Great Scot September 2019 Great Scot 157_September 2019_ONLINE | Page 13

I am often reminded of the quote attributed to the
Greek philosopher, Heraclitus: ‘The only thing that
remains constant is change.’ Although the quote is
2500 years old, it is even more applicable to the world
today than in Heraclitus’ era. Over the past 20 or so
years, since we first entered the age of the internet and
the amazing developments in the world of technology
and communications that have followed, the rate of
change in the world has been exponential.
Whereas in my younger years knowledge was
critical, today you only have to reach into your pocket
and pull out your smartphone to have instant access
to almost all of the knowledge we have built up over
the past several thousand years of human existence.
Knowledge is no longer ‘king.’ Being able to access
that knowledge and then understand it and use it to
assist in solving problems is one of the keys to future
success.
The challenge facing educators is how to provide
curriculum, experiences and skills development for
a world that we can hardly begin to imagine. While
change will continue to be the norm and the rate of
change is likely to continue to accelerate, there are
some things that I believe will remain constant.
First, the ability to communicate with others will
be critical. I expect though, that communication will
probably look quite different to what we are used to
now. While we are used to electronic communication
through social media, email and FaceTime, we can
expect a great deal more of our interactions with others
to be electronic. We will still need to have the skills
to converse, impart our opinions and ideas to others,
listen to alternative viewpoints, and to ‘read people’s
body language’ (albeit possibly via a screen). With the
ease of communicating across the world set to increase,
so too will the number of interactions we have across
the globe, both in our working lives and our leisure
time. Communication skills will continue to be vital
if we are to be effective participants in tomorrow’s
society.
I also believe that the ability to collaborate
effectively will be an essential skill in the future
workplace. We will be working with people from across
the world on shared projects and, to be successful, we
will need to be able to tap into the expertise and skills
of others in order to bring about successful outcomes
for our own projects. Along with this will be the ability
to synthesise various pieces of knowledge and expertise
from a wide variety of fields, and then use that to find
solutions and strategies to resolve seemingly unrelated
problems.
Imagine the following scenario: a team of doctors
from London, seeking to develop a less intrusive and
more successful method of treating heart conditions,
might communicate with engineers in Sydney who
have developed new structural techniques that could
have implications for cell therapy; while biologists
in Mexico City might be able to offer some insights
into the properties of plants that can assist introduced
tissue from being rejected; and another team of
nanotechnologists in Beijing might have developed a
surgical scalpel that operates at the molecular level,
allowing doctors to achieve more precise surgery and
thus a better outcome for their patients. The ability
for experts in different fields to tap into each other’s
knowledge, expertise and experience will provide them
with the opportunity to solve problems that were once
thought to be too difficult to tackle.
In our past it was believed that successful education
entailed imparting as much knowledge into children
as we could cram. However, as the ancient Greek
biographer Plutarch said, ‘The mind is not a vessel to
be filled but a fire to be kindled.’
It has always been the role of schools to provide
those essential building blocks of being literate
and numerate so that children can access all of the
knowledge available to them. Now we also need to be
teaching them to be discerning about the knowledge
they access in regard to its validity and its usefulness to
their needs. Learning should provide children with the
opportunities and experiences to develop collaborative
skills and mindsets in preparation for their future lives.
Our schools need to be providing rich opportunities to
nurture and develop creativity and curiosity. We must
aim to provide children with as many experiences as
possible to solve problems where there may be more
than one solution, and to do so with an open but
discerning attitude. It will be vital that we assist our
young people to ‘know what to do when they don’t
know what to do.’
The more we can challenge and provoke the
thinking of the children of this generation, the better
prepared they will be for the world they will enter. We
must work diligently to ensure that the experiences and
guidance they are given now will assist them to make
the most of the amazing new world that awaits them,
and help them to acquire the wisdom and values to use
these qualities to achieve changes for the better.
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