Take a moment to reflect on what school was like 50 years ago (~1970) and imagine what school might be like 50 years in the future (~2070). Then, consider what school is like right now (it’s almost 2020) and ask yourself, are we doing everything we can to position our students to be ready for the future?
Fifty years ago, classrooms were predominantly traditional landscapes. The typical classroom set-up included desks in rows, facing forward. Classes were teacher-centered, with lecture driving each day’s instruction. Students sat in desks and took paper and pencil tests to determine if content knowledge was being acquired. Textbooks guided instruction and chalkboards reflected the content students were meant to absorb. Subjects were disconnected and siloed as students moved through the day gathering facts in each discipline. Faculty expounded on the historical benefits of a “classical education” as the structural imperative for teaching and learning to occur – you know the drill: reading, writing, and arithmetic…
Enter the early 1990’s and its technological advances, the origin of the Internet and the World Wide Web. During this time, teaching and learning underwent a gradual transformation (nothing in education moves very fast). Some aspects of the classical model slowly shifted toward a more progressive model of education. The new millennium laid the groundwork to revolutionize the traditional vision of school for those willing to change. For example, flexible and grouped-seating allowed for a more dynamic, collaborative student experience. Moving away from a teacher-centered model, students began to play a more active role in their learning, where voice and choice guided classroom activities. As an alternative to the heavy emphasis on standardized testing, assessment became more authentic and focused on performance-based tasks to determine student learning outcomes. Technology had taken hold and teachers designed lessons that infused technology to enhance instruction with iPads, personal laptops, and interactive whiteboards. Students were more engaged in problem- and project-based instruction where lessons were driven by real-life events. The dive into inquiry-driven, project-based learning presented opportunities to increase student motivation and interest. Yet, even with these educational advances many schools (and teachers) seemed reluctant to move away from the traditional framework, potentially inhibiting students’ future-readiness.
Now, we are two decades into the new millennium and what remains, despite our best efforts to embrace change, is a continued reliance on standardized testing (SATs, ACTs, AP classes, etc.), a focus on grade point averages (rather than mastery learning), siloed subjects, and an unnecessary competition between ‘STEM’ and the Liberal Arts. People have a tendency to cling to what is familiar and what has worked in the past as their benchmarks for success. However, preparing our students to be future-ready requires a much different, broader mindset. It means overcoming our educational inertia to realize true, impactful change. But, what should this future-focused education look like and how do we adapt?
In reality, businesses and industries are finding that college graduates today are lacking the practical, critical skills necessary to perform in the marketplace and they are having to spend billions to train new hires to be ready for today’s job requirements. The Association for Talent Development noted that U.S. companies in 2012 spent 164.2 billion dollars on employee training and development. The Harvard Business Review (Selingo, 2016) noted that as many as two-thirds of college graduates struggle to launch their careers despite high SAT scores and GPAs. A 2016 Pew survey found that 30 percent of educational professionals were pessimistic about our ability to teach new skills necessary to keep abreast of the rapid changes in the job market. It is estimated that 65 percent of students entering grade school today will one day work in jobs that don’t yet exist (ISTE, Krueger, 2017). How should the educational system react and respond to these statistics to position our students for future success?
The first step may very well be to place an emphasis on the skills and literacies gap to focus on future-readiness. While teaching content remains important, particularly using a cross-disciplinary approach, our methodological approach to teaching and learning must be relevant and up-to-date with researched best practice. Equally as important is teaching the critical “meta-skills” necessary to be competitive in a global economy. In Joseph A. Aoun’s (2017) book, Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, he argues for building on three additional literacies: data literacy, technological literacy, and human literacy. Additionally, what Aoun calls “humanics” is not a set of content areas, rather cognitive capacities to include systems thinking, entrepreneurship, and cultural agility as a way to build upon our uniquely human traits of creativity and flexibility.
At Randolph-Macon Academy, we are setting our sights on the future to align with a vision similar to Aoun’s. In January of 2020, we launch our 3-week J-Term session, which offers courses specifically focused on career and life skills development, targeting mastery learning. Building from this framework, we will offer internships and study abroad experiences beginning in 2021. In these ways, we are transitioning to build on a previously traditional structure to offer supplemental elective coursework and authentic, simulation experiences for students aligned with our new Pre-Professional Pathways program. Additionally, students can opt to engage in capstone research projects to dive deep into questions and problems they face when engaging in real-world contexts.
The past informs us, but we should set our sights on where we need to be today and tomorrow. This doesn’t mean losing touch with the Liberal Arts or focusing solely on STEM or STEAM – these territorial squabbles are inconsequential. Rather, it is how we adapt to a shifting landscape, teach critical life skills, and integrate with future trends to provide a holistic education that guarantees our students’ readiness and success.