Based on what I remember from school and was told by contemporary students, there are various problems in education. There is a need for a curriculum for Generation Z. I would say that the main issue is that the school education is stuck in time and doesn’t reflect today’s personal and societal needs. There are multiple variables which contribute to it. There are among them: Exponential speeding-up and changing knowledge needed for life, busy parents, a consumer-commercial narrative of the media, politics, overall unwillingness to change, socio-economic mood in the society and what’s considered to be prestigious.
Each person at any time develops only skills and knowledge which are necessary to survive. Our great-grandmother didn’t learn to use iPhone in her youth, because it wasn’t necessary to know it. She knew how to plant a potato and keep rabbits. It is the opposite nowadays. A young person knows how to use the iPhone, but they may not know how to plant potatoes and keep and feed the rabbits, how to slaughter them and put them in a freezer. This is the core thought of any education. It is to create skills and knowledge which are needed to survive and live.
A survey (only in Czech language) was conducted. The name of it is: “Does school make sense?” 48,84 % respondents answered curriculum wasn’t explained to them enough. 28,24 % said they learnt to speak English at school. 55,81 % used the knowledge gained at school outside of school grounds. 43,19 % found a job in the field they studied.
This article goes through issues of contemporary school education. It tries to find answers how to deal with the problems and creates new questions. I want you to think about them as well to contribute finding the solution. A thought like this: “It’s not worth, how I can change anything,” may cross your mind. It is a wrong thought. When a cow moos long enough, somebody hears it. If one cow in not enough, the cow finds another cows and they will moo together. A shepherd may say: “Stupid cows, why aren’t they silent?” I can only answer that a long-term and persistent mooing cannot be ignored. Even the shepherd wants to sleep.
The text below is a result of a volunteer mission Digital Competencies 4 all, which was carried out partly in person in North Macedonia and partly online. In total it was 8-month project of teaching secondary school students. Subjects were about computer graphics, photo adjustments and creating websites. Three moths was for a preparation and I taught 4,5 months. I taught one month in person and 3,5 months online. It was experimental education which I wouldn’t name revolutionary but evolutionary. It means there is a change from the established order.
Today’s state of school education
Learning facts by heart without using them
In my opinion the biggest issues with education is in incessant remembering and learning facts by heart. It is clear it is a must to know vocabulary for mastering English language for example. However, all information is available on the Internet and in books. The time when it was difficult to get a book has been gone for a long time. Thus it is not necessary to remember everything by heart.
The process of learning has many stages. The first stage is learning about information – getting familiar with facts. The second stage is its application on a known example and the third phase is to use is on another example. The last stage may be creating something new based on the information and practising. After that we can state we’ve learnt something.
The multi-stage procedure of learning should be taken into consideration when drafting up curriculum (its content and key competencies students should acquire). If done this way, students will be able to use it in the real life and live in a good way.
Example of the multi-stage process:
The task for a school year is to find out how a record player (gramophone) works and build one. The first phase is getting familiar with information about processing wood for a chassis, how electromagnetic induction works, information about electronics, how sound is transferred and how mechanical parts of the record player works.
Then an old record player is disassembled and various measuring instruments are used for measuring physical quantities. The next phase is to learn how to draw a chassis, how to calculate electromagnetic induction, read information about electronic components and about an amplifier. Then a design phase follows. Students draw a chassis in a computer programme, how electronics should work and which components are needed. Students will find where it is possible to buy the components, communicate with the shop and buy them. After the design phase and getting all the components needed, they start building the record player. They test it afterwards. At the end of the process we can say students have learnt something. The final product makes them happy and the teacher will be pleased that he had passed it on.
The example shows an entire process from a thought to the final result where all steps are included without skipping any.
Too quick changes in the content of subjects
Everything changes too quickly nowadays. It is April 2022 and I can say that a textbook which I started writing last September is outdated. The time needed for creating a new subject, writing a textbook, creating visual aids and a content of classes take up a very long time. It was different in the past. Less changes were present and curriculum lasted longer.
The question which I propose is: Which changes must be made in an approach to a curriculum so that it makes sense in a long-term prospect?
Critical thinking, discussing and questioning
I remember that questions and discussing weren’t welcomed at school. When it touched an almighty status of a teacher, it was a problem. It was mostly related to the second half of primary school (ISCED, level 2, lower secondary education). University was mostly plain theory and reading out loud from textbooks. A discussion and sharing information between each other is a way how our society can grow.
It can happen that students know more than teachers. These students shall be given a chance to show and pass on the knowledge, experience and skills. It is also a way how they can start preparing for a career of a teacher unintentionally.
We enclose ourselves in our own bubble without a discussion, sharing thoughts and questioning. It can lead to a close-minded perception of the reality, forming definite opinions up to extremism.
Teachers who shouldn’t have been teachers
I remember an English language teacher from primary school who kept telling us: “You’ll all become garbage collectors.” I imagine her home full of garbage which may cause a garbage avalanche someday. It’s like garbage collectors aren’t needed. The second type of a teacher I came across were movies enthusiasts. They played video for us instead of teaching. They only owned one VHS. We had seen the same one multiple times.
I have had a chat with a secondary school student. They have a 50-year old teacher at school. The teacher picks on a student so much that whatever he does is wrong. It is a secondary and tertiary school together. She’s thinking of going to another tertiary level institution just because of her. Where does these weirdos originate from? Probably from the same place as their directors. There were efforts to make her leave but nothing happened. The teacher is stuck there as a post in a fence.
Two solutions how to deal with the problems
There are two ways how to deal with it. One of them is a school psychologist. The school psychologist would give advice to teachers and help them emotionally and offer them solutions and a different viewpoint on experienced situations during teaching. It is possible to solve everything, lots of methods exist for each problem.
Psychological examinations and a character test shall be conducted on prospective teachers during entrance exams. It is to find out if applicants are suitable for it and to exclude totally unsuitable people. It is more important if people fit a position based on a character.
University of Hradec Králové, Faculty of Pedagogy uses A, B, C, D entrance exams for social pedagogy field of study. It is not possible to find out if applicants are suitable to work with children from the results. However it is possible, in an indirect way, to say that the time spent on preparing for the entrance exams is equal to the desire to study it.
They have tried test of characters via writing an essay at the university as well. However they received 300 appeals from prospective students because they thought results of the admission process were unfair.
Money is a solution for everything
I have a notion that today’s society as well as schools thinks that money solves all the problems. When I look at rising salaries of teachers, it supports the statement. It is true money is necessary, but the biggest problems are in a structure, methods and attitudes of people.
Opinions from Finland
I have met a Finish. He studied in the Czech republic at university for half a year. He didn’t understand why we learn everything by heart. He thought it was bizarre. Finland is a country with the most developed education system. It is project-based. The Finish education system ranks very high in education based on PISA. The PISA is a framework for comparing results of pupils throughout the world. A transition from the old school system to the current one took 30 years of continuous uninterrupted efforts.
Cultural and social environment in North Macedonia
Cultural and social environment of North Macedonia differs from the Czech one. The environment, a social paradigm and what society considers to be normal strongly influences how people in the society behaves. It influences which knowledge and skills people of the society seek in order to succeed.
A good indicator of how citizens of a country are satisfied with living is an emigration rate. North Macedonia is in a very bad condition in this regard as well as Ukraine (before the war). The amount of young people who lived, live or want to move out of North Macedonia is very high.
There are three major characteristics which describe Macedonian society the most. There are: Social hierarchy, camaraderie, and a community.
Personal success, education and merit don’t matter in North Macedonia. If you would like to get a good position or a job, you need to have friends or family at the right places. It is called nepotism. This relates to civil service, private companies and non-profits. It is ubiquitous.
That is the reason why Macedonians sit at cafés and children play at streets all the time. There is a lot of people outside. This is a way how they build a list of friends which is a needed skill to survive and find their use in the society.
I’ve met a man from Croatia. He’s a scientist at Masaryk University. He confirmed that the nepotism is a feature of the whole Balkan.
The second important characteristic is a social hierarchy. I will describe it in two examples. The first one is that less intelligent and easily subjugated people are accepted at job positions rather than intelligent and critically-thinking applicants.
Another example is: Whenever you want to discuss any topics with a director of a school from a position of a young man without the right titles in front of your name, you become invisible in the conversation to him.
Macedonian society is community-based. It means that families stick together and a concept of the family is very important. Macedonians don’t rely on state institutions much. They rely on themselves, their family and friends more. It helps them to survive.
School regime in North Macedonia takes place in shifts. They have a morning and an afternoon shift. A half of the students comes to school in the morning. The second half goes to school in the afternoon. They take turns each month.
Communication and work patterns of Generation Z
Generation Z are children who were born from 1997 to 2010. They’ll be entering secondary schools for 3 years and stay there until 2029.
Each generation differs by a communication style, a work style and thinking. When two different generations meet, it can cause problems. Generation Z has a problem to recognize and adjust to different communication styles. A younger generation can be seen from the view of the older one this way: “They’re weird, how will they take the lead in the future?”
The communication style means that even though two people say the same words, each of them translates the words in a different way. In this case it is advisable for the receiver to repeat the statement to the sender and makes clear the statement is understood in the same way by both parties. It is an easy way to avoid a misunderstanding.
Generation Z prefers to work in a team. They like working together, prefer visual aids instead of a text. They like clear rules and relationships among peers are more important to them than finishing a task at hand. They prefer face-to-face communication to online communication.
In general teenagers make up groups which have leaders (opinion makers) and lead the groups. It is in a book about development psychology. This phenomenon was transferred to the virtual stage. The opinion leaders are called influencers and the rest is called followers. Thus it is not a new concept. The means of implementation has changed.
They don’t like when parents tell them what to do, but rather work on their own based on their own judgement. They prefer hand-on tasks. It is important for them to validate the theoretical knowledge on real and practical tasks. They don’t like plain theory.
They see advantages of the online education in a chance working more individually and sharing a screen. However, they still prefer face-to-face education. It is easier for them to ask a teacher for help. The teacher can solve their problems quicker.
They don’t perceive the social media as more important than the reality. They say fake news appear in the virtual environment.
Sources
- Study 1., Gen Y and Gen Z Communication Style, link.
- Study 2., Phenomenology of Communication of Generation Z in Pekanbaru, link.
- Questionnaire 2., Students’ feedback of Creating websites in WordPress course, link.
Curriculum for digital competencies
The curriculum of digital competencies 4 all was about practical use of gained knowledge in the real life. The cornerstone was to learn some theory, apply the knowledge practically and then use it at their own projects.
The online space in North Macedonia isn’t as developed as in the Czech republic. It even increased value of the gained knowledge throughout the course.
The curriculum consisted of three courses:
- Computer graphics in Canva.com
- Photo adjustments in Adobe Lightroom & Photoshop
- Creating websites in WordPress
Computer Graphics course in Canva
The content of this course was intertwining theory with working on practical tasks. The theory included: brand identity, colours, shapes, typography and rules of design. The practical tasks which the theory was demonstrated on were: Instagram and Facebook invitations and covers, logos, business cards, leaflets, infographics etc.
Adjusting photos in Adobe Lightroom & Photoshop course
The course was divided into two parts. The first one was about working in Adobe Lightroom to make photo adjustments. The second one was about using Adobe Photoshop for more complex adjustments. Each class was filled with photographic theory (exposition, composition, shades and lights, golden ratio, colours and colour management theory, perspective, optical flaws etc.) Students worked on practical tasks during classes and used acquired theoretical knowledge. They also learnt how to pick the right photos to create a collection and how to sort them.
Creating websites in WordPress course
The course included websites theory and its use during creating parts of websites and the websites themselves. The theory included: technical background of websites, core concepts of WordPress, web design rules, how to write articles, SEO, Google services and WooCommerce. Three websites were created during the course. They were: a personal blog, a business website and an e-commerce website. The web theory was practised on the websites.
Course structure
The courses had 18 classes. Each class took place once per week. This type of a timetable helped students to practise between classes with a help of homework tasks.
The first class was introductory. I asked them how they like to learn, why they signed up for the courses, what experience they have with the programs used in the courses and what they would like to acquire.
I explained the structure of a textbook, the structure of the course and assigned them a final project task. There was taught enough at the first class so that they could play with the programs at home.
Classes no. 5., 9. and 13. were feedback and revision classes. I gave feedback to students and they gave feedback to me. Nothing new was explained during these classes. We finished the unfinished work and I helped students to get to up to date.
The last, 18th class was about presenting the final project, a discussion and saying goodbye.
When they were asked how they like to learn, they answered diversely depending on the class. There were 4 classes. Each one with the maximum capacity of 8. Some of them were self-taught persons and some of them needed a teacher to guide them. I think it is important to know it so that the teacher can adjust their teaching style for the students or just as interesting information.
The point of the question about how much they know in the taught field was to find out their level of knowledge in the given areas.
The question about why they singed up was to find out their drive for the courses and share the joy of teaching and learning together.
Final project
Final projects were assigned in each course. It was a task to do at home during the time period of the whole course. The project was to create a website on a given topic or on a topic they picked on their own in the WordPress course. They were given instructions: from the first question what they want to use the website for up until a deployment. You can find more information about the assignment in the WordPress textbook on page 28.
Class structure
Each class had 90 minutes. Each class started with questions, then there was an explanatory part and then a practical part. At the end there was homework.
The questions were related to what students already knew about the topic of a class and checking homework.
Example questions:
- What did you find out when you played with WordPress on your computer at home?
- What are important requirements for a website nowadays?
- What do you like on websites? What don’t you like on websites?
- How did the homework go?
- What problems did you come across?
- Imagine you have 10 000 photos in your computer. How would you organize them in order to find searched photos the quickest way?
The second part of the class was an explanatory block. Sometimes it was together with the practical part. It depended on the topic.
There is an example of the explanatory part for a class about SEO (Search engine optimization): I showed a joke about a dead body on the Google search with a photo from Pulp Fiction. It showed the importance of SEO on a website. The abbreviation SEO was explained and how it relates to search results. How a visitor finds their article of a website. What a keyword is and how it relates to searchability. Two fields of the SEO were presented. The first one is looking for a the right keyword and the second one was link-building.
The third part was a practical one: Students set up a Google Ads account and used this guide for it. They familiarized with a Keyword planner. We used this article as a basis for the practical work. They were given 5 minutes to read and then we were creating a lead, a WP excerpt, a meta description and a title. They were given tips how to create these things and worked on it. Then I showed them what I thought up.
Then we used the Google Keyword planner to search for suitable keywords. The most suitable keyword was picked. Then the lead, the meta description, the WP excerpt and the title was adjusted so that the keyword was present in all of them.
These parts were then inserted on their website.
The last thing was homework. In this case it was another two articles which students worked at home the same way.
You can check the whole class in the WordPress textbook on page 39 and onwards.
Interaction with students
During a first few classes I was adjusting my reactions and was trying to understand various situations which occurred while teaching. The situations I’m talking about was an assessment of characters of students and how they react on instructions and questions.
The example of the aforementioned is: When I asked students if they needed help with what we’re working on, a part of the students said they hadn’t needed help and the second part said they had needed help. They answered this way irrespective of the actual state of their work. It means some of them said they hadn’t needed help, even though when checked, they needed the help and appreciated it. It also happened vice versa.
I think that a character assessment of students is very important. It is to help a teacher to recognize how to approach each of them in order to reach a set target of the educational process. I consider such activity a demanding one. The point here was to help to those who wanted to be helped and didn’t help to those who didn’t want to.
Although I tried to arrange the classes in the right order, I had to make changes during the courses running. I found out that the original order didn’t suit a succession of knowledge I sought in order the courses to make sense as a whole.
Discipline and methods to enforce it
I felt I didn’t have much authority (respect) at the beginning. I found it interesting that when I began giving a value to students (the knowledge), I experienced a gradual transition to having more respect from them.
I came to a conclusion that if a teacher wants to gain respect, students must see that the teacher passes on values and knowledge. Something what’s useful to them. When I’m talking about the values, I don’t mean when the teacher thinks about themselves they’re good, polite etc., but something subconscious. I mean that the values of the teacher are reflected/mirrored in their work. People don’t need to be told who’s polite, fair and passes on a value. Though many marketing companies do so nowadays. People sense it. The respect is a secondary thing which comes as an inevitable reaction to the knowledge and values being passed on.
Issues with discipline appeared a few times. I dealt with them accordingly. When a disciplinary issues appeared, I informed a student to stay in a classroom until everybody left. Then I explained to them what happened, how it disrupted the class and what kind of a correction I expected. I used a direct look in their eyes and a confirmation that they understood the situation as disciplinary means. Then they were asked to leave. Such resolution of disciplinary issues resulted in the students not coming back again. I attribute it to them not being motivated enough for the cause of the courses. Their minds went to places which were in a direct contradiction with a smooth process of running the courses and their targets.
Further methods which I used were: a direct look in the eyes until a student starts paying attention again or a walk to their school desk, standing next to them and then talking to them.
During the second part of the WordPress course only students with a real interest in gaining knowledge were present. It meant better atmosphere for teaching.
Possible reasons for students to be naughty
If I exclude students from looking for a cause and the notion that students are idiots (As I hear it from some teachers sometimes. They probably don’t know how to deal with them, thus their experience is misleading,) we can fully concentrate on looking for the real causes.
Environment, social and economic state of society influence an education process. It also influences needs of students and skills needed for a life.
It has been proved that if you put students in an ugly building (old warehouse) or in a chateau, their behaviour changes. It will be better in the chateau. The first reason why students are naughty are unsuitable premises.
There is free coffee, water and tea at each company. It would be interesting to introduce it at schools (I had it at my courses.) It may lead to better mood of students. The place of giving drinks can serve as a place where students meet up, it may discourage them from going out and smoking. They will be socially and freely forced to do it as their friends will be at the drinks place.
Let’s have a look at today’s society and which values it promotes. Today’s time is post-factual with an unbelievable amount of information. Each child can use a mobile phone. They can search and find anything. We live in an era of great changes which are coming too quickly. The world population, technologies and cost of living are raising exponentially.
The question is: What do students need in order to be successful in their lives if what we teach may be obsolete when they leave the educational institution? Even I don’t know the answer.
However, I can say that it is not for sure classical music or where, when, who was born and what that person ate at a performance at Carnegie Hall in 1903 (And which row that person were sitting.)
Another reason is that curriculum of subjects don’t reflect the reality and students don’t see any sense in it. I didn’t see any sense in 50 % of school. It is clear that it is necessary to teach multiple subjects at primary school so that each student can pick what they’re interested in. The 50 % of boring subject will be different for each student.
The last point is the future social status of the student. It was clearer in the past. A person went to school. Then they found a job where they worked the whole life. They got married, had a child, had grand-children and then went to the heaven. What is it like today? Today’s world is so diverse that it is easy to get lost.
Another thing is a suitability of a person for a position of a teacher. Soldiers, police officers even train conductors take a psychological examination if they’re suitable for the job. Why don’t teacher have them? Psychological examination and a job suitability test would help to pick such people who are destined for it.
When one is in an environment which is welcoming and where one has a feeling of being able to express themselves and is supported in it, the tendency to be naught is low. There are people who are harmed by a family treatment or have inborn dispositions. However, these special conditions easily recognizable and we have aids for these children (special equipment, a helping assistant etc.) and specialized schools.
The need for a discussion
If we pass on knowledge and cooperate with others, we broaden our minds. A shared problems is an easier problem. If a student asks something, they should be given an answer. If there is no time, it is advisable to leave it at the end of the class, special consultations, to send an e-mail or give them means to get it on their own.
Such interaction should be done in all directions: from a teacher to students, between students and from students towards the teacher.
I remember that education was unidirectional. Questions weren’t welcomed and questioning the teacher wasn’t welcomed (by students who were cleverer than the teacher). This approach diminished curiosity of students.
Physical vs online – advantages and disadvantages
In-person education has an advantage of being able to observe students and react and help them immediately. They can ask you easily. In addition, you have a feeling of closeness which is not possible to reproduce in the online education.
The advantages of the online education are: sharing the screen and correcting students quickly. The disadvantages are that you don’t know how quickly they work and if they are finished. It is possible to solve it by assigning a task and tell them to tell you when they’re finished. It is good to create a set of agreed signals between you and the students so that the education becomes effective.
Motivating students
How to motivate students? In general, I think that when they see school makes sense to them for their future life, it increases their interest. Another good thing is to teach in a way which arouses their curiosity. Being a good actor for a teacher is also good.
Create atmosphere for a feedback
Communication between people is ambiguous. It often happens than one person talks about an apple and the second one (receiver) sees a tomato in their mind. It is also applicable to education. A teacher thinks what they do is the best for students. It is not always true. Thus it is reasonable to create atmosphere which allows for a feedback in a reasonable amount. The feedback should be conducted as a questionnaire as well as in person.
Pick three the most occurring issues and correct them. This statistical approach excludes answers which are not relevant and stupid.
Feedback on the digital competencies courses
Students were asked for a feedback 4× during the 4,5-month courses. I asked them about the quality of curriculum and my teaching methods. It was either carried out in person or via a questionnaire.
The questionnaire included questions about what they liked and didn’t like on my teaching methods. What they would change to improve them. Further questions were about what they achieved and how they would carry on studying.
The curriculum and my teaching methods were easily understandable. They appreciated a lot of practical tasks. What attracted my attention was that my patience and my willingness to help created a good atmosphere in the classroom and a good relationship between me and the students.
The Canva computer graphics course and the Adobe Lightroom photos adjusting course gave students motivation to take an interest in these fields further. The creating websites in WordPress course gave students lots of knowledge about how to create websites and a basis notion about programming.
They answered they would carry on studying in these fields by watching videos on YouTube.
I asked them how my curriculum compared with the standard education. They said that the standard education has too many classes and too much stuff to study. They said that my courses were more based on an interaction between me and them and that they were full of practical tasks. The courses were useful for further study, employment and personal development.
The aforementioned feedback was found more that 3 times in the questionnaires. Negative feedback was present only once and doesn’t create a statistical record but it is for me to think about it. The negative feedback included: that I didn’t give enough space for students to express their experience during classes, bad writing on the whiteboard, not wearing a mask and that the courses were in English. One of the students, who was also a teacher (There were two middle-age people among the students), told me that my attitude is rigid sometimes.
The feedback is available here and here.
Textbook and visual aids
A supplemental textbook was created for the whole course. It includes: an introduction to creating website, motivation to study and contents of all classes. Visual aids were created for the majority of the classes. They are mentioned in the textbook.
The visual aids help to understand topics in a better way. They fit for the Generation Z, who likes visual aids. It is possible to explain something quicker than just by talking or reading.
When you look at the example above about how shipping works in WooCommerce, it is easy to deduce an order of a shipping zone, shipping method and shipping classes from the picture. It it was to be explained by talking only, it would take much longer.
Have a look and download the textbook here.
Have a look and download the visual aids and support material here.
It is freely available for you and for use at schools for educational purposes.
Conclusion and proposed improvements of school education
I have mentioned various issues which occur at school throughout the article. It is a complex problem. It’s not like calculating an area of a rectangle which has only two variables. There are multiple factors which influence it. It makes finding a solution harder when our society is based on facts and statistics since the industrial revolution. They are important, but feelings and intuition are as important as statistics.
It is possible to improve quality of education, satisfaction of students and teachers and politicians with the use of small evolutionary improvements in the education process. I propose these ideas and solution:
Students have various talents in a classroom. A teacher should find out who’s good at what and pick a role in a team (group) for each student.
Leadership should be taught during a class. It means that part of the class should be handed over to students and they can explain what we’re going to learn. It can be used for training public speaking and resilience against a social pressure, which can occur in front of many people.
The education should be a combination of lecturing and project work. Lecturing as we know it from school and the project work in a team or separately. The teacher should serve as a mentor and a mediator for individuals and groups and give them a good guidance.
Students shall be allowed to show their work and possible use in the real life or for friends. This is also a way how students can find collaborators for their work.
There is a Chinese proverb: “If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. But if you give him a fishing rod, you feed him for a lifetime.” This is a core thought for teaching at secondary schools. Helping people is good, but too much help creates a bond of dependence between a teacher and a student. The process of becoming independent is threatened. It doesn’t give a student a change to experience what’s success and failure.
Too many students and too many subjects causes that the teacher can’t concentrate on less subjects more individually and in a better way. That’s the reason why the number of subjects should be lowered as well as the number of students in a classroom. I had 8 students in a classroom. Teachers from University of Hradec Kralove say that the optimal number of students in one classroom is between 20 to 25 and part of the education is halved. It means that some subjects are taught in 10 to 13 students.
Czech are known to be modest. When they talk about something with passion, it is considered boasting. Imagine you sell honey at an open-air market. You see there are people with empty baskets passing by. Suddenly you have a vision of your jar of honey being in their baskets. What would you do? I choose this: “Hello Sir, I can see your basket is empty and I think one jar of honey would fit neatly in your empty basket. What do you think?” The success rate of of the basket method is around 50 %. It all started with the vision in your mind and actions followed which fulfilled the dream.
It would be beneficial if students learn this skill by looking for friends, acquaintances, schoolmates, companies, freelance and non-profits in the surroundings of the school so that these entities help them to use the knowledge learnt at school.
As a school I would create a list of the entities which are prepared to cooperate this way. Then I would give the list to students to contact them on their own. It lessens the hard hit to the real life and starts building the basket skill in them by practising.
Czechs are a nation of great technicians and exceptionally talented people. That’s the reason why we shouldn’t keep newly invented contact lenses in our basements hidden from the eyes of the public or to show them only to your grandma (Unless your grandma is an American investor,) or let them be bought by those who already have the basket skill.
