The future of schools starts with letting go.
I'm Sanjay Divakar. I'm 15, and I've gone to school in Chennai, Dubai and Connecticut. Different countries, same bells, same desks. This is where I write down what I think school should become.
from my TEDx talk in Houston
School trains us for a world that stays still.
Bells go off in the middle of a task. Subjects sit in separate boxes. The day is split into blocks that make sense for logistics, and much less sense for learning. All of it assumes the world will look the same when we graduate as it did when the system was designed.
It won't. I've already lived in three countries, and the only skill that carried over every single time was being able to adapt.
AI didn't break education. It showed us what was already broken.
so what's it for?
If a machine can write an essay faster than a student, the essay was measuring the wrong thing. Nobody in the real world asks you to do something the slow, hard way when a faster option is sitting right there.
So the useful question for schools is simple to ask and hard to answer: what are we actually preparing students for?
from my TEDx talk in Madurai
Somebody wrote the grading scale. It wasn't you.
When I was four, I knocked over a cone during a drill at school. By accident. I was made to clean the whole playground by myself. Nobody asked what happened. They assumed.
Grades work a lot like that. A 90 feels like a fact about you, but somebody decided where the line goes, what counts, and what gets ignored. Those are design choices made by people. When a grade gets you wrong, it's fair to question the instrument and stop questioning only yourself.
Some things are fair to test the old way. A math answer is either right or wrong. A lot of what matters most about how a person thinks, works with others, and handles pressure never shows up on the scale at all.
things to let go of
What schools could let go of
The bell that ends the thought
Time should follow the learning. When a student is deep in a problem, the schedule is the wrong thing to win.
Subjects in sealed boxes
Real problems don't arrive labelled "science" or "English." School shouldn't teach as if they do.
Following instructions as the goal
Compliance is easy to grade. Adaptability is what students will actually need.
Using tech only to deliver content
The bigger chance is for teachers to use it to understand each student, and teach the person in front of them.
watch these
say hi
Talk to me
I'd love to hear from students, teachers, parents and anyone running an event about the future of learning. If you want me to speak, tell me about your audience.
sdivakar@rolecolorfinder.com