The Challenge of Our Generation

I recall when I purchased my first cellular telephone in the 1990’s. If I stood in just the right location, often near a window, I could make and receive calls. It was wonderful. It seemed so modern.

My cell phone today still makes and receives calls, but I also have my calendar and “to do” list on my phone. I receive emails, texts and tweets. I can find directions, restaurants, gas stations and the latest movies. It tracks my exercise and my location. I can play games, listen to music and write a short memo all on my phone. In fact, my phone probably can do a number of things that I don’t even realize.

It is amazing how much a technology such as this has evolved and changed our lives in just twenty years. I wonder what it will be able to do and how it might change our lives in another twenty years, especially since the rate of innovation continues to accelerate. Clearly, more of the changes in the capacity of my cell phone have come in the most recent ten years than in the ten years before.

Communication technology is not alone in this accelerating pace of change. Many dimensions of our lives are experiencing similar changes and will continue to do so for as far as we can see into the future; the future for which we are charged with preparing today’s learners. 

What this means is that we cannot predict what the world will be like and will require in twenty years, when today’s students are in the midst of what likely will be multiple careers. Many, if not most of them, will be doing jobs that have yet to be invented. These jobs will require skills that have yet to be defined. 

Preparing today’s learners for success in their futures is not the same challenge that educators, administrators and other leaders of past eras faced. It was assumed that students could and would learn most of what they needed to know while in school. The curriculum was based on this assumption. Instruction relied on this premise and the ways in which learning was assessed were consistent with this understanding. The job of adults was to transfer what they knew into the heads of students.

Today, making such an assumption is foolhardy and a false promise to learners. Of course, today’s students need to learn much of what we know. However, preparing them for their future requires a different focus. Future success for today’s learners will require an understanding of content, but it also will demand the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn as they are expected to regularly reinvent their careers, gain new skills and think in new ways. 

Yet, our schools remain largely as they were designed more than one hundred years ago when they were expected to serve the emerging industrial economy. While schools excelled at their initial task, they were not prepared to ready many learners for the knowledge economy and now they face an even greater mismatch with the emerging innovation economy.

We cannot afford to wait any longer to redesign our approach to nurturing learning and educating today’s students. Tinkering with structures, increasing accountability and demanding greater effort is not enough to meet this challenge. Our task is to prepare today’s learners to be their own best teachers. After all, they are the only teacher they can depend on for a lifetime. Students must understand how they learn and how to engage in challenging learning tasks without depending on well-crafted lessons and significant external supports. They also must remain curious, observant and engaged to sense when it is time to learn, change and gain new skills.

Our nation and society depend on educators and educational leaders today more than at any time in history, even if they do not yet realize this reality. The future of our economy and society depends on our redesigning the experience of learning and nurturing the crucial skills today’s learners must possess to become and remain successful for a lifetime.

We do not have time to waste. We cannot afford to wait for others to act for us. This is the challenge of our generation. The question is whether we have the courage, will and commitment to do what is asked of us. 

We already know much of what must be done. We can draw heavily from research that already exists. Technology can be a crucial support to this work. We must reposition students to be motivated, purposeful learners. Most importantly, they must have an opportunity to co-design, co-invest in and co-own their learning. 

The good news - educators across the Midwest have taken up this challenge and their work over the past six years is showing amazing promise. Learn more about this growing movement at the 2016 SLATE Conference.

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Dr. Jim Rickabaugh serves as the Director of the Institute for Personalized Learning and is the author of Tapping the Power of Personalized Learning: A Roadmap for School Leaders. Jim formerly served as Superintendent of several districts in Wisconsin and Minnesota and received the lifetime achievement award from the Master Teacher in 2010.

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