The great aim of education is not knowledge but action. – Herbert Spencer.

‘Getting an education at MIT is like taking a drink from a firehose.’ – Jerome Wiesner.

I kept reading this quote online with regard to the MIT bootcamp and it filled me with anxiety and awe all at once.

Now that I have experienced the bootcamp, I admit it was no exaggeration. I sat through Bill Aulet’s lectures in sheer wonder, filled with amazement at his dexterity in blending both practicality with massive experience. As stated last week, his book, 24 Steps To Disciplined Entrepreneurship is a must read.

In spite of his immense knowledge, he is a humble man and embraces holistic education. I nodded and shouted ‘yes’ when he stated in the middle of his last lecture that it is key to build core content in technical stuff and then enhance it with entrepreneurship learning, for our children to be like Bill Gates, Mark Z, and Elon Musk. This is the core of what my social enterprise is striving for with our African children.

I desire for us to have innovation-focused learning for our students, like we had at MIT, pushing our students to solve real life problems around them.

Most important of all, to teach our students how to work with each other under various circumstances and to embrace a myriad of opinions. In their jobs and businesses, they will not work in a vacuum, and the earlier we teach them to learn how to adapt and be flexible with others, the better they will be as individuals at their various careers or businesses.

We want to raise students who have vast reservoirs of knowledge and learn how to become experts in various fields; students who are global thinkers but local problem solvers; ones who become adults who have impact in their communities and sustain economic prosperity.

No longer will they think small but they will dig deep into the root of issues surrounding them, they will think outside the box and hopefully create new ones if needed. These adults will be invaluable in this 21st century as we face legion of problems in Africa that require fast action.

Their schools should make learning captivating and fill their brains with stimulating ideas and unfamiliar propositions, while embracing technology as a tool and equipping the students to be leaders.

We need our current paradigms in education broken as we figure out solutions to the current morass that education is currently in.

Creating innovative learning like in MIT’s bootcamp for our students in Africa should be our goal.

Adetola Salau; Educator / Speaker / Author/ Social Entrepreneur / Innovator

She is an Advocate of STEM Education and is Passionate about Education reform. She is an innovative thinker and strives for our society & continent as a whole to reclaim it’s greatness. She runs an educational foundation with the mission to transform education.

E-mail-:Carismalife4U@gmail.com

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