How do you feel about being called a ‘fake’ teacher?
At a time when the globe is relying on university-educated health experts to try to keep COVID-19 at bay with the vaccine rollout, I’m bewildered by those who argue school and university education have nothing to do with ‘real-life’.
I recently came across this stance in the 2019 book, Fake: Fake Money, Fake Teachers, Fake Assets, by Robert Kiyosaki. An entrepreneur and self-described ‘educator’, he’s known for Rich Dad, Poor Dad book and brand, has a podcast, has written a dozen books, and co-authored a couple more with US President Donald Trump. Kiyosaki is rich and successful, though has gone broke in between. He runs a self-described ‘education company’ focusing on financial education and investing in gold and silver. But, he gives his school teachers no credit for what he’s learned even though I suspect they nurtured the foundation of his business skills — literacy and numeracy.
Freeing the scholar from their studies
Early in Fake, Kiyosaki cites the late futurist R. Buckminster ‘Bucky’ Fuller who wrote about “freeing the scholar to return to his studies”. Get students out of school and let them get back to their studies, chides Kyosaki. (We saw how that panned out with remote and hybrid learning. It doesn’t work for all learners. In the US, remote learning has seen swathes of students go AWOL and I suspect that’s also happened here.
Despite this, Kiyosaki inadvertently points out something happening in a lot of schools across our and his own country, the US. Students doing group work and collaboration.
“Two minds are better than one — except in school, where two minds working together is called cheating,” he writes.
Sure, if students are doing a test or an exam, they’ve got to do that solo, but education these days isn’t that black and white.
School is ‘real life’
But, Kyosaki seems to think in binary terms, writing: “Real life is not like life in school. In real life, you do not memorize answers, take a test, and pass or fail. Real-life is a life-long learning process. There are no right answers.
“… A real student learns from everything and everyone. Life itself is your teacher, and you are in a state of constant learning.”
Teachers, get this. We don’t unfurl unit plans based on didactic teaching, we delve into a range of pedagogies and differentiate to deliver student-centered lessons. Consider, how does a student learn to learn — wouldn’t that be at school. It’s the point of school. And why can’t a teacher be among those from whom a student learns?
Kiyosaki’s bent on ‘real-life teachers’
This is where Kiyosaki tries to diverge by spelling out the higher levels of a real-life teacher, but I don’t think he succeeds.
“Real teachers teach from real-life experience, from their mistakes, and encourage you to do the same. [They] encourage students to learn from mistakes via practive [sic], simulations and games. [They] encourage students to teach students … [and] encourage co-operative learning and group discussion,” he says.
Every day we do this in our classrooms.
Experience can be an expensive teacher, so why not follow a well-trodden course to learn a particular skill or discipline from an expert rather than bumble about and handpick your mentors as if you’re shopping for dinner?
And aren’t schools a microcosm of real life? How they expose students to playground politics, learn about literacy and numeracy, gain an understanding of hierarchies and authority, become socially and emotionally savvy, forge, shatter and rebuild friendships, be part of a community of learners, but also part of a wider school community.
Beyond the ‘face value’ of the topic being taught
We’ve all had students quiz us about how they’re “ever going to use” what we’re teaching them. That was me as a 15-year-old arguing with my then shorthand teacher in Year 9. Within 10 years, I had to learn shorthand as a cadet journalist and achieve 100 words per minute if I wanted to become a ‘real’ reporter. Those skills I developed in practicing shorthand forms, filling up lined book after book, became meditative. It might have even helped me in my forays into learning Korean and Japanese characters. Only through time and reflection can I see the connection with shorthand.
Shorthand class wasn’t just about being able to record speech verbatim. I learned to set and achieve goals, pace my practice, so the knowledge ‘stuck’ rather than take shortcuts in my learning. I learned to discipline myself to take responsibility. Importantly, it was up to me to think critically about how and where I could apply this skill outside of the class. Yes, it came in handy for taking VCE and university notes. And I’m humbled to say, I still use shorthand occasionally some 40 years later.
The quest to make learners work ready
Kiyosaki is in the same camp as those who argue schools and education must have an economic focus. He often repeats that schools teach nothing about financial education that people need to understand the world and be successful. Actually, many schools teach financial education programs and it’s explicitly mentioned in the Australian Curriculum along with these handy resources.
Schools teach us to be employees, not entrepreneurs, Kiyosaki says.
We can’t all be entrepreneurs — some of us need to be employees or ‘followers’ although I question Kiyosaki likening this to being powerless and poor. As for those keen to carve out an entrepreneurial work-life, STEM programs, school-industry partnerships, Genius Hour, and much more are happening right across Australia and have done for years. We’re teaching the general capabilities listed in the Australian Curriculum. They’re literacy, numeracy, ICT, critical and creative thinking, personal and social capability, ethical as well as intercultural understanding. These are the skills and dispositions that will outfit our learners as future employees or entrepreneurs.
Mapping school entrepreneurialism
Sydney teacher Liz Jackson is working on her Ph.D. to map the ecosystem for school entrepreneurialism. So far, she’s listed more than 210 different programs and has spoken about her quest at the recent online Spark festival, a grassroots festival for startups, investors, SMEs, corporates, and innovators. You can check out a presentation she moderated at a different conference about the role of universities in high school entrepreneurialism education. As Jackson’s work shows, schools are fostering ‘job ready’ students with future workforce skills and doing so with gusto. It’s not one-program-fits-all, but nuanced to school contexts.
Kiyosaki talks about starting a masters’ degree in business and realizing his lecturer was a ‘fake’ teacher with no business experience. He opted out. Fast. Then found other business mentors to carve out his bumpy career.
Education has evolved
I respect that Kiyosaki speaks about his own truth and experience of traditional school education with many failings for him. That’s what fuels his blanket — and now out-of-date — statements. Chances are he hasn’t had a peek into a schoolroom since and, as we know, it’s not the only place school education happens nowadays. VET in schools, school-based traineeships, and that bevy of entrepreneurialism programs Jackson lists, often get students learning in industry and business settings.
Yet, in spite of Kyosaki’s protestations about school education, I binge-listen to his podcast. Why? It gives me an insight into a neoliberalist perspective, an opposite to my own. He’s in my ear because it’s too easy to surround myself with voices that echo my own views. I’m intrigued by his financial advice and agree with him that investing in gold bullion is more attractive than a bank term deposit these days. Thanks to him, I’m taking baby steps on the eToro online share trading platform.
Risky business or the way of the future?
Back to Jackson — she’s taken a business risk, opting out of teaching to work in a fledgling start-up for three years delivering entrepreneurial education to schools. She’s now at the helm of Global Capabilities — Education and Research Directorate for Sydney Catholic Schools.
This is how Jackson describes her quest: “It’s all about how do we promote an entrepreneurial mindset and thinking around solving real-world problems for oneself and others.
“Let’s not forget that mindset people can have to really change the landscape in other ways — being innovative in your own organization as an intrapreneur.”
Over her five years of compiling data for her entrepreneurialism-in-schools map, she’s learned this.
“There’s so much going on in Australia, but everyone reaches outside the country thinking there’s nothing happening here. While we don’t have a national strategy for entrepreneurialism, for many years there’ve been a lot of people engaging with schools in the entrepreneurialism space.”
And that’s the point. Dust off your beliefs and scratch below the surface.
