What might education focus on post COVID19?

In Australia, schools are just beginning to return after the long summer vacation. Teachers are turning their thoughts to what the new school year might look like, preparing for professional learning days and readying classrooms for a fresh year of learning that we all hope will look more like those we remember pre-COVID. In other parts of the world, schools are entering a new calendar year and where the challenges of remote learning continue to dominate their thinking. On the horizon is the prospect of a post-COVID world thanks to the development and distribution of hopefully effective vaccines.

As we move towards this brighter future with the fear of a global pandemic somewhat alleviated, what might be our next steps? How might we apply the lessons learned so rapidly, and brutally during this past twelve-month period? Might COVID be a catalyst for the reinvention of education that so many have been calling for?

In his book, “The Infinite Game”, Simon Sinek advises readers to look beyond the short term gain. Rather than seek the immediate win by playing a finite game, we are urged to consider how we might best engage with the infinite game where there are no fixed rules, no set players and the game has no end. The concept of finite and infinite games was developed by James Carse in 1986:

THERE ARE at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play. (Carse, 1986 p3)

Infinite games have infinite time horizons. And because there is no finish line, no practical end to the game, there is no such thing as “winning” an infinite game. In an infinite game, the primary objective is to keep playing, to perpetuate the game. (Sinek, 2019 p4)

Education is most definitely an infinite game. For everyone involved, particularly in modern times, it meets all of the requirements of our definition of an infinite game. The players routinely change. So too do the rules and the goal posts move just as frequently and are at best fluidly defined by the changing tides of society, politics and culture. There is no endpoint. It might be argued that when we are talking formal education, we are defining a period of time from the moment one enters their first year of schooling as a Kindergarten or Foundation student until they leave with a formal qualification. In modern times such a neatly framed definition of our time in education is laughably ill-conceived. There is little if any doubt that education, and through it learning, is something we shall engage with until long into our sunset years.

Despite this, schools seem to adopt an unhealthy embrace of the finite game. Each school year seems to be viewed as a game with winners and losers. The measures of success are taken as the assessments students complete and the culmination of these is the final school leaving qualification and its associated ranking of students. This exam preparation focus distracts us from the infinite game that we should be giving our attention to. Instead of asking what grade I got for that last assignment, our students should be wondering how it drove them toward their next learning goal. If we were to play an infinite game, our focus would be on how each learning moment better prepares us to achieve the primary objective of playing-on, perpetuating the game of learning.

During our COVID adventures with remote learning, at least after the initial shock and rapid responses to the most immediate challenges, educators grappled with new challenges and found exciting solutions. Many of these allowed us to move a step away from playing the examination focused finite game. We recognised that a prime goal was to develop in our learners, new levels of independence. Unable to control every moment of their learning, we confronted a reality in which partnerships between learners and educators became essential. Remote learning also revealed to us that education could occur across boundaries of time and space. Freed from the constraints of the physicality of the classroom learning took on new shapes, new forms and achieved new possibilities. Our students saw their role in learning differently too. They were able to take ownership of the process in ways they did not have access to in a traditional setting. The almighty timetable and daily schedule became somewhat more flexible. Learning was less a thing that happened to them during set hours of the day and more a thing that they could choose to engage with in an almost à la carte fashion.

In a post COVID world, how might we continue to build learners who own their learning? What approaches to learning and pedagogy might we continue to engage that are supportive of independence and learner agency?

Such skills and dispositions are both timely and timeless. The World Economic Forum routinely publishes a list of the most desirable skills for the workplace of the not too distant future. For 2025 their top five connect beautifully with a vision for education focused on playing an infinite game. Each has value now, tomorrow and long into the future. Each is resistant to changing circumstances. Each equips a player in an infinite game with the capabilities they need as they adapt to changes in the game and to play as drivers of change.

1. Analytical thinking and innovation

2. Active learning and learning strategies

3. Complex problem solving

4. Critical thinking and analysis

5. Creativity, originality and initiative

6. (WEF - Future of Jobs Report 2020)

These are skills that we can develop and learn but never truly master. Nor are they pieces of knowledge or base capabilities which are likely to become irrelevant with time. We shall continue to call upon these dispositions over time, and we can refine and relearn how we approach each as new challenges and opportunities emerge. As society continues to evolve, new strategies, tools, modalities and ideologies are bound to emerge, but our capacity for engagement with these changes will be defined by these skills.

Education, as a finite game, will always tend to undervalue these skills. They are too easily seen as obstacles to the teaching of essential content required for exams. To win the finite game of education, one’s needs are seen as best served by privileging the specific knowledge and skills assessed in the next test. Time spent on teaching active learning strategies, innovation, creativity and initiative is too easily seen as a series of distractions which stand in the way of achieving the more immediate goals. Like a player in a soccer game, we are focused on scoring the winning goal but blind to the reality that there is no winning goal to be had in this game.

Perhaps this is the ultimate challenge for education post COVID, to shift our focus towards how we prepare our students to play the infinite game of education.

By Nigel Coutts

Carse, James. (1986) Finite and Infinite Games (p. 3). Free Press. Kindle Edition.

Sinek, Simon. (2019) The Infinite Game (p. 4). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

What might it take to bring real change to education?

I had the pleasure recently of listening to Michael Fullan thanks to ACEL (Australian Council for Educational Leaders). Like many thought leaders who are looking closely at the current state of education, Michael builds a strong case for radical change in education. Like others, Michael believes that the circumstances we find ourselves in now as a result of COVID19 might be the catalyst for change that education has long needed. There is a perceived opportunity to shift the dial, to reimagine what education might be like rather than retuning to what was normal in pre-COVID times. “The education goal is not just to survive COVID-19, but to end up with something significantly “better” than was the case in 2019.” (Fullan 2020)

The case for change is well known and well documented. The current model of education has its roots in a distant past. It reflects the need for a workforce that was able to carry out well-known procedures with high levels of repeatability. The world of work would require a great deal of routine cognitive labour, and the education would supply the highly standardised workforce that was needed. The result today is a system, that despite reforms around the edges and despite two decades of talk about embedding 21st Century skills, has stalled and is failing to motivate the young people who depend upon it for their futures. 

According to Fullan, the system has not progressed for five key reasons:

• The failure to connect students with purpose

• The failure to challenge students with high expectations

• Inadequate learning goals

• The continued use of old pedagogy

• Failure to build relationships and belongingness

What is needed is a focus on Deep Learning. Fullan details a multi-part process to achieve this through a focus on the 6Cs (character, citizenship, collaboration, communication, creativity & critical thinking) with practical pedagogies, learning partnerships, learning environments and leveraging digital affordances. If these factors are considered within the frames of broader changes to schools, district and systems along with addressing aspects of equity and with a desire to engage the world, change becomes possible. A more detailed understanding of Fullan’s conception of a new model for education is detailed in his book with Joanne Quinn and Joanne McEachen, “Deep Learning: Engage the World Change the World” and details on how it might become a reality through nuanced leadership and systems change can be found in the following books which are highly recommended.  

• Nuance: Why some leaders succeed, and others fail. By Michael Fullan

• The Devil is in the Details: System solutions for equity, excellence, and student well-being. By Michael Fullan & Mary Jean Gallagher

Early in his presentation, Fullan makes an important point about change, and it connects strongly with why now might be the time to see real change take place. “It’s not going to happen by drift.” The model so far for change in education has been one of slow change, gradual reform around the edges with the core barely touched. This is reflected in the research conducted by Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine who went “In Search of Deeper Learning” and found that it was more likely to occur on the edges of education in co-curricular activities. We might all want change, but we want it to occur very slowly so we never feel the pain and we would prefer if it doesn’t happen in the educational heartland of traditional classes. 

The slow pace of change is why we are still talking about introducing 21st Century Skills as we enter the third decade of the 21st Century. It is this pace that means students in classrooms across the globe are losing interest. It is why we continue to confront issues of equity. Combine a slow pace of meaningful change towards a new more enlightened vision for education with a rapid drive towards heightened levels of standardised testing (an unceasing desire to measure attributes of learning that increasingly matter less), and we have a system that is in need of radical change. The question is, will COVID be the catalyst for this change?

Other industries have confronted change on this sort of scale. Famously many leading players in these industries missed the boat. Kodak was one of the leading players in photography. Big Yellow was the much-loved film used by many and its place in pop culture was cemented when Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel sang its praises in “Kodachrome”. But despite playing a leading role in developing digital imaging technology, Kodak failed to transition into the new world of digital photography. They persisted with a product that was no longer fit for purpose. As the world demonstrated an increasing desire to share images instantly and through the emerging internet and social media worlds, Kodak stuck with film. Instead of embracing radical change that played on the edges by making film easier to load and by promising faster turn around times for development. While Kodak played on the edges and took a slowly, slowly approach to change, others leapt in and embraced the possibilities for a new industry centred on digital photography. 

Is now the time for a new player in the field of education to emerge? What are the possibilities for an organisation with the mindset of a tech start-up to disrupt education? What if instead of playing on the edges, someone approached education as though it was a fresh field. How might we imagine an education system fit for the purposes of today if we started from nothing instead of trying to repurpose a system past its use-by date? 

Maybe this is the challenge that we confront as we consider what comes next. Instead of thinking about evolution, we need to go back to the beginning. What if there was no education system to be evolved but instead a realisation that we need one to meet the needs of our young people. How would we come to understand those needs, and what might our response look like? Almost certainly it would not look like the education system we have today, but just as certainly it is unlikely to be like anything that our current system is likely to slowly ‘drift’ towards. 

By Nigel Coutts

Filling a Gap in our Professional Learning Caused by Social Distancing

As schools and organisations move to remote education, there are potential gaps in our professional learning of which we should be aware. While many of us are discovering fresh opportunities for online and remote professional learning through podcasts, webinars and online courses, one of the most significant aspects of our professional learning has been curtailed thanks to social distancing.

Despite the best efforts to make professional development sessions contextually relevant and meaningful, we know that much of our best professional learning does not occur in this way. Instead, the most powerful professional learning occurs through the informal and often incidental conversations that we have with members of our learning community. Indeed, research by Daniel Wilson and others at Harvard’s Project Zero indicates that 80% of our professional learning comes from our informal conversations. These are the conversations that occur on the periphery of team meetings when colleagues share puzzles they are struggling with. They are the observations shared while waiting at the photocopier or the quick questions asked when colleagues pass in the corridor. 

These informal conversations are also evident in more traditional professional learning experiences. Often the best learning we takeaway from a conference occurred not in the Keynote session but as a result of the opportunities for conversations with other attendees. Maybe it’s a chat over lunch as you reflect on the ideas presented and the questions that occurred to you while your mind wandered during a formal session. Perhaps it's the moment of inspiration that you share with a shoulder buddy while the keynote presenter moves between slides. Informal moments like these are difficult to replicate in an online setting where we bounce from meeting to meeting, session to session without the opportunity to incidentally interact in between. 

Daniel Wilson et al. explored the nature of the informal conversations that result in professional learning and found particular types of conversations. Each of these conversation types played an essential role in building professional knowledge and competence. The conversation types are:

• Stories – descriptions of something that happened in the past, an observation from a lesson just taught, a reflection on an interaction with a student, a tale that illustrates the culture of the place or changes which have occurred over time. 

• Provocative perspectives – a challenging statement of strong belief, a statement that is likely to elicit a response, stir emotions or create space for debate. A perspective that can shift a colleagues understanding or that enables the person sharing their perspective to gain fresh insights.

• Puzzles – an explanation of a dilemma or problem that becomes a catalyst for empathetic sharing and collaborative problem solving

• Eliciting questions – an expression of interest to learn about another person’s experience or perspective.

• Probing questions – an expression to learn more about another person’s experience or perspective.

The second part of this research project linked the types of conversations with the forms of learning they are connected with. 

• Informational and operational learning was supported by stories and asking probing questions

• Conceptual learning was supported by provocative perspectives, sharing puzzles, asking eliciting and probing questions

• Reflective learning was supported mostly by sharing puzzles.

How might this knowledge help us fill the gap in our professional learning caused by social distancing?

The first suggestion is that we need to be deliberate in creating opportunities for informal conversations. One of the recommendations from Wilson’s research was that organisations consider the design of their physical spaces to encourage dialogue. Bottlenecks, doorways and places that cause people to congregate were found to enhance the occurrence of conversations that resulted in professional learning. One suggestion was to reconsider the design of doorways so that they might become a place where colleagues can comfortably engage in informal conversations. Social distancing means that we are encouraged to avoid such settings, to move quickly from space to space while minimising interactions with others. The challenge is to create opportunities for these informal conversations in our remote spaces. This might be as simple as opening a Zoom meeting ten minutes early to allow for conversation or avoiding scheduling back to back meetings so attendees can linger afterwards. Perhaps organisations can create virtual spaces that are open throughout the workday. A virtual staffroom where colleagues can come and go as they please and interact with colleagues as they might have pre-COVID19. 

The second is that we now need to be monitoring our conversational patterns for the types identified above. Giving deliberate attention to this can help us identify the conversation types which might have been most impacted by social distancing. By being intentional in noticing the types of conversations which have become predominant in our socially distanced interactions, we can identify areas that might require some deliberate attention. Maybe we notice that there are fewer opportunities for colleagues to share puzzles. If this is the case, we might be concerned that there are fewer opportunities for reflective practices or that conceptual learning might be slipping. Alternatively, we might notice that there are fewer opportunities for staff to share stories and that as a result, operational learning is inhibited. Armed with this information we can make plans to either increase the learning type that is in deficit or look to create more opportunities for the types of conversation that support it. 

In these times of uncertainty and change resulting from the COVID19 pandemic, our connectedness and the professional learning that this supports is more critical than ever. We can’t afford to miss out on the professional learning and support that occurs through incidental conversations but ensuring this does not occur, will take planning, creativity and desire to create opportunities for us to come together, even while apart. 

By Nigel Coutts

Reimagining Education for Uncertain Times with David Perkins

What’s worth understanding? What best builds understanding?

These two powerful questions framed a recent webinar presented by Professor David Perkins of Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Project Zero. Answering these questions and helping teachers find meaningful and contextually relevant answers to these questions has been a focus of Perkins’ work, especially in recent times. His book “Future Wise: Educating Our Children for a Changing World” introduced us to the notion of lifeworthy learning or that which is “likely to matter in the lives our learners are likely to live”. This is a powerful notion and one that has the potential to change not only what we teach but also how we go about teaching what we do.

In uncertain times, there is a greater need to reflect upon these questions. “What’s worth understanding?” in a world where uncertainty is the norm. What learning might be of the greatest utility to our students as they confront a rapidly changing and ambiguous future? How might we know today, what learning will be lifeworthy in the lives our learners are likely to live when uncertainty is the norm? It was with this in mind that Perkins engaged his audience. This is a topic I have touched upon previously:

These are times of chaos, complexity and contradiction (Sardar, 2010) where education is challenged to reimagine how it prepares young people of today for their worlds of tomorrow. Confronted by rapid change from a conflation of transformative forces society appears to be in a state of flux. The grand unifying socio-political stories and underlying structures that we have relied upon in the past seem to have dissolved under our feet leaving us bewildered (Harari, 2018). The beliefs, values and philosophies which we once relied upon for guidance, trust in reason and science, the valuing of human intellect and our understanding of fundamental political systems have been replaced by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (USAWC, 2019). The exponential acceleration of the capabilities of our digital systems carries with it a transformative potential with far-reaching consequences and opportunities (Friedman, 2016). Similarly, our reliance on technological innovations that emerged during the first industrial revolution is today driving climate change and represents what David Attenborough describes as our greatest threat (Attenborough, 2019) “All that was ‘normal’ has now evaporated; we have entered postnormal times, the in-between period where old orthodoxies are dying, new ones have not yet emerged, and nothing really makes sense.” (Sardar, 2010 p. 435)

The challenge then is to identify that which is “lifeworty”, and to this, Perkins invites his audience to engage thoughtfully with the process of evaluating what’s worth understanding. This mode of operation is typical Project Zero. The easy approach would be to offer teachers a curriculum of what might be considered lifeworthy. Such an approach, however, robs the teacher of agency, inhibits genuine engagement with both process and product and overlooks the diversity of contexts in which the question “what is worth understanding” is likely to be asked. Further, an organisation that values thinking so highly is behoved to bring opportunities for thinking to all that they do. By engaging his audience in a process of contemplating what is lifeworthy he models the thinking and learning processes that are at the heart of Project Zero’s philosophy of conducting high-quality research that enables a fresh perspective on what might be achieved in the classroom. Not a Seven Steps for success methodology but revelations that inspire conversation and empower teachers to do what they do better. 

What learning mattered to you? What did you learn at school that you continue to rely on routinely? What did you learn at school that you have not used since leaving?

Perkins here asks his audience to consider the opportunity stories attached to the themes or topics that they are currently teaching. He uses the French Revolution as an example of a topic which can be taught in limited and restrictive ways, or that can be transformed by a teacher who looks for the opportunity story of the topic. A teacher could easily teach students all of the facts relevant to the French Revolution. Students would exit the unit with a vast repository of knowledge. They could answer questions such as when did it begin? When did it end? What were its causes? Who were the key people? What part did each play? But teaching the French Revolution in this way is unlikely to be of significant value in the lives that learners are likely to live beyond maybe giving them an edge at a French-themed trivia night. 

But, the French Revolution should not be abandoned as a topic. Instead, the teacher needs to seek the opportunity story that it offers. When we go beyond knowing, beyond facts and beyond the specific, we see that the French Revolution can have a vibrant and expansive opportunity story. What might the French Revolution tell us about other revolutions? What might it reveal about change or of warfare and the human drive to conquer? How might the French Revolution be used as a metaphor for the study of modern revolutions such as the digital revolution of the 21st century? What might it reveal to us about conflict resolution, or politics, or business management? When we go beyond the minutia of the topic, we begin to unravel an opportunity story that reveals a topic’s great potential as a tool within a lifeworthy curriculum. 

Through the French Revolution, I was able to understand the generalities of world conflict...for instance, how the lack of freedom, poverty, over-taxation, weak economies, the struggle between the Church and state, or social inequity has always been a reason to engage in war.- Perkins 2020

Understanding Of VS Understanding With

The content-heavy, knowledge-focused approach to the French Revolution described above is indicative of a drive for ‘Understanding Of’ a topic. We might finish the unit with a detailed understanding of the topic, but we have learned little else. The more expansive model where the French Revolution is used as a catalyst for an investigation of significant historical, political and sociological themes is an example of a drive towards ‘Understanding With’. We finish the topic with an understanding of the essential information about the French Revolution, and we also exit with a broader perspective on the world and a new way of understanding many interrelated topics. We have developed understandings with our study of the French Revolution rather than merely developing an understanding of the French Revolution. 

The French Revolution is a beautiful example of a topic ready for transformation via an analysis of its opportunity story. Not all topics, however, offer so many possibilities. Some are perhaps just not going to meet our needs if the goal is a life worthiness. Perkins uses the quadratic equation as such an example. He invites the audience to consider a series of questions:

• How many people have used the quadratic equation vs How many people have learned the quadratic equation?

• How many people have used the quadratic equation outside of an educational setting?

• Very few people use the quadratic equation outside of a mathematics lesson

• What lives on from this learning in the lives of most learners?

When judged against this set of questions, we are left wondering if the time spent on teaching students the quadratic equation might be better used elsewhere. Perkins makes it clear that this is not an attack on mathematics. The same set of questions, when applied to statistics and probability, reveal a very different response and show a topic with a broad and meaningful opportunity story. Indeed knowledge of statistics is almost essential in navigating the modern world where numbers are routinely manipulated to manipulate us. 

What’s most worth understanding? - The importance of Wonder

Perkins reminded his audience that learning should be about more than practicality, more than just business, the needs of the economic engines of industry or of our duties as citizens. - Learning should also be about questions and wonderings that stir our heart. Learning that matters includes room for what inspires us, what intrigues us and makes us wonder how can that be? More than just a foundation for the practicalities of life but a grounding for the capacity to transform wondering into action. In this sense, we are learning how to wonder and what to do with our wonderings. We are developing a disposition towards wonderment where we have the capacity to wonder about our world, a sensitivity for the possibility for wondering and the motivation to not only wonder but to act towards the satisfaction of our curiosity. It might well be noted that a disposition for wonderment is perhaps one that we need to have reinstated if it is something we left behind in childhood. 

To help us bring more lifeworthy learning into our curriculum, Perkins offers the thinking routine Mattermatics. It is a routine that invites us to consider what we want to add to our curriculum that is not already there, what we would like to do more of and what we would like to do less of. The name deliberately sounds like mathematics to reference the use of the mnemonic:

• + 1 What’s one theme or topic you would add to move you towards lifeworthy learning?

• x 2 What’s one theme or topic you might expand to move towards lifeworthy learning?

• ÷ 3 What’s one theme or topic you might shrink to make room for more lifeworthy learning?

What best builds understanding? - Understanding in Action

How do we understand Understanding or what do we mean by understanding is a topic central to the opera of Project Zero and the core idea behind Teaching For Understanding. Many young students have a limited and limiting perspective of understanding. They hold in their minds an image of understanding as having possession of knowledge. This extends to common perceptions of what it means to be smart or wise or educated. Project Zero encourages a broader perspective - an action perspective or a performative perspective. By this definition, understanding requires a set of skills and knowledges that you can do meaningful things with - the ability to do meaningful things with what you know.  

With this conception of understanding in mind, how do we begin to transform the nature of the learning that our students engage with to better focus on developing lifeworthy understandings? Perkins suggests that we look for the’ toolkit’ of useful things that our topics offer. If we look back at the topics exemplified above, we may consider the quadratic equation to be equivalent to a bread knife. It serves one purpose, and even if we try to adapt it to others, its utility remains limited. The French Revolution, by contrast, might be seen as a Swiss Army knife. It brings many options and has a broad set of affordances. Having identified a topic that has such breadth, we begin to consider how we might engage our learners with this. Perkins offers a set of guiding principles that allow us to transition from presenting topics to toolkits. 

Symptoms of Topic - Toolkit Transition

• Learners explore how to use a topic as a toolkit

• Learners use thinking skills towards both understanding of and with a topic

• Learners in conversation imagine possible applications within and beyond school

• Learners apply the toolkit in the context of project-based learning

• Learners hunt for and find their own applications beyond school - family, newspaper, sports, etc

There was most certainly a great deal to think about in this webinar, and putting all of this into practice will take time. One of the great skills that Perkins possess, is the ability to weave complex and complicated ideas into a simple narrative. The challenge now is to breathe life into these ideas, to make lifeworthy learning the norm and to overcome the obstacles to this goal. 

The ideas in this webinar can be explored further by reading:

• Future Wise: Educating our children for a changing world - David Perkins (2014)

• Making Learning Whole: How seven principles of teaching can transform education - David Perkins (2010)

By Nigel Coutts

Attenborough, D. “Sir David Attenborough: Climate change our greatest threat” accessed 5.5.19 - https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46398057

Friedman, T. “Thank you for being late”, Great Britain: Picador, 2016, 461 p.

Harari, Y. “21 Lessons for the 21st Century”, London, Random House, 2018, 416 p.

Sardar, Z. “Welcome to postnormal times”, Futures, 42(5), 2010, p. 435-444.

USAWC. “Origins of VUCA” Accessed online 5.5.19 - http://usawc.libanswers.com/faq/84869

What skills might our students most need beyond school?

It is tempting to make predictions of the skills that our students will need beyond their time at school. Such wondering can be a useful guide as we contemplate what we shall focus on with our curriculum. Unsurprisingly, there is no shortage of predictions for future skillsets published by educators, economists and analysts. What might we learn from such lists, and how should education systems respond?

Last week I considered the question of how we prepare for unknown unknowns. Those who seek to gaze into the future are hoping that the conditions we see in the economy and the worlds of work and society today are reliable indicators for the trends of tomorrow. The number of such reports seems to be increasing, and the frequency at which they are updated appears to be shortening. It appears that these are indeed postnormal times when the pace of change is such that predictions of the future have a short lifespan. Sardar describes these “postnormal times” as “Ours is a transitional age, a time without the confidence that we can return to any past we have known and with no confidence in any path to a desirable, attainable or sustainable future.” (Sardar, 2010)

The volatile and unpredictable nature of our current times is reflected in the titles of the research papers which seek to predict how education systems might best respond. The Australian Secondary Principals’ Association (ASPA) commissioned “Beyond Certainty: A process for thinking about futures for Australian education”. Economists, PWC have published a range of articles including “A Smart Move” in 2015 with an emphasis on the importance of STEAM disciplines and more recently “Workforce of the Future: The competing forces shaping 2030” that suggests we may have beyond a STEAM driven imperative. The Foundation For Young Australians (FYA) has published numerous papers with titles such as “The new work basics”, “The new work smarts” and “The new work mindset” emphasising that the world of work is changing for young people and that flexibility in these times of ‘newness’ is essential. A report prepared for the NSW Department of Education on the critical implications for school education of artificial intelligence and other emerging transformations was titled “Preparing for the best and worst of times” playing on the fear and promise of modern times. 

Perhaps the most prolific predictor of future times is the World Economic Forum. On an almost annual basis, they have published a series of predictions for the world of work in the short and near future. These reports show a subtle and consistent shift in the skills predicted to be of most value and the trend is most certainly towards flexible, adaptable skills and lifelong learning. The results of the 2018 “Future of Jobs Report” is summarised in the image below.

View fullsize

Click image to enlarge.

The clear pattern is that the ability to solve complex problems with critical and creative thinking skills continues as do the importance of active learning and learning strategies. If the WEF is right, our young people will need to be analytical thinkers who innovate, understand complex systems and possess emotional intelligence and leadership capabilities. On the decline, by contrast, are skills for memorisation, management, technology use and base skills for reading, writing, math and the darling of so many classrooms “active listening”. 

Skills continuing to grow in prominence by 2022 include analytical thinking and innovation as well as active learning and learning strategies.
World Economic Forum - The Future of Jobs Report 2018

The continued emphasis on the skills of “Active learning and learning strategies” is significant. In times of change, the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn is crucial. This was predicted by Alvin Toffler’s 1970 text “Future Shock” where he wrote:

“By instructing students how to learn, unlearn and relearn, a powerful new dimension can be added to education… Tomorrow’s illiterate will not be the man who can’t read; he will be the man who has not learned how to learn.” (Toffler. 1970 p211)

This is also noted by Professor Alan Reid, the author of the ASPA’s “Beyond Certainty” report who points to the importance of “meta-learning” alongside general capabilities and a contemporary curriculum comprising disciplinary and interdisciplinary learning. Indeed learning is described by Reid as “a key to living in the 21st century”, and an understanding of learning is deemed crucial. 

Meta-learning is the capacity to understand oneself as a learner and the process of learning. It goes beyond metacognition, taking in new understandings about learning in fields as disparate as neuroscience and the functioning of the brain, emotional, sensory and social learning, cognitive psychology, and learning and physical movement. Learning about learning is fundamental in an information/knowledge society where knowledge is expanding at an exponential rate. (Reid. 2018 p6)

By acknowledging the importance of learning to learn and with that the capacity to be self-navigating learners, these reports recognise that the future is assuredly full of unknown unknowns. The best preparation for such a future is to own the capacity to learn and even teach oneself fresh skills on demand. Rather than developing a specific skills set adaptability is the key to success in an ever-changing future, and it is adaptability that PWC describes as “the key to the future”.

One clear lesson arises from our analysis: adaptability – in organisations, individuals and society – is essential for navigating the changes ahead. It’s impossible to predict exactly the skills that will be needed even five years from now, so workers and organisations need to be ready to adapt (PWC. 2018 p31)

What then are the implications for schools? How do we ensure that our students are presented with opportunities to understand how they learn and to take charge of their learning? How do we do this in a culture of standardised testing and an overcrowded curriculum that allows little time for deeply reflective meta-learning as described by Professor Reid? When will our students experience and engage in genuine creative problem solving that requires innovation and critical thinking? Will these be a part of their time in schools or will they be put on hold and first experienced by young people as they enter the world of work?

By Nigel Coutts

PWC (2018). Workforce of the Future: The competing forces shaping 2030. PWC

Reid, A. (2018). Beyond Certainty: A process for thinking about futures for Australian education. Australian Secondary Principals’ Association (ASPA)

Toffler, A. (1970). Future shock. New York: Random House.

World Economic Forum (2018) - The Future of Jobs Report 2018. Centre for the New Economy and Society

The purpose of education

Behind the rhetoric and politics, education is about the outcomes it achieves for its learners. More than being about the nuances of technology, learning space design, curriculum structures and pedagogical practices schools should have effective answers to questions that focus on what they hope to achieve for their learners. How we answer this question should then dictate the measures we utilise to achieve these goals and it is to these ends that we must apply our efforts.

The prime goal of educational institutions is not as clear as one may consider. Many will point towards preparation for the future as a key goal and this is what drives much of the educational policies we see at present. Certainly calls for a STEM or STEAM based curriculum is linked to notions of preparedness for a future in which the economy and industry will require graduates with these dispositions. Much of the criticism levelled at historical models of education relates to the manner in which school prepared young people for jobs central to the needs on an industrial age. The command and control structure of schools, the focus on discrete disciplines and rote learning of essential knowledge served the needs of industry throughout the past century and only now is the validity of that model being questioned. If schools are to learn anything from the rapid changes occurring within industry at present it is that our students will require no one set of skills but the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn skills on demand. Preparation for industry is one model for what schools should hope to achieve for their students but it is a model fraught with danger if the focus of that preparation is too narrow.

An alternate perspective to preparation for participation in the productive processes of society, its economic life is one that sees the early years of education as preparation for an academic life beyond school. In this view Primary School prepares students for High School which in turn prepares students for University which prepares students for a life as an academic. The obvious dilemma here is that society needs a limited set of academics and at some point education must do more than prepare students for a more academic study. There is an element of this view present in much of the mechanics of learning that we focus on with school and beyond school in University where correct detailing of referencing systems as dictated by a specific faculty seems to more important than the learning that occurs or does not occur in a broader sense. Preparation for a life of academia is right for some but not for all but learning does have value and knowing how to learn seems to be a valuable use of our time.

Preparation for a life of learning may be a more appropriate foundation. If students leave schools equipped with the skills they will require to be self directed learners then they may well be equipped to adapt to a changing world. The life-long learner goal is a common one and it does have merit as the ability and desire to continuously learn new skills and knowledge is a worthwhile goal. Such a model may not be the complete answer as the learning that is linked to such a model may not always include the learner becoming actively engaged in the creation of new knowledge. Mastery of a broad set of skills and knowledge has value but we will require people who are seeking answers to questions not yet asked or not yet answered. The life-long learner model does not guarantee that the learner will have a disposition towards problem finding only that they will when required endeavour to learn the new skills identified for them by others. Such an approach was once  valid, when knowledge had value acquiring more of it made sense. Academics pursued this model and an individuals success was closely linked to the number of books and journals they had read and the obscurity of the knowledge they could recall. This model has been squashed by the internet and with ready access to all of the knowledge the question is not what do you know but what can you do with what you can find, what problems can you solve with your wit and your unlimited knowledge resources.

So perhaps preparation for a life as a problem finder and solver is most appropriate. If our students leave school with a belief in their ability and capacity to identify problems and find solution to them, then maybe they are prepared not only for what ever the future may bring but possess the capacity to shape that future. Design thinking and problem based learning become the preferred methodology and students engage frequently in a search for problems. Multidisciplinary approaches seem to have value here and proponents of STEM and STEAM will indicate that their approach is built upon a problem finding model even if that is not a necessary condition for such a programme. But problem solving alone may not be enough. If the problems we find serve the needs of those who have power and freedom in society then education has failed to produce learners with the capacity to empathise with those less fortunate. The reality of the world we live in, where money and power results in educational advantage, where industry and economic rationalism dictates what problems get solved and where those with the greatest need have difficulty accessing equitable outcomes through the educational system, dictates that some thought to how our learners will understand and relate to power be included.

Problem solving with empathy might be the desired goal then. The design thinking process can and should include empathy as a starting point and a reflection point throughout the process. If our students learn to ask questions about who their ideas will impact, whose needs most require a solution, what the real or economic cost of their actions will be they may shape a world where not only are the problems of the privileged solved. Teaching for empathy within the power structures and politics of educational systems can be challenging and requires a considered approach if teachers are not to be labelled activists but this is a goal worth achieving. Understanding that education is a part of a political process, that it is gendered, racialised and interwoven with power structures is essential.

But all of this ignores the aesthetic beauty of learning for the sake of learning, of art, literature, music and wonderment. Education for utility and purposeful application towards the betterment of society should not occur without suitable acknowledgement of human activity that adds to the aesthetic worth of humanity. As Robin Williams said while playing John Keating in ‘Dead Poets Society’ 'We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.’ So perhaps the answer is to prepare our students for a world that will require them to learn continuously, to find and solve problems, to act with empathy so as to bring hope and equity to many and strive to live a life full of a passionate pursuit of beauty and wonderment, to live and learn today as da Vinci might have done.

by Nigel Coutts