"Change is the only constant...A baby born today will be thirty-something in 2050. If all goes well, that baby will still be around in 2100, and might even be an active citizen of the twenty-second century. What should we teach that baby that will help him or her survive and flourish in the world of 2050 or of the twenty-second century? What kind of skills will he or she need in order to get a job, understand what is happening around them, and navigate the maze of life?"
"21 Lessons for the 21st Century" by Yuval Noah Harari (2018)
I've been reading "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" by Yuval Noah Harari - I highly recommend it to anyone who would like to explore the historical pathways that brought us to this particular time/political/economic place, and authentic possibilities for the future. I read a fair amount of research and history around this theme, and I found this one refreshing because it acknowledged all the possibilities coming at us - including AI, climate change, immigration, religion, nationalism, terrorism or bio-technology - while also noting:
"So what should we be teaching?...Most important of all will be the ability to deal with change, to learn new things, and to preserve your mental balance in unfamiliar situations. In order to keep up with the world of 2050, you will need not merely to invent new ideas and products - you will need to reinvent yourself again and again."
Teaching looks and sounds much different than it has in the past because the world has changed so much that the very foundations of what we have always counted on in the world are no longer holding - as Harari points out in his book, for centuries people have been able to count on two phases of life - a learning phase and a working phase. Whether that was learning in the home or the fields or early factories or the schools of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries we still emulate today, every person could more or less count on that progression. That has been gradually eroding in the past few decades with people changing careers two or possibly three times in a lifetime, partly because of the speed of advancements in technology, health and lifestyles as well as the extending of life expectancies. The speed of technological developments is now changing our lifestyles so drastically fast that the road maps we have followed are no longer sound. And the two-hundred year old structures of education must change accordingly because our foundations are no longer solid either.
This doesn't mean we need to change everything right now - particularly since there is no replacement map to follow! We will need to navigate this new territory thoughtfully and without certainty, with a great capacity to manage change and ambiguity without panic. We still need to understand the structures, patterns, systems that inform basic knowledge of science, mathematics, geography, history - and the processes associated with language, visual arts, drama, music, media. This need for knowledge structures grounds our understanding of how various aspects of life interact and connect and inform understanding, and we still need to offer these understandings to our children. We also, however, need to prepare them for fluid thinking, applying new ideas in familiar and unfamiliar situations and getting ready for a future that will have a receding certainty.
We do this by offering a hybrid of experiences, instruction and application in schools today. And we know this will continue to change and morph every single year to reflect new events, understandings, discoveries and theories as they emerge. Teaching still has elements of the last two hundred years - a teacher facilitating learning of specific skills and strategies. It also offers multiple layers of experiences for children to practice their skills and adapt them to different situations and demands, both in-school experiences and experiences outside of school. Finding strong connections between school and the real world and encouraging our students to take scaffolded steps to innovate, create, consider, apply and evaluate the impact of their ideas are the kind of learning experiences that didn't exist when I was a student, nor when I began teaching, for the most part. The nature of the learning is grounded in firm foundations but has changed, grown and morphed to invite, support and encourage students to take risks in applying their skills in novel situations - this is how we gradually prepare them for the uncertainty of a future that we can only know one sure thing about: it will change constantly in ways we cannot predict or control.
When parents ask why school has to look and sound different than it has in the past, these are the reasons I offer for discussion. There are no certainties for sure; preparing the children to manage successfully through uncertainties - large and small - is the twenty-first century goal of education. Because they will need to seamlessly change to respond to whatever their world has to offer - and, more importantly, work to manage and shape that world to the benefit of all people in the world.
Tall order for big work! And we have an outstanding group of educators working diligently to ensure our students - your children - are ready for whatever the next thirty years has to offer :)
Lorraine Kinsman, Principal
Eric Harvie School
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