in a similar way to HECS but for young people undertaking a course at TAFE or an independent higher education provider.

According to the latest available figures from 2022 around 30,000 students owed about $220 million.

"This continues our work to ease cost-of-living pressures for more apprentices, trainees and students, and reduce and remove financial barriers to education and training," Skills and Training Minister Brendan O'Connor said.

"By backdating this reform to last year, we're making sure that apprentices, trainees and students affected by last year's jump in indexation get this important cost-of-living relief."

Wider university reforms may be ahead in the budget

There will likely be more money to fund wider-ranging changes to universities recommended in the government's Accord review.

Its other recommendations included:

• reviewing bank lending practices so that HECS debts didn't prevent people from borrowing money to buy a house
• changing the timing of indexation so it occurred after annual compulsory payments
• repealing the previous governments Job-ready Graduates program which increased the cost of some degrees and lowered others

The Greens have been pushing the government to go further and may demand further changes to support the legislation in the Senate.

As cost-of-living pressures have grown, so too has momentum for change.

A recent petition from MP Monique Ryan calling for indexation changes attracted more than 285,000 signatures.

Shadow Education Minister Sarah Henderson has also called for the government to act .

The government's budget will be delivered on May 14.

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