The Future of Education
Much of the current education
debates focus on issues of inequi-
ty, accountability, funding, and im-
proving access to higher education
for more students. While these are
all important issues, what is miss-
ing is a discussion of the purpose
of education in the 21st century.
To consider this question, we
need to understand fundamental
changes that have taken place in
our economy.
For the first half of the 20th
century, when most people
earned their living on farms and
in factories, physical strength and
manual dexterity were competitive
advantages. Then came what Pe-
ter Drucker in 1959 termed “The
Knowledge Economy.” In this
new era, brains mattered more
than brawn because the ability to
access and analyze information
became a key driver of economic
growth. The more you knew and
the more facile you were with
your knowledge, the greater the
competitive advantage.
As a result, for the past 50
years our education systems have
focused on ensuring that students
acquire more and more education.
First it was completion of high
school, and now the emphasis
is on getting more students to
complete post-secondary educa-
tion. The nature of this education
has changed very little, however.
From the beginning of high school
and continuing through college,
students spend the majority of
their time memorizing massive
amounts of information. And they
are graded on how much of that
information they have retained.
But here’s the problem. We
no longer live in a knowledge
economy. The world no longer
cares how much you know be-
cause Google knows everything.
There is no longer competitive
advantage in knowing more than
the person next to you because
what the world cares most about
is not what you know, but what
you can do with what you know.
One’s competitive advantage today
comes from the ability to bring
new possibilities to life or to solve
problems creatively — in other
words, to innovate. Of course, you
need knowledge to accomplish
these things. It is necessary, but
not sufficient. In the innovation
era, knowledge still matters, but
skills matter more, and motivation
and dispositions matter most.
Our education systems, from
elementary schools through grad-
uate schools, have not yet begun
to adapt to this new reality. At
every level and in every course,
the primary focus is on content
knowledge acquisition. Rarely do
students have opportunities to
apply their knowledge, to hone
their skills, to pursue their own
interests. As human beings, we
are born curious, creative, imagi-
native. The average five-year-old
asks 100 questions a day, and most
kindergartners think of themselves
as artists. But by the time most
kids reach the age of 12 or so, they
are far more preoccupied with
getting the right answers on tests
than they are on continuing to ask
their own questions. And fewer
and fewer think of themselves as
creative.
The price our students pay
for this kind of education is very
high and rarely discussed. We are
raising generations of students
who are obsessed with getting
good grades and scoring well on
tests — doing everything they
think they need to do to get into
a name brand college so they can
have a name brand job and live
happily ever after. These kids
are terrified of making a single
mistake, getting less than an A.
And in the desperate pursuit of
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