Reimagining Education: Beyond Bullet Points and Certainties

The views expressed on this post are tentative, personal and based on experience. This post resorts to some generalizations. The constraints of a blog post imply that not all required nuance can be effectively conveyed here. The actual context is complex and varied. Nevertheless, there are clear patterns pointing to the dominance of a particular understanding of education, and the horizons of expectation it defines. I have tried to reflect on that below.

I’d almost forgotten the excitement of not knowing, the delights of uncertainty.”

-Jon Osterman (Dr Manhattan), Moore et al, Watchmen (1985)

Curiosity about the object of knowledge and the willingness and openness to engage theoretical readings and discussions is fundamental. However, I am not suggesting an over-celebration of theory. We must not negate practice for the sake of theory. To do so would reduce theory to a pure verbalism or intellectualism. By the same token, to negate theory for the sake of practice, as in the use of dialogue as conversation, is to run the risk of losing oneself in the disconnectedness of practice. It is for this reason that I never advocate either a theoretic elitism or a practice ungrounded in theory, but the unity between theory and practice. In order to achieve this unity, one must have an epistemological curiosity—a curiosity that is often missing in dialogue as conversation.”

-Paulo Freire

The dominance of bullet-point PowerPoint lecturing as a method for teaching “practical” skills has left many students unable to engage with lectures that explore topics qualitatively to foster critical thinking. They find such discussions “abstract” and instead crave definitive answers—not inquiry.

This qualitative decline in both pedagogy and student expectations has occurred in parallel with, and as a result of, the dominance of traditional STEM fields over the Humanities and Social Sciences, and of normative praxis over critical theory and critical praxis.

The notion of education and learning as proactive processes conducive to “liberation” (Freire 1970; 1993) feels entirely alien in today’s academic landscape. The prevailing expectation is that education should deliver purely practical content to produce proficient, compliant employees.

This dominant narrative and practice is not only imposed from above, by the government, certification bodies, neoliberal pedagogical trends and university senior management and monitoring and assessment policies and tools, amongst others. Many students have internalised this mindset and demand it is implemented.

Two decades of teaching experience have shown me that many students view education as a series of clear tasks to be mastered. This is arguably getting worse. Because they have learned it from previous institutional experience, students expect all tasks to come with clear, practical objectives, and each task to be formally assessed. The expectation, now standard, is for detailed, step-by-step, credit-producing coursework. Coursework must also be designed to minimise variation. Most students expect absolute certainty about what is required to achieve their goal. In many ways the experience is more akin to a video game, with the exception that gamers are often prepared to discover and learn the rules as they experience the game, and are open to the unexpected.

Uncertainty in education causes anxiety. A colour-by-numbers approach is preferred, with clear rules, clear metrication, and clear outcomes. This is seen as a good thing, without question. Said goal is not learning or insight, but rather metrics in the form of scores that lead to a certification containing the keywords they believe employers will recognise and reward. It has to be said that the definition of “clarity” within this mindset is a very specific one, mostly pragmatic in nature. It struggles to conceive higher level thinking or theoretical thought as “clear” or pragmatically applicable.

When students are exposed to exploratory thinking—discussing problems using methods and terminology that require prior reading or awareness—they often respond with confusion and frustration. What they expect are straightforward certainties, not problematisation or (even minimal) independent research.

For me, this is one of the most serious challenges facing higher education globally. It is unlikely it will be addressed meaningfully, as the prevailing narrative refuses to acknowledge it.

Any success in fostering a love of learning or fluency in critical thinking is exceptional, serendipitous, and unrewarded—achieved in spite of, not thanks to, current conditions. It is precisely in this context that today’s generative AI chatbots find their ideal audience: tasks like search, exploration, reading, discovery, reflection, analysis, and interpretation, long-form and short-form writing are increasingly seen as tedious—better off automated, outsourced, and done quickly and simply.

The challenge, then, for anyone teaching today is how to stay motivated—not to become strictly programmed machines focused solely on know-how and step-by-step content delivery, designing courses, modules, and teaching materials as if they were health and safety online training for corporate compliance.

If we are serious in our concern that Generative AI might have negative consequences for education, akin to generalised plagiarism, we should really look into the pedagogical cultures educational institutions impose on both staff and students.

*This post originated in an earlier thread I posted on Bluesky.