, - Keating: „I always thought the idea of education was to learn to think for yourself.“ – Mr.Nolan: „At these boys‘ age? Not on your life! Tradition. Discipline. Prepare them for college and the rest will take care of itself.“ (Dead Poets Society, N.H. Kleinbaum) – How can traditional education be modernized and adapted to contemporary society?

Barbara Marten - 28.09.2019 @ 10:53

Traditional vs modern education

by Hanna Robitschek and Zsanna Pásztói, DNG Budapest/Hungary

When we think of modern schools, the first things that come to our minds are schools from movies. For example, there is an American movie called „High School Musical” and the school in the movie released in 2006 already looks so modern. The reason is that those kinds of schools try to use the newest technological methods to keep up. The Hungarian high schools also had a few updates in the last years. For example, we acquired interactive white boards and laptops.

If we recollect the old days, schools got through a lot of changes. A Hungarian novelist, Ferenc Molnár wrote a novel „The Paul Street Boys” in 1907 and in the book the students of the same age went to the same class together. In these days it’s different. For example, in DNG we are divided into classes and also into groups. Besides, these days students don’t have to obey too strict rules like they did before. Nowadays the relationship between teachers and students is looser and there is a more familiar atmosphere.

We asked our parents about their memories of their schools and they said that they had to wear school uniforms, like in the novel „Be Faithful Unto Death” by Zsigmond Móricz.

Going on, we collected a few ideas about how high schools could be improved. The first step could be, that the students get notes about lessons in digital format and in this way, they can listen better to the teacher. Then at home they just have to integrate the notes that they already have.

Our second idea is connected with the first one. It’s about every student receiving a laptop. This would give us a life of ease, because we wouldn’t have to carry that much stuff in our backpacks. Sadly, they are sometimes way too heavy. Beyond these ideas we thought that we could also write the tests on these laptops. But to work this idea out we have to figure it out, how students could really use these laptops without cheating.

Over and above, it would be pretty good, if we could piece together our own class schedule. Besides the major subjects we would only learn the ones we like and the ones that we would need for our future employment.

Finally, we would like to say that these suggestions are achievable without money, but with these changes the education would be easier for the students and for the teachers too.

Have these already been achieved in Sweden, Poland, Germany or Austria?

Zsanna Pásztói - 12.11.2019 @ 17:15

Thank you very much for your article Zsanna and Hanna!

I totally agree with the points that you have mentioned. Intergrating new technology into our educational system would definitely have great advantages and offer new opportunities. To answer your question, our school (in Austria) has already got interactive Smartboard, which in my opinion have indeed improved the overall work-flow of the classes.

I also enjoyed the comparison you've made with the modern educational system and the ones of the past and that you've included your parents' experience.

For the books you have named, I am definitley motivated to take a look at them, since it reminds me of a book I read a while ago. It's called "Youth without God" from the austro-hungarian author Ödön von Horváth. In the book the author describes, among others, the educational system after the first world war. I really enjoyed reading it and found myself intrigued by the subject of old school systems.

Nazli Yüksek - 29.12.2019 @ 12:04

Thank you for your article Zsanna and Hanna,

I really liked your first idea about giving the students a better opportunity to follow the lesson and to work effectively in class.

However, I want to emphasize my concern about giving each student a laptop. It would distract the students a lot and could possibly affect their vision making them shortsighted.

I think schools should try to provide good mix between digital and ordinary classes to teach the pupil how to use the new technology properly.

Stefan Heise - 07.01.2020 @ 16:17

Hello Zsanna Pásztoi!

I enjoyed your article very much.

Answering your question, we have interactive whiteboards, but students don’t have their laptops. Our schools are more traditional. I absolutely agree with you and Nazil Yüksen that technology makes a difference but in my humble opinion more essential is the educational system.

For example, the article The Finnish educational system of infoFinland.fi shows that students from that country don’t have traditional tests or homework. They also spend less time in school and despite that their system is said to be one of the best ones in the world. Teachers focus on the development of creativity and intelligence of children. Also, as you mentioned in the article, the idea of choosing only a few subjects (like in the American system) seems reasonable.

Putting those methods into practice would bring a lot of benefits to all of us.

Sara Kotlarz - 12.01.2020 @ 00:47

Hello Zsanna and Hanna, I really enjoyed your article.

I strongly agree with you on the need for integrating modern technology in the school environment, that Nazli also spoke about in one of the above comments.  It would be easier for us to take notes quickly as most of us write more slowly by hand than using a keyboard. As you said it would also be very good for our spines as we wouldn’t have to carry so many books.

As much as I like this idea, I can’t imagine school handing us laptops, instead I think it would be enough if we were allowed to use our laptops in class (which you cannot do in Poland, I don’t know how it is in other countries). From my perspective the best thing to do at the moment is scan all your books and put them on a e-book reader like Kindle. A few of my friends have done that and now they only have to carry a few notebooks to school.

I think it’s weird how little school system has evolved over time. I remember reading “Anne of Green Gables” when I was little and not seeing a big difference between the school in a book and my school. Of course, the school in Avonlea was small and all the ages were taught together but besides that they sat in the classroom, solving math problems without any context and were prohibited from simple actions like standing up without their teacher’s consent just as I was in my school. All those similarities, when the book is set in 1877 so more than a hundred years ago.

Izabela Kręc - 12.01.2020 @ 20:11