Out for a ride with time to think

The morning sun shines into my room, and birds are chirping. The two-month holiday at the language school where I’m working has just started. It’s a bit difficult to believe that the time for the last entry for this blog has already come. I still have lots of thoughts to share with our readers!

Lately I’ve been riding my bike in the countryside in the evenings – it’s a good chance to relax after a very full year and to improve my skills in photography. Along the way, I think a lot about the enormous difference between rural and urban areas in my country, and between their inhabitants’ mentalities. What’s difficult to explain is that many Russians would like to move outside the city and buy nice houses there, but most villagers prefer the idea of finding a job in the city (or at least sending their children to get educated there). Of course that’s due to the financial divide between these areas, but we need to make this division less extreme.

Apart from modernizing infrastructure and offering programs aimed at stimulating young teachers to work in village schools (or small towns) by offering them additional money for several month stays and providing them with accommodation, we also need to promote studying abroad. But at least when it comes to my own pupils, I have been really glad to talk to them and discover that practically all of them think globally.

A toast to the first year of my friends' start-up

What are my expectations for the future? As I said in the very beginning, I’m the kind of person who embraces change. I’d like to try something new – not as a hobby, but as a job. Now a couple of my friends and I are working on an Internet-based project which will try to encourage people to waste less time online. Like Kathrin mentioned, the Internet can be great for learning, but it also presents plenty of distractions. I guess that as technology develops, we’re bound to see more edutainment (a combination of education and entertainment) in this sphere.

When we started the blog, I never would have thought how interesting it would turn out to be. I got impressions of educational systems in other countries, got to know my fellow bloggers more and got somehow inspired by what they discussed. It’s a pity there are regions that prevent citizens’ voices from being heard (as in Hellgurd’s case). However, youth can be an enormous force for change. I do hope there will be chances to work together with Hellgurd, Maria, Emmy and Kathrin on other projects – why not on our own?

The Internet makes learning easier - for those with access

Before I talk about paths other family members in my generation took in the German educational system, I want to come back to what my cousin Thorsten said in his interview: “The future of education is in Web.2.0.”

Many of the other bloggers and I have already written about this: No matter whether in Kenya or in Germany, technology opens new doors to education everywhere. But these don’t overcome old problems.
As I wrote in May, the higher your level of education already is, the better you can profit from the opportunities the Internet offers. If I only speak one langue, I can understand only a small fraction of what is available online. Speakers of economically important and widely-used languages – such as English, French, and German – are still in a better position: In their languages you can find so much more than in languages of smaller language groups. So you will find almost four billion English articles on Wikipedia but only 361 in Swazi. There are many more examples of this. They show us that people who don’t know English are disadvantaged in the digital world, too. Therefore, inequality in access to education can’t be completely balanced out through technology. On the contrary: Sometimes it is even exacerbated!

Technical prerequisites must be in place to open websites at all. But lacking Internet access, rural areas or countries with poor infrastructure are more left out than before. In these areas, companies can’t profit from installing wires or radio towers. Costs may be too high, or there may just not be enough people who’d pay.

An e-book: new technologies make masses of information available

Economic interests don’t only determine who gets Internet access. They also influence what we can read online. If we trust in “googling” our knowledge, the risk is high of the first results being those manipulated by companies who have paid their online marketing and search engine optimization specialists to get their sites placed highly. Of course, the crowd of “normal” users has a certain power, too – but is it strong enough to counter economic – and often also state – interests?

I find such questions very interesting. And I think all of us in society and politics have to grapple with them. That is why I’m looking forward to next week’s Global Media Forum that starts on Monday in Bonn. During this international media conference hosted by Deutsche Welle, I’ll be able to discuss live with the other four bloggers and listen to experts. This year’s motto is “Culture, Education, Media.” I’m especially excited about having the opportunity to participate in the different workshops. Some deal with my new blog post’s topics, e.g., “An Algorithmic View of the World: How Google and Others Shape Awareness and Education“ and “Learning Is a Two-Way Street: Participation in Communication and Education.“ I’ll write next week about my experiences from the conference.

People need the right environment in order to thrive

Emmy’s entry caught my attention because she talked about something I’ve faced myself – a lack of teachers combined with too many pupils in a class. It usually results in the following: Those who understand and are eager to learn do so, while those who have no intention to learn either sit quietly throughout the term or become obstacles to the teacher. Generally, these types of pupils just aim at getting a “satisfactory” mark. As one of my teachers used to say, it’s a mark that shows nothing – neither your skills in a particular sphere, nor your interests. But still, it’s over the level needed to pass an exam, so you are considered an educated person! There’s a danger when students graduate with most marks just at the satisfactory level. They are de jure qualified enough to work in the area they studied. But, de facto, they are almost incompetent. In reality, they seldom pursue a career in what they studied.
I remember talking to one of my teenage pupils who was surprised to find out that I was going to get a second college degree. He brought up an acquaintance who had two degrees but was working as a shop assistant. Cases like that are exceptions. But there is a real issue concerning the value of education and what it’s good for. I’d like to go into more detail on that.

There are university departments that impart the skills demanded in modern society – the IT sphere is a typical example. But the question of migration, which I touched on in my last entry, comes up here. High salaries are easier to get when working on big projects in big companies – in big cities, so many talented people leave their native cities as bigger places have many more opportunities.

There are also departments that offer majors that are well-known in Europe or America but still underestimated in my country. Medicine is one example. A good specialist in our region earns about $550 a month, but the skills they possess deserve more. That explains why some people I know who were offered a 2-3-year-contract abroad eventually agreed to do it. Many professionals have to find a part-time job to be a proper breadwinner.

There are professions that are vital for a country’s sustainable development but that seem to have been made into a fetish. For example, when I finished school, pursuing a major in economics or law was quite popular because it brought a person closer to finding a well-paid job. However, when I look around now, I have to wonder: Where are all of these qualified lawyers and economists? Have they all become shop assistants?

What I’m driving at is that human nature is a complicated system. Being “successful” is not equal to “having a lot of money.” The right preconditions also often need to be in place for success, like being in an environment that’s friendly and promotes happiness. A friendly atmosphere in schools involves building a community where discrimination against developing certain skills will not be tolerated.