The world is changing quickly and, as parents and educators, it’s our job to not only understand but also keep up with these changes. We find out why Generation Z and Generation Alpha kids need to do school differently.
Continuous technological innovations have fundamentally changed the world of work. So much so, that we are educating our children today for jobs that don’t yet exist. Which is why, experts say, parents of GenZ and GenAlpha children are increasingly beginning to understand they need to be educated in different ways.
Generation Alpha (or GenAlpha) refers to those who succeed Generation Z (or GenZ – those born between in or after 2010, up to around 2025).
Principal of Koa Academy, a uniquely high-touch digital school, Mark Anderson, refers to this period as ‘school 2.0’. He says, “Content memorisation, with the teacher as the sole content expert, is an outdated notion for our current young generations who live in a world where content is just a click away. Top marks should not just be given for memorising the facts. Instead, being able to evaluate and think critically about an abundance of facts, and the sources of those facts, is one of the vital 21st Century skills.”
Anderson says that the so-called ‘soft skills’ that nobody paid much attention to in a mechanistic, industrial past have now become the top information-age capabilities. “Those who know how to think critically, communicate, collaborate and innovate, lead the way. Literacy has expanded to include media, information, civic and technological literacies. Qualities such as resilience, emotional intelligence and flexibility help our children succeed. What this means is that as parents, we should be worried if our child’s educational environment today looks and seems a lot like the one that we experienced.”
Mark believes it is time for parents to find out more about ‘School 2.0’. “It’s really exciting that parents have more options than ever before when it comes to education, but we also know that it is harder than ever for parents to really understand the different options. Our advice is for parents to start by thinking through what you really want for your child. I don’t mean which schooling system, though, I mean, what do you value when it comes to your child’s education?”
The education model used at Koa Academy, he says, prioritises individualised learning with children grouped in small eight-person pods working every day with a dedicated, specialist teacher who has not only mastered online pedagogy but understands the needs of each child in their pod. The platform is registered as a South African IEB curriculum provider, leveraging educational resources from all around the world.
“With the flexibility that only an online platform can provide, academic progress is mastery-based, enabling children to speed up or slow down as needed and for families to schedule timetables and terms in ways that suit them best.
“Our aim is to prepare children for the real world. Learning is rooted in real-world issues, tasks give children options and age-appropriate feedback is ongoing, so that children can adapt and grow in dynamic ways as they learn. In this way, assessment is embedded in the learning process and not a disconnected result that they can’t actually learn from.”
Details: For more information about Koa Academy visit: www.koaacademy.com
