Opinion: education in this brave new world demands meaningful human contact

A sustainable legacy, which modern university leaders can aspire to achieve, is to build on the shoulders of those that have gone before; creating a lasting culture amongst their academic community, one that is committed to the idea of social justice and fairness, and that knowledge can be generated and applied for an improved social result. In creating culture we are in fact creating action; we are creating meanings, thoughts and action. Culture, according to John Berger, in the form of art, restores the memory that communities have of themselves; it connects and reveals what would otherwise remain concealed. Higher education institution leaders must seek to reveal and connect a way of seeing universities as innovative and creative in the ways in which they organise learning for their students, and the curriculum is a quintessential arena for innovation. In leading universities to this edge of change, we must rethink what knowledge is for and how it is manufactured, consumed and applied; especially in the modern digital era. The really big issues facing us as a society have proved to be somehow marginal to our key concerns with university curriculums. The big challenges of our times are not central to our learning. Peter Hymen in his recent report Engaging with Others has observed that we have a one dimensional higher education system in a multidimensional world; that we are living in an age of big challenges, big data, big dilemmas, big crises and big opportunities; yet universities too often are small in ambition, small in their values proposition, and small in their scope. Hymen argues that we need something different that can meet the challenges of our times and where we can properly engage with learning. His suggestion is that we need an engaged higher education that is academic (based deeply in literacy and numeracy and which is empowering); is about character building (involving independence and autonomy, resilience and open-mindedness for the individual); and is concerned with creativity, craftsmanship and a can-do approach to innovation (which is about problem solving). These three facets of learning correspond to a university education of the head, the heart and the hand and can help us overcome the artificial, self-limiting and debilitating divisions we have between academic, vocational and technical education. Those who experience such learning understand that they have an obligation to apply their knowledge to make the world a better place, not merely to make money, important though that may be in our presently existing world. If we can offer our students an engaged curriculum that will equip them with the knowledge, passion and skills for an improved social result then we will see the signs of a new culture beginning to emerge, one that has real impact on the big issues facing engaged universities, such as action on poverty, the marginalisation of young people, the need for democratic engagement and the impact of new technologies In embracing new technologies a key question for universities is, 'Do our current and future students, who have grown up with the internet, smartphones, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter et cetera, think critically about the world they inhabit?'. The digital age – where personal, social and work lives are lived, to some extent, in cyberspace – is now upon us. Arrangements to meet and share thoughts, images, likes and dislikes now happens through screens. Although students attend lectures and tutorials (even though their physical presence is not always strictly necessary), they do much of their learning online, submit their assessments online, receive results online, make job applications online and, in some cases, meet their future life partners online. Much of their day is spent, one way or another, in front of a screen. Perhaps it is too early to know the impact of all of this screentime, however, it is worth considering whether they are critical in their thinking and engaged in discussing the big issues of the day. After all, these are the issues that will impact on their futures. One is reminded of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World originally penned from 1930s Britain, where science and technology were envisioned to maximise pleasure and then, as a consequence, citizens lose the ability to think critically. It is surely our responsibility as educators to provide students with the skills to be able to critically respond to the digital age. We can appreciate its benefits – access to more information than we could have dreamt of – but we must also be aware of its other, less attractive, aspects. Furthermore, it must surely fall to us as educators to reshape our curriculum in the light of these concerns. A certain type of critical thinking and discernment is needed for an engaged curriculum and this cannot be provided by the nearest software package. We need knowledge that is rooted in experience and embodied skills, and which draws on deep understanding and creativity. The curriculum needs to be open to the idea that a continuously active mind and an active self requires the challenge of engagement, and that this requires appropriate skepticism, as well as tolerance for diversity and dissent. Automated calculations using algorithms cannot substitute for critical and discerning judgments about key values and social and professional purposes. A key point here is that the academic communities we seek to create are not just a product of social reality but are producers of that reality. In creating a deeply rooted culture in our academic community that nurtures the desire to have real impact on the great challenges of our time, universities must support forms of learning and accreditation that are rooted in an action learning paradigm. This might involve helping self-sustaining and self-directed processes in communities where people have learned themselves to analyse and solve their own problems. There are more than 1 million students in higher education in Australia today and individuals, groups and entire communities can be mobilised, given the necessary support and resources, and be driven through an engaged higher education curriculum. The potential for identifying assets-based community development is great and can highlight the significance of existing skills, resources, social capital and the creative energies of people who can see a solution to an existentially felt problem. There are questions, of course, of identifying and facilitating leadership in communities, and this is also a learning agenda for those involved and for those providing learning opportunities, such as universities. Here we must seek out those champions of change from partner organisations who are willing to work collaboratively with us and are committed to the idea that critical thinking can help transform any given reality through its engagement with learning. In communities that have historically lacked access to learning through formal education systems, there is a need to revise the teacher-led, content-centred and propositional-knowledge based curriculum in favour of one that is more learner-centred, self-directed, problem-oriented and participatory. There is no specific and subject-based content for critical thinking. It does not reside in a single or cluster of academic disciplines, though the social sciences, broadly speaking, have done most to develop the notion. An engaged curriculum that develops critical thinking and discernment can have differing meanings within its different contexts. For universities, its significance is in the qualities it can develop in the student. For an engaged institution, this might mean giving the learner the capacity to separate truth from ideology or post-truth. It should surely mean not taking things at face value or not letting others make up our minds for us. Underpinning this approach to curriculum change is the belief that universities should be concerned with the idea of social justice and fairness, and that knowledge can be generated and applied for a better social outcome. This involves learning, which should lead to an enhanced sense of self in the real world and not just in the virtual world. This means we might expect a more capable individual who is able to relate to others and be personally more responsible and viable in their quest to make a difference in society. Whatever the future holds in our brave new world, the present demands we look at our real experience in the real world, and this can only be done by knowing others in some direct and meaningful way, and by sharing the thoughts and insights we gain as a result. Professor Jim Nyland is the associate vice-chancellor (Queensland) at the Australian Catholic University.