The future of education: what questions should we be asking our kids today?
What subjects are you good at? What (profession) do you want be?What did you accomplish today? Did you make a new friend today? These are the questions I heard as a kid.
What do you value? What are your superpowers? Who do you want to be when you get older? What brings you joy? How can you serve the world?Those are questions that nobody asked me while at school. Neither when I was in college and undertaking my master’s degree.
So it´s something that I had to ask myself many years later. A middle age crisis, you may call it, that led to a self discovery journey to search for those answers. The hero’s journey.And in order to unleash the unknown within himself, the hero must leave behind his familiar beginnings…
And in order to unleash the unknown within himself, the hero must leave behind his familiar beginnings
But what if they had given me tools, the time and the space as a kid/youngster to foster my curiosity, discover my talents and strenghts and show me ways to connect those to my unique ways of contributing to shape a better world? This is what the future of education should look like.
But sometimes to go the future, you need to travel back in time- as far as 500 years.
Back to the inflection point where we changed our interconnected-holistic way of the life for a mecanistic-fragmented approach to it; one that broke down the world into pieces using only the left (rational) side of the brain to “make sense” of events. As as consequence, we left behindour our intuition. And by desintegrating our thinking, we struggle to see the big picture any more.
As as consequence, we left behindour our intuition. And by desintegrating our thinking, we struggle to see the big picture any more.
Recent neuroscientist’s work has shown the inportance of the whole-brain approach. Furhermore some papers reveal that, if any, the right side of brain should be the dominant one. When this happens we move from silos to systems: from studying classical physics to the weirdness of quantum physics; from body-centered-health to mind-body wellbeing; from profits-based-economic to social&planet centric-economic. From surviving to thriving.
What does all these have to do with the future of education? Education is about the world (the future) we want to build. So if we want a more sustainable, kind, just and inclusive world we have to start raisinng and educating environmental concious, compasionate, fair and tolerant kids.
If we want a more sustainable, kind, just and inclusive world we have to start raisinng and educating environmental concious, compasionate, fair and tolerant kids.
What subjects are you good at? What (profession) do you want be?What did you accomplish today? Did you make a new friend today? We educators and parents should stop asking these questions and start asking instead:What do you value? What are your superpowers? Who do you want to be when you get older? What brings you joy? How can you serve the world?
Questions are the answers, and every big change starts within.
