Time To Grow Up

The Future of Education

It might come as a shock to know that learning and education are much more than social systems in a state of semi-permanent transition. Without exception, the models we have used throughout history to inform educational curricula and design pedagogical methods, have reflected prevailing societal beliefs and values while shaping the evolutionary trajectory of the society.

Why is this important? Because relevant educational models have a higher purpose than skills acquisition, devising individual pathways to fit into the mainstream of human activities, or even discovering new knowledge. They have a responsibility to imagine future worlds, expressing who we want to become as well as who we are becoming, rather than merely replicating opportunities that are passing, and are consequently of less significance.

Sometimes statistics can surprise us, holding up the mirror to a reality both uncomfortable and disconcerting. A solitary pattern flowing unseen beneath the surface of ritualised normality. Hidden amongst all the positive economic news identifying increasing wealth, fewer wars and less disease, greater life choices, and most of us living longer, healthier lives, are some unpalatable data we prefer to ignore or simply treat as an anomaly.

Examining a range of entangled factors, including suicide rates, substance abuse, antisocial behaviour, mental health issues, long-term unemployment, homelessness, family violence, bullying, addiction, and crime, it seems we are dancing to a macabre tune. We have been busy creating a materially prosperous society that is choking on its own anxieties. A society less hopeful than previous generations. Fearful of the future. A society whose underlying mental health is decidedly jaundiced and sickly.

If we investigate the issue of why these symptoms of an unhealthy pathology are so prevalent in a time of relative prosperity, we discover various possibilities.

In spite of unprecedented interconnectivity, the levels of disengagement and separation, from each other and from nature, must rank high. The gradual collapse of our most life-critical systems — like the global economy, agriculture, water security, democracy, energy distribution, and the breakdown of our climate — in addition to our exasperated reactions to the negative impacts on governance and supply chains, for example — is extracting a toll on our need for order and certainty.

The palpable lack of trust in many of our most venerable institutions — including governments, the judiciary, large corporations and educational establishments, is damaging societal cohesion, while putting the integrity of our civilisational model in doubt. Very worrying, too, is the media’s culpability in emphasising bad news, stoking discord and disunity, scripting events which are then presented as “reality” and inculcating a passive, anti-intellectual, anti-scientific, dumbing-down of society — which then creates a milieu of overwhelming despair for many.

We can also add to this list our insatiable addiction to consumerism and novelty. The numbing certitude of escalating state surveillance. The hours spent interacting on social media, where fictions posing as facts, generate ambiguity, uncertainty, and outrage… This list of disruptive factors could go on and on. You will have your own to add, I am sure.

However, if we seek some deeper understanding of what is going on, if we look beyond the obvious warning signs for underlying continuities and behavioural drivers, there are really only four potentially existential threats impacting humanity that I can easily identify. The problem is that the tail then feeds the head, in an unrelenting cycle of desire and consumption:

1. Social norms correlate personal worth and identity with the possession and utilisation of material goods. This then generates…

2. Untold pressure on our most life-critical systems — sufficient to cause distress, failure, and collapse. These tensions result in…

3. An erosion of cultural norms leading to condemnation and blame. The resulting dissonance pushes individuals into depression and a consequent…

4. Crisis of consciousness — especially regarding personal meaning, direction, and belonging.

Collective activities arise from widely-held beliefs in society. The most prevalent belief globally is the marketing credo of capitalism — that the quality of life is determined purely by the goods and experiences we can buy and that the only national measure of any substance is Gross Domestic Product [GDP]. This unrelenting dogma was bound to lead us into a sense of entitlement as well as a craving for more and more stuff. Now, over the course of the past half century or more, it has become an unrelenting cycle of desire and consumption. Economic growth is essential as it allows us to buy more and more stuff. We need more and more stuff to feel as though we are making progress, so economic growth is essential. This modus operandi seems permanent. But if that is the case we are in real trouble.

The unforeseen consequences of this prescription, on the planet and on our social institutions, whereby 7.7 billion people all follow, or aspire to follow, the same dogma is proving to be calamitous. Most of our life-critical systems were not designed to deal with such numbers. Their collapse is inevitable, unless we decide to redesign them from a different perspective. But we are not inclined to do that. Why? Because these systems have worked exceptionally well for the people that built them, who own them, and who now benefit from their outputs. Wealthy proprietors, landlords, shareholders and investors — people who also happen to own the power and influence that prevents substantive change — are reluctant to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

We know this, and we find it troubling. That is why we have started searching for scapegoats and resort to blaming each other. But condemning others for our predicament is maddening — especially when those “others” are quarantined from our annoyance by geography, ideology or position. It leads to a worsening of our sense of alienation and feelings of powerlessness. Eventually we succumb to a banal technical utilitarianism, bereft of any shared commonality or regenerative mindfulness, or resort to the kinds of activism and civil disobedience we are witnessing from young people around the world — depending on the depth of our irritation with an unjust and inequitable status quo that works for fewer and fewer people.

If we undertake a deep analysis of these four crises and their interdependencies, we discover a single factor overwhelmingly driving the current narrative and the sum total of its outcomes. The root cause of the problem is the fundamental structure of the education model used to socialize young people into society — especially the prevailing order we have inherited from a previous era and are reluctant to mess with. Specifically, how and why we learn. What information is acquired, and when. How that information is turned into knowledge. What is needed for that to occur. And to what end, and for whose benefit, that knowledge is applied.

I cannot help but be concerned by flaws in the established educational model, particularly grounded as it is in the industrial notion of schooling, which is consciously designed to manufacture consent, sustain conformity, and uphold conditions that are increasingly unsustainable.

To make it more personal….

My youngest son is just 8 years old. He will graduate from secondary school in 2030. But then what? How will the world have changed by then? Will work still be the motivating impulse, the chief measure of individual worth, and the key mechanism whereby labour is exchanged for money? Or will robots have taken over the mind-numbing drudgery of today’s industrial humdrum?

If the latter happens, which seems likely, what opportunities will be available to a gentle young man with Asperger Syndrome who cannot read or write fluently, is easily distracted, but is as fascinated by airplanes and Marvel comics as any expert in those fields? One presumes a university education will be out of the question. But does that mean existing in a limbo of social inconsequence, where only personal whims and obsessions are pursued, and where a financial pittance from a reluctant ruling elite is the only means of subsistence? Is that the apotheosis for this civilisation? Is this model of socioeconomic stratification, now so ingrained globally, the culmination of what we have been meticulously building for our children and succeeding generations?

As learning is so central to the human condition, a giant leap of consciousness might be the only hope for viable structural change. In that context it is instructive to observe what reforms are taking place today, and what innovations are forecast for tomorrow. If we attempt to avoid that bleakest of scenarios, will the more adventurous and exciting predictions concerning education turn out to be true? Or will kids still be required to commute daily for tuition to a physical building, submit to supervision by dedicated teachers, tested on their ability to comply with norms and standards set by an educational establishment in an earlier era, and be indoctrinated into becoming obedient cogs in a technologically-sophisticated, yet socially sterile, machine?

Formal education, you may recall, was invented around the time of the first Industrial Revolution. The earliest schools were less about improving children’s minds than manufacturing a punctual, obedient workforce for the new factories. As a human conveyor belt for sorting, training and controlling future workers, schools catered to the new world of machines, repetitive confined toil, smokestack industries, crowded living conditions, and collective discipline.

In spite of objections from well-meaning advocates in the current system, a majority of classrooms today still mimic industrial models of proficiency and consistency through repetition. Indeed, they are even administered in much the same way as prisons and factories were a century or more ago.

Just as those institutions failed to help labourers find joy in their work and, in the case or prisoners, reform into contributing members of the community, today’s schools and schooling conventions are failing to keep up with even the most down-to-earth shifts in the modern world. In effect schools are grooming our children for a world that does not exist. They are certainly not equipping children for what is already on the horizon. And as for the future of 2040 and beyond? Forget it. They do not have a clue. Schooling as a preparation for the long-term future continues to anticipate a social order that disappeared last century. In other words, it cannot possibly work.

So here are a few things to consider.

Reinventing education as a viable generative system requires us to step into new epistemologies and redesign every factor involved in learning from the ground up — and from within alternative design ontologies. Rather than repeating the habits of an obsolete industrial model, by means of an occasional aesthetic tweak to the architecture and other skin-deep minutiae, we must return to first principles. That means asking questions like: What is the purpose of education in the Anthropocene era? How should it differ from previous models given changes in external conditions and dynamics? How can the experience of learning help clarify individual purpose, postpone the development of righteous mindsets, and contribute to a shared appreciation of how the world works, and could work better for more people? How can we design learning processes that are not dominated by tools that stall learning potential or reduce creativity? Can the world itself become both the context and playground for learning? How can we ensure that children are able to study and learn what they want, when they want, and for as long as they want? How can we personalize learning, giving students more physical, emotional, creative and spiritual freedom as well as the opportunity to spend more time socialising with family and friends? How can we remove excessive peer pressure, competition, boredom, and bullying from the process of learning?

These are not easy questions to answer. Taken separately they are challenging enough. But viewed together as the basis for a deeper philosophical inquiry they are intimidatingly complex — especially when put to incumbent stakeholders such as teachers, parents, public education bureaucrats and politicians. The immediate rejoinder is often defensive, cynical and self-justifying. I know because I have experienced their indignation at first hand. You are insulting my professionalism. Are you qualified to criticize me? This is how the system works. I challenge you to do better with the resources we have. How dare you question my ability to teach children what they need to know…

These answers are all ill-disguised attempts to preserve integrity and justify the status quo. They are not at all helpful in terms of setting the scene for reinvention. Less philosophical, more practical questions, even those from within the familiar paradigm, are often felt to be even more threatening. How do you justify the cost involved in maintaining physical premises that are used less than eight hours a day? Is a curriculum really necessary in order to optimize self-paced learning? How do teachers remain relevant in an age of immediate access to information? Which physical environments actually boost and accelerate creativity, curiosity and cooperation? Are school uniforms, along with all the other visible paraphernalia of schooling, just compliance marketing, or do they have a genuinely educational function?

No single remedy can heal the flaws in today’s system — no panacea, either, for the future of learning. I know of no universal model, or top-down approach, that will suffice. That is as it should be in a pluriversal world. But how can we ensure the educational models we adopt in future do not tumble into the same epistemological trap — producing the same results, causing more of the societal symptoms that are distressing us, as those of yesteryear? The answer surely must be a willingness to experiment, to monitor the results, and to throw out what is clearly not working. We need not start from a blank piece of paper. Some things we already know.

· We already know that learning occurs anywhere and at any time. It cannot be confined to the time spent in custom-built physical spaces. The mental health and well-being of children improve when taking part in practical activities conducted outdoors.

· We already know that children who are brought up closer to nature show a significantly higher regenerative consciousness and pro-environmental attitude to those who have not.

· We already know that classrooms were originally intended to focus attention, close off the rest of the world, and create a controllable environment where rote learning could be optimised. But using classrooms as the primary “touch point” today makes very little sense. Indeed classroom-centric education is entirely unnecessary given that learning takes place from the moment we wake up in the morning until we fall asleep at night.

· We already know that online technology platforms, increasingly incorporating virtual and augmented reality, can expand and accelerate the learning experience as well as providing opportunities for negotiation, collaboration, and a healthy exchange of ideas.

· We already know that play and project-based learning, especially in collaboration with others, enable learning experiences that are more creative and practical. Games that help kids code, toys that teach robotics, and apps that deliver information to students with little effort, are increasingly common.

· We already know that tests and exams are obsolete, having given way to multifaceted assessment focused on critical thinking and problem solving.

· We already know that the schools of today will inevitably disappear under the burden of irrelevance, or transition into multifunctional community learning centres, as the real world of nature and smart cities replace the need for traditional classrooms.

· We already know that with a world of readily searchable knowledge at our fingertips, we no longer need to memorize facts. Actually, many skills we learned at school might feel a little pointless in today’s environment: handwriting, the rules of spelling and grammar, foreign languages, the ability to read a map. What is in no doubt is the need for new skills to help us manage the formidable tools at our disposal. We need to know how to interpret search results, critically assess the quality and veracity of information and make ethical judgements about how to use it. We will also need to think creatively in order to arrive at solutions to increasingly complex global problems.

· We already know that the application of a single universal model of teaching and learning is outdated, detrimental, and has no place in the agenda for future education. We know, too, that the notion that all children should do the same work regardless of ability or skills contributes to boredom, disengagement, disorderly conduct and poor outcomes.

· We already know that in order to optimize learning, children must become partners in their own learning experience. The role of a teacher in this context is not to control but to liberate and help co-design relevant learning pathways: a navigator who can diagnose a child’s interests, and open up new fields of inquiry, rather than a warder who maintains strict discipline purely to help them pass on their own partial grasp of the world to groups of obedient pupils. As co-creators of the learning experience, the primary function of these navigators will be to guide students in the areas where they need most assistance as innovators, communicators, problem solvers and creative thinkers.

Today’s pervasive educational model, in alignment with other mechanistic qualities we find in modern-day society, started to fail us towards the end of the last century. It has since become a pressure cooker of anxiety and compliance. Indeed, it most closely resembles the penal and correctional systems of the 19th century whereby internees were inducted into a process of replication — each product the same as the last in terms of knowledge, grades, expectations…

That system was never socially fair, nor was it emotionally sustainable. A relic of another era its endurance today is merely an abuse of power by an unimaginative bureaucracy over serfs in a system which they do not control.

It is unsurprising that parents shape their expectations based upon the world they know and helped create. But that world has passed. To continue with old models when everything around us is changing so rapidly, is a sign either of intransigence or myopic negligence. It can only do a disservice to our children and the realities they are going to inherit.

Marshall McLuhan’s description of the world as a global village has been in existence for some time. It is easier than ever before to connect with anyone, anywhere, for any reason. We can work on tasks in virtual contexts with others from around the world at any given moment. Likewise, learning as inquiry occurs everywhere all the time. Along with so many other facets in life, it no longer needs to be confined to a classroom, a city, or even a country. Nor does it need only to apply to younger people.

The experience of real-time inquiry-based learning is a universal phenomenon where there are, quite literally, no borders. A world-wide information ecosystem stretching back into the annals of the distant past is readily available on the click of a button or a simple voice command, as technology continues to transform how we live, work, play and think. This transformation is happening more rapidly, and on a larger scale, than at any point in human history. It is inevitable that we evolve our learning experiences and educational models accordingly.

That is easy to say and tricky to do. Effective educational systems need to equip us with the knowledge and skills to thrive in tomorrow’s world — even if we do not precisely know what that looks like yet.

What we do know is the convergence of artificial super-intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology, along with virtual and augmented reality, is the next frontier. This seamless technological phenomenon will provide totally immersive learning experiences, allowing each of us, in some capacity, to design the world we want to live in.

From mind to manufactured in moments, anyone will be able to find answers, design products, accomplish tasks, imagine, play, empathise and interact while exercising their passions, simply by expressing their desires. This new frontier will infect most occupations within the next decade. By 2040 almost nothing will feel like the world we inherited.

Albert Einstein famously said, I have no special talent, other than being passionately curious. In the final analysis we rely on education to facilitate the process of individual and collective improvisation, experimentation, and discovery. If future education systems can be constructed to foster the innate curiosity we find in children, assist in their search for meaning and truth, help instill a moral compass and a mindset of abundance to guide their endeavours, while preparing them for adapting to changing external conditions, it will be doing the job society needs for it to do.