We had predicted the Education Cliff in our 2019 book, Edupreneurial Pivot. One week was enough in 2020 for the Education Cliff to happen.
It has been only a week since the protective measures against Covid19 led the Swiss authorities to decree the generalization of distance education. Yet, some cantons already resolved to limit teaching to prior learning, others to cancel annual exams altogether.
In other words, the education system throws in the towel when faced with the difficulty it faces in continuing its teaching activities.
Yet its infrastructure is intact; its staff is on duty; the children are safe; the teaching aids remain available, the support functions are in place.
How did we get to the grounding of schools so quickly?
In March 2019, we wrote, “The school system deliberately generates institutional cultures that put it at odds with the VUCA world around it. “
It was foreseeable that an authentically VUCA context, such as the COVID crisis19, would place the school system facing an insurmountable challenge. In the age of the internet, the school proved unable to make itself mobile and became obsolete overnight.
It was foreseeable that an organization afraid of its responsibilities in data protection, an organization divided into silos, an organization that demonizes error by favoring only the right solution, an organization that defines equality as standardization, it was foreseeable that such an organization would be defeated by a context which would require a rapid redefinition.
Who thought of asking teachers to define their vision of their role in this crisis? Who thought of clarifying expectations concerning the system to be implemented? Who thought of setting a progression curve in the deployment of the new education? Who has thought of looking for technological options up to the challenge?
It all happened as if no one had to feel responsible for finding solutions.
On the contrary, we could have forecasted that not all actors in education would sink in the same way.
We have described what teachers and principals could do if an Entrepreneurial Mindset drove them, that is if they were no more held them back by the institutional cultures causing the Cliff Education. Since the publication of the book, we have produced portraits of educators and school principals for the Twenty-One podcast.
During these meetings, we have gradually developed tools to connect the actors of the educational institution to the Edupreneurial Mindset.
More than ever we believe that these educative minds can make a difference. There are many schools in the world today, and presumably, also many teachers, who succeed in advancing their students without asking them to come to class.
That’s why we created the GDL Canvas, and we made it available free of charge to the highest number. It is now necessary for as many teachers as possible to seize it and join the Edupreneurial circle.
The GDL Canvas can be downloaded here https://edupreneurialpivot.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/GDL_canvas_21_03_2020.pdf