John Goh

Salutations: Chancellor / UTS Staff / Ladies and Gentleman / Family and Friends and Graduates

I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians and owners of this land, the Gadigal clan of the Eora Nation and pay my respects to elders both past and present and extend that welcome to any indigenous people visiting today. I bring this welcome from my school - Merrylands East Public School which is on traditional Dharruk land.

It gives me great hope for the future that so many graduates are entering, if not already engaged in, the wonderful profession of teaching, journalism or some form of communication field from today. In my profession of teaching, I hope that you will eventually replace my colleagues and I rather than a bot. In a recent report by Price Waterhouse Coppers, A Smart Move, 44% or 5.1 million peoples’ jobs are at risk as a result of digital disruption and if Australia can shift just 1% of the workforce into the field of Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), the net output is estimated at $57.4B increase in the Gross Domestic Product – enough to fund Gonski school education reforms.

Teaching, schools and other professions are not immune to the digital disruption that is currently taking place. In my field, education, students can easily go online and self-regulate their learning through Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS) via apps like ITunes or websites such as Khan Academy. No longer do students need to be present in a school to learn as knowledge and skills can instantly be accessible through devices. In 2013, for example, a 15 year old second language student from Mongolia enrolled in the first Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) course with 150 000 other students and achieved a perfect score. Now he is working with MIT to improve their online courses. Distance is no barrier to learning with the use of disruptive technologies and anyone can learn at anytime, anywhere and with anyone.

What then for the future profession of teaching and other professions? Are we under threat?

The answers to the questions is ‘yes’ unless we reshape our schools and pedagogies to prepare for the future rather than the past.  Just before I came I did what all good principal’s do – explore Minecraft, set up google Computer Science Club for our students and make preparation for our students to video a virtual field trip to a museum.

As the son of a refugee: “Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun,” enabled me to gain free food by saying the ingredients of a Big Mac in less than 4 seconds back in the 70’s. Now a day, we go into Mcdonalds and use a flat touch screen to order our meals. Technology is about making the user experience easy.

Let me take our school as a short case study.

In my school, Merrylands East, for example, 90% of our students come from a non-English speaking background, predominantly from a Middle Eastern, European and Asian background where school generally commences early with a single parent income. We have responded to our communities’ needs and made dramatic shifts in the way we teach and learn to reflect the concept of learning anytime, anywhere and with anyone. No longer do we commence our school at the traditional 9am but instead 8am, and no longer do we have to struggle in the graveyard shifts after lunch when students become fatigued, as most of our students leave school at 1:15pm and have lunch at home with their parents or carers, and then take part in projects, play in the park, medical appointments etc. We have balanced out home and school life for our families. Not everyone works traditional hours in a global world.

We have researched industries, universities and even the local coffee shops to discover how people interact in the community and transformed classrooms into learning spaces to enable students to collaborate, share and problem solve in an agile and mobile environment where it’s about choice of seating or standing – sort of like the new floor of the UTS Teaching Faculty. Space is shared and even I do not have a principal’s office. (Hence, you can never be sent to the principal’s office because I don’t have one). Everything about school organisation can be done on my mobile device.

The transformation taking place in my school, along with so many others is about preparing students to be adaptive in an agile world, where people are self-regulated in the workplace but still collaborate when needed, where workflow is shared and problems are not solved if people work in isolation.

The transformation is not just about time and space. The most important aspect of schools is the pedagogies and the expectations that students can learn regardless of their socio-economic background, ethnicity or linguistic competence in English. Postcode should never be a pre-determiner for someone’s future failure or success. Neither should the expectation that all students entering a class are homogenous and come with the same levels of knowledge and skills for an expected age cohort.

Learning is being transformed in our school. Project Based Learning, Inquiry Learning, Authentic Learning and Passion Based Learning are working their way into schools’ DNA pedagogies. We live in a collaborative world. Just last year, Merrylands East 11 and 12 years olds applied for a position at a $7 billion Australian company Atlassian, wrote resumes, went for an interview and obtained a job for a day. They undertook workplace induction and then coded for the company. More recently, our students went through a similar experience and worked at the best classroom in the world for 4 days at the Museum of Contemporary Arts, overlooking the Harbour Bridge and Opera House. Our students designed a kids Museum of Contemporary Arts website as a prototype, redesigned a room and made an online video to promote the museum. While there, they were immersed in the contemporary art genre to the point that they led tours for their parents of the artworks.

Back at school, Kindergarten students will not finish their primary and high school till 2028. What will their world be like? In response, we measure our success, not by standardised tests or the standard of education that our parents received but rather the preparedness of our students for the future.

Students as young as 6 years old can code with Scratch or older students learn additional languages, not your traditional languages but HTML, Java and Python. Who needs to learn the traditional foreign language these days when Microsoft Skype Translator can provide immediate output in video conferences? Our students were teaching students in South Korea English last year. Learning is not age or grade specific, and young students can be a journalist, just as much as an adult.

Students at school design and prototype using various software packages, digitise and print off a 3D printer (for example, a key and then frighten the locksmith industry) and script and edit a video while utilising chromo key, design their own games, videoconference with other students from all around the world and record their learnings through microblogging.  

However, with all the disruptive technologies that assist to transform schools and pedagogies, we need to bring ourselves back to the reality that it is teachers that make a difference to students. Good quality service delivery, professional relationships, empathy and being adaptive with a sense of commitment. More and more organisations are also turning towards advocacy for those that are the most vulnerable in our society through philanthropic or volunteer service.

Therefore, it is imperative that if we don’t want to be overrun by bots, we have to redefine our roles, upskill ourselves with ongoing professional development, continuously learn from educators and also other professions, and be prepared to be a lifelong researcher. We need to make ourselves invaluable, a necessity and relevant.

One question I ask myself each day, ‘If students can do it at home, why do they need to be at school?’

Finally, ladies and gentlemen, graduates, I congratulate you in entering your chosen profession and wish you well in the future. Today is your day, after which every day is about your students or your clients.