“Fix the Past or Invent the Future? Moving Beyond One Size Fits All Education” with Prof. Yong Zhao

As part of the Global Reflections series, Institute Social hosted a talk on December 9 titled Fix the Past or Invent the Future? Moving Beyond One Size Fits All Education. The guest of the program was Prof. Yong Zhao, a leading scholar in educational psychology from the University of Kansas.

During the discussion, Zhao evaluated how standardized and uniform education models systematically overlook individual differences and limit students’ potential. He addressed the impact of globalization on education, the importance of fostering creativity and individual talents, and explored alternative educational approaches.

Zhao began by discussing opportunity and merit within education systems. He highlighted that explaining academic success solely through personal effort or ability, noting that many students’ achievements depend heavily on the opportunities that happen to come their way, particularly in education. He emphasized that access to such opportunities is often shaped by socioeconomic status, family resources, school facilities, and environmental factors. According to Zhao, the concept of meritocracy tends to ignore the decisive and often random role of opportunity and fails to ensure equal opportunities for broader segments of society.

While questioning meritocracy in education, Zhao stressed that the opportunities offered to students should not be assessed solely through traditional measures such as test scores or academic achievements. He noted that most education systems often undermine students’ confidence and curiosity, pointing to PISA results as one of the most visible outcomes of this narrowing of education. He emphasized that test scores do not reflect a country’s true educational capacity and highlighted that low PISA scores should be seen as an opportunity to develop original educational approaches, rather than as a deficit.

Zhao explained that the decline in children’s creative capacities with age is largely due to schooling becoming more dominant than learning itself, with schools exercising direct control over creativity. For this reason, he argued that education systems should shift their focus from “schooling” to “learning.” He reminded participants that every child enters the world with a unique talent profile, which must be recognized, preserved, and developed.

On the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in education, Zhao noted that using AI merely to make traditional teaching more efficient weakens the learning cycle. However, when used appropriately, AI can provide opportunities for individuals to develop their strengths and move beyond the average. In this context, he stressed that children should be taught not only how to solve problems but also how to find and define them.

The changing role of teachers was another prominent theme of the talk. Zhao stated that education systems can truly transform only when teachers move beyond the role of “mere transmitters of knowledge” and instead become supporters, guides, mentors, and enablers who open up new possibilities. He added that in classrooms where genuine learning takes place, the need for strict “management” naturally diminishes.

The talk highlighted the importance of an educational approach that enables individuals to discover their passions, develop their strengths, and use those strengths to find and solve problems for others. The discussion also underscored that education should be understood not as a system focused on repairing the past, but as an ecosystem designed to shape the future.