This is an interview with Architect Maria Cynthia Y. Funk, Associate Dean of Environment Studies Cluster School of Design & Arts. De La Salle – College of St. Benilde in Manila. Here she shares her thoughts based on her teaching experiences on how to cater to the needs of millenials, and on how to cope with the ever growing and evolving world of technology which affects the way we educate and relate with her young students..  

• Professor Funk, first, let us know how were you lead to embark in the educational endeavor.

I was invited by my architect friends to teach because somehow we felt that it was the best way to make the changes we believed the educational system needed to help in nation-building.  Somehow we feel that the academe is a great laboratory where ideas can be nurtured, incubated, developed and tested… especially in our field of architecture, and we just felt that an interdisciplinary practice would allow us to work with so many different people and professions.  Then as time passed, we experienced that we ourselves were learning a lot as well.  As we continued our practice, we were becoming better educators and by educating young minds, we saw that we had become better practitioners.  Teaching is a very rewarding venture.  It keeps hope alive in us.

• Educators need to rethink how to teach, both in the current classroom structure and in any new structures to come. In many institutions of learning there is an ongoing switch from a pedagogy of lecturing and telling, to what is now called, “partnering” with learners. What does this say to you?

I often say that in this day and age of the internet, there is hardly anything that we teach the kids that they cannot learn on their own. I mean, with Google, Youtube, etc., and they can just find out a lot of these things for themselves. So what else then is the teacher for? Teachers are there for emphasis, to validate or to disprove the learning.  We, being the adults, are supposed to be the ones with the experience and the wisdom.  We not always know all the answers to the questions they ask, but we can lead them in a discussion, where according to our years of experience, we can share and the students can validate what they have learned on their own from someone who has spent years doing a particular thing.  In discussions, there is shared exploration of the subject matter which makes learning shared and communal.  Every dialogue creates an atmosphere of openness that ushers in a critical approach to the subject matter.  This generally strengthens study and formation.

1. One of the current trends in education is to lead students to acquire a global mindset? Forming them to become “problem designers”. What impact does this have on the learning output of the students?                                    .
   A problem is a rift that has been found to exist between a current situation and one that we aspire to.  I do not think it is intentional, but when it occurs, it should be resolved.  In educating students, we hope to lead them to become problem-solvers and by designing solutions, we hope that they are able to close this gap or rectify the irregularity. Of course, it can become more complicated than perceived, as there are always difficulties but part of the education is also to come up with more than one solution because there may be different situations that need to be adequately addressed.  Oftentimes, the difficulties in the experiences we go through together impart the best lessons.

• The social dimension of education emphasizes the relational capacity of the learner, that is, the learner grows beyond his self-interests and achieve his/her sense of self in as much as he/she lives for the other before him/ her. Can you briefly share a concrete scenario that could validate this social dimension of education?

I take this chance to talk about being with millennials.  These are kids born roughly between 1980 and 2000 who are described to be the intelligent, “spoiled kids who will save the world”.  It is such a challenge for teachers of today to work with them because they are wired up differently.  In one article, I read that “Millennials grew up in an electronics-filled and increasingly online and socially-networked world. They are the generation that has received the most marketing attention. As the most ethnically diverse generation, millennials tend to be tolerant of difference. Having been raised under the mantra ‘follow your dreams’ and being told they were special, they tend to be confident. While largely a positive trait, the millennial generation’s confidence has been arguably spilled over into the realms of entitlement and narcissism.  They are often seen as slightly more optimistic about the future as other generations — despite the fact that they are the first generation since the Silent Generation that is expected to be less economically successful than their parents.”  

As educators, being with them is a great time also for us to learn.  It is on this premise that I draw my example of education.  I currently have students who are all of these qualities described above – restless and unsure.  They have their woes which they communicate to me.  It so happens that, working in a La Sallian school, we have a mission that inspires us to work for “the lost, the last and the least”.  Within this context, we draw upon all of the strengths and weaknesses of our students, and use the opportunities and threats before us to educate them in such a way that they will be “real-world-ready”.  Whatever it is they study is directly applied to the communities around us because this is the perfect laboratory where we can apply our studies and findings.  One student, who focuses much on her problems at home and in school, has been in depression for over a year now and has often expressed the desire to hurt herself.  After taking her to a design laboratory where she has seen the plight of the poor and the diminished opportunities for the youth her age in these far-flung places, in one of our conversations, she told me how she realized that she should look outside of her world and set aside her own sadness.  We talked about living the present moment well, and since she is passionate about finishing her studies in order to help society. She is definitely doing much better now.  

• Educators have a prominent influence on learning. Yet the global scenario makes the classroom almost “nonoperational” or obsolete, due to the countless possibilities of acquiring learning offered by the world-wide-web, the internet. How do you cope with this global trend and at the same making your teaching –in the classroom- still relevant today?  

So far, we have seen that 21st century education is about exposure and emphasis.  It is as you say with the internet, everything can be learned – but we all need validation.  How true are these data and within which context should they be approached?  This is best clarified by the emphasis that educators can provide.  We are the ones with the experience so we ought to continue on with discussions and validations through the experience that we possess.  We also need to continuously learn so that we may be good filters for our students’ queries, pronouncements, and sharing.  Never quick to judge, we need to be always open so that the flow of communication is continuous. I’ve seen that we also have much to learn as adults in a rapidly changing world.

• Does the global trend in education change the profession of teaching? How do you see the teaching profession for tomorrow?

It certainly does!  Back in 2015,  I first heard of our being at the threshold of a technological evolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another.

In 2012, the Economist wrote:  “The second industrial revolution came in the early 20th century, when Henry Ford mastered the moving assembly line and ushered in the age of mass production. The first two industrial revolutions made people richer and more urban. Now a third revolution is under way.   Manufacturing is going digital.”  Jeremy Rifkin is the economist who clarified this for us; however, he called for creating an empathic civilization which shall be humanity’s way of saving itself if we are to survive all this.  When I was still trying to master all this, in 2016, I heard that the third industrial revolution is stretching bait, by being built on by a fourth: Fabrication.  This blurs the lines “between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.” There will be challenges and opportunities in a world governed by this change, and it will disrupt almost each industry in every country.   The World Economic Forum said that “the breadth and depth of these changes herald the transformation of entire systems of production, management, and governance.”

To be educators at a time when artificial intelligence is everywhere.  We know of self-driving cars, drones, virtual assistants and software that can do practically anything for us, i.e., translate or invest.  We are all connected to mobile devices and access to knowledge is unlimited.  We need to constantly update ourselves, as we tread this slippery slope, and run alongside the track the whole world is taking.  No use fighting it as that shall would be the sure way to push ourselves to obsolescence.  Nevertheless, we know that there are values and wealth that remain the same.  The human within us contains with it the Divine, the presence of the good that shall govern our actions.  I think the call is for authenticity and patina, at a time when man’s identity and all the issues that go with it continue to change.  While I love technology and enthusiastically support it, I feel that our role as educators is about making sure that what is true and quintessential about our being humans must be saved, such as collaboration and partnerships, benevolence and empathy.

Sources: http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/millennials-millennial-generation

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/the-fourth-industrial-revolution-what-it-means-and-how-to-respond/