Though I never wanted to become an educationist or a curriculum developer in my teenage years, I asked my teacher in 8th grade why the contents of our textbook seemed disorganized and repetitive.
Moreover, why do they have different information and points of view on the same incident in various subjects? My teacher looked at me and said, “You should write it down and post the letter to the NCTB someday!”
At 13, I was unaware of a career where I, as an educationist, could develop learning interventions, try them out with the communities, and develop a curriculum for mainstream students or simply learn how learning is done. In my college days, I was amazed by careers like pilots or engineers, as they were celebrated more than any other profession, and my environment taught me that these professions are highly paid and respected.
But do I know what is taught to pilots or engineers? What does their job or field of work look like? Am I interested in those careers?
Considering their future career plans, most students willing to choose their higher study stream will feel overwhelmed by these questions. One of the major reasons could be that the nature of the subjects is never revealed to the students, resulting in limited exposure to the topics they are being taught.
There is a tendency in our educational ambience and surrounding communities to make children fit into the most typical discourses and spoon-feed them their career ambitions at a very young age. In traditional parenting and coaching, young learners are conditioned by the idea of a good girl and a good boy, which creates resistance toward transitional changes in their later life.
They find it hard to unlearn and relearn. This results in a sudden loss of motivation for career and study. Such issues are prevalent among mass university students. When they joined their desired field of study in the university, the nature of the subject matter, comprehensive discourses and required assessments made them disappointed souls. Eventually, continuous failure in achieving desired grades and profession also leads to depression.
I am a millennial person. As an educationist, I was talking about how fresh high school graduates would choose their higher studies path back in my days. It is claimed that things have changed significantly in this wave of Artificial Intelligence. But have they changed?
Or, was it just the old wine poured in a new bottle? It was found that an undocumented trend has been set in social media, especially among Gen Zs, that they need to create a loud web presence. Careers or professions Gen Zs are interested in picking on are labelled as time-wasting or leisure activities by traditional parents or educators.
Such careers as lifestyle influencers, food or movie bloggers, content makers criticizing traditions, oppression with humour or travel bloggers are new to the Bangladeshi communities. Traditionalists might not like them because of uncertainty, but at the same time, our age-old materialistic mindset is fond of passive incomes.
Though the profession’s motto is uncertain, it has a lower chance of being sustained in the future. Very few students in Bangladesh can get proper counselling about their careers. Most of the time, career counselling is biased and works as a brainwashing hope by a family member or unskilled professional with a hidden agenda.
Now the question is how to find the getaway and create a formal environment to discuss things openly. Things are critical, as our social roots and system are interconnected already; starting from a fresh perspective can be tough. However, relearning about career and life aims will seem ‘cool’ to our gen-Z and upcoming gen-alpha. As the previous generation, we need to ‘unlearn’ a few things, identify the threats, and share them.
As an educationist, there are a few things to help our students choose more meaningful careers. By restricting young learners from social media and overhyped trends, parents and teachers cannot guide them to the appropriate careers. They will eventually learn what vlogging is and how to use TikTok, so why not for a good reason?
Rather than controlling the young ones, we, educationists, can create more autonomy in learning experiences. Experiential learning can be started in the classroom. The students will learn to identify problems and solutions through collaboration, and different ways of solution will emerge in this process. After giving the basic foundation of any content, teachers can provide real-life exposure to the students, which is called ‘Project-based Learning’ in pedagogy.
Parents also need counselling on how to interact with their children in a more science-based way. Another mindset needs to shift in terms of career counselling. Instead of giving the idea of existing professions, we must encourage young learners to think about their careers. Let’s start with some questions,
- Which sector needs your attention more as a professional?
- What is the specific problem you want to work on?
- What is your ultimate goal, and how do you plan to achieve it?
- How will your work impact others/the environment/society?
- How will you address critical scenarios in your professional life?
- What skills, knowledge and attitudes do you need to succeed in your desired profession?
These questions would hopefully be helpful enough to think critically, reflect on their plan and choose wisely and confidently which subject to study and which profession to work on.
In 2015, when I did not get a seat in engineering units, I tried to secure a seat in a public university. I got a chance in the ‘D’ unit, a subject-changing unit where a science student can choose a non-science, specifically commerce or social science subject.
I found ‘Gender Studies’, ‘Developmental Science’, and ‘Criminology’ very lucrative as newly hyped subject areas, but deep in my mind, the teenage self was worried and had lots of plans to work with ‘Education’, and it clicked when I found the subject ‘Education’ in the website. I was lucky enough to get my first selection then, but things are not always pleasant like this. In public and private universities, students can hardly be admitted to their desired subjects.
Again, in this case, an unexpected discipline can also create stress. Most of the time, we are unaware of the ‘nature of subject matters’ in our secondary and higher secondary stages; we get a shock immediately after admission. So, apart from giving young learners proper guidance on careers and higher study paths, we also need them to present the nature of studies.
The learners should decide if they want to memorize the scientific names of all the plants, solve enormous equations of integrations or practice for 5 hours to sketch a cloud!
About the Author
Saraf Afra Salsabil is a Senior Curriculum Developer and Faculty at the BRAC Institute of Educational Development of BRAC University, Bangladesh.