The Future of Education | Mike Howells | TEDxPCL

good morning everyone, the

future

of

education

, when most of us think about learning and certainly when older generations think about learning, I think we think about it in an institutional context, don't we? We think that learning is something we do in a place we go, it is not something that is necessarily part of everything we do every day, it is a formalized practice, it has an institutional wrapper around it now we all know that is not true fundamentally, but nevertheless in our kind of popular consciousness in the way that societies and governments and economies think and allocate resources to learning, we think about it fundamentally from that institutional point of view and, as Lee was talking about before, that model does not has changed in decades, it probably hasn't fundamentally changed in hundreds of years and What I personally think is missing in the way we think about learning is how fundamental it is to who we are as people, so I would suggest to you that learning is in Actually the fundamental human ability, and I don't mean that other animals don't learn, of course they do, it's just that the way we learn and the importance of learning for us is a fundamental part of who we are as a species and as individuals, It is fundamental to everything we do, it is as innate in us as eating, in fact, we did not learn that we could not eat because, where would we get food from if we had not learned to do it well?

But we have forgotten how fundamental it is, how integrable it is. being a human being uh and that's partly I think a consequence of building an institutional approach to learning um lee talked about how institutional learning has tended to grow to deliver and produce workers correctly and a lot of that is, of course, a very important fundamental component. about the system we have, that doesn't mean it's bad, you know there are a lot of values ​​in that, I'm sure we all feel like we've learned a lot through the experiences we've had, but it's a model that's clearly outdated in many ways. really important, one of them is that we understand and this is interesting for me in my current job.

I have the task of looking at the world from the point of view of work and if you look at the world from the point of view of work and you think okay, wait, what does work need, what do companies need, what do economies need, you see. all these huge gaps and skills, you see the inability of the way we learn and train people to keep up with the technological, economic and social progress that we all face today, so you see a lot of gaps in agility and the ability of formal

education

systems to adapt to the changing world around us. causing a machine the way you may know that in the industrial revolution we were considered correct, but what machines exist, you know, the gear is now an algorithm, what is the role of a person in the way they work our economies today?

That's all changing and I'll talk a little more about it, but it's not just about skilled, productive and functional workers. I think there are a lot of issues around equity and you all probably know this very well, but one of them is probably the most important indicator. from your success in life from the circumstances of your birth you know that your parents' economic status is one of those now if that is still true even after all the money, resources and thought we put into building educational systems effective, then clearly something is happening wrong somewhere, another anecdote for you, I find it really interesting to talk to successful people in their 30s because if you are successful at 30 you probably worked hard to get there, you probably had an idea of ​​where you wanted to go .

You made some pretty fundamental decisions about your

future

when you were a teenager, okay, so you made that decision, you're on that path, you've done everything the system requires of you, you've worked extremely hard, you're 30 years old. you asked, I asked these three 30 successful worlds, are you happy? and of course some of them are, but many are not so well off. Scratch the surface, why aren't you happy? Well, it's not exactly what I thought it was going to be, um, I didn't. I really know when I was 15 or 18 what would make me happy it's not really what I saw it's not really how I felt it would be okay so why don't you change it?

I can't, why can't I? you change it, I can't change it because I have responsibilities, okay, I may have a family, I probably have a car loan or a mortgage, but mostly I have sunk costs in the choices and experiences that I have. I've had and I can't abandon that because if I do I'll go back to the beginning again and waste all that progress that I've made, but why is it true that as we move forward in life I feel like once we're on that path we can't get out of it and this is the real trick for me, why the further we go down that path the less options we seem to have, shouldn't it be exactly like that?

On the contrary, shouldn't it be like that? The more we do, the more life experiences we get, the more people we meet, the more options we have - not the other way around, but something fundamentally wrong, I think, with the way we mark who we are. and what we're capable of, particularly in the workspace, you know, that CV, which is actually kind of a column of things that we've done well, we build the column of things that we've done, we stand on top of it and This is how you compete, look at how tall this column is and this is a column perfectly set up for finance or healthcare.

First of all, it doesn't really tell us that it's pretty lonely at the top of that column because where's next? It doesn't really tell anyone much about you, so I think there are a lot of problems with the way this market, this industry, works around how we communicate who we are as people and what we can do in a way that you know. . Employers, for example, understand in a way that we can understand and communicate with other people, but the third thing I think is really problematic and this is not some kind of criticism of formal education.

I am a great lover of the formal education for which I work. an education company, it will be career limiting to do that, you know, think fundamentally what the purpose of an education system is now, I would suggest it is to help you discover what you love and be excellent at it, surely that is the right point . Isn't that what we all want, we want it for ourselves, we want it for our children, if we have them, we want it for our friends, for our family, I want you to be happy and fulfilled, I want you to find what you are excellent at and that you love and that's how you find satisfaction in life, how many of us can say that's the case?

I am very lucky. I feel like I'm happy in what I do. I'm not going to say I've been blessed, but I know relatively few people for whom this is true and I think it's a fundamental problem with the way the system operates, for all these reasons, for all the strengths and benefits of educational systems. that we have built around the world. would suggest that there are some quite fundamental flaws in how it works today and in particular it has not adapted to the world we are in and the needs of individuals within that world, now, paradoxically, I think that at the moment we are in It is a moment of real opportunity for a couple of reasons.

First of all, I really believe that automation is a great opportunity for people. Now there is a bit of division in this regard. I don't know how many of you think automation is bad for people. I'm not going to judge, don't worry just because I said, I think it's a good thing, some of you I'm sure a lot of you, if you're honest, would say ah, you know it's going to kill jobs and drive up unemployment and everything else, that It's certainly true, but I think if you look at it another way, the jobs that are being automated, the things that we're asking machines and machine learning to do, okay, there's not much we can do about it.

That's how technology changes over time, but what's left of the work that machines can't do is, generally speaking, the most valuable work, the most important work for people, so I would suggest that automation make it clearer. what skills and what capabilities. people have something that machines can't do and the value of that will grow over time if we can figure out how to teach people to optimize themselves in that new world. Well, that's where learning fundamentally comes in, so I actually see automation as a huge opportunity if we invest in people learning, if we don't then we have a huge risk, which is that human work becomes a commodity, you know, we all end up being in it, you know, we shouldn't criticize the gig economy, but we're all forced to. that way of working where there is enormous downward salary pressure, so it is an opportunity that we have to invade, invest a lot in learning.

What also gives me optimism is kind of a corollary to all of this, which is the power of data now. I believe we are on the cusp of a data-driven learning revolution. Well, which probably sounds a little scary, but let me give you some examples. Think about how incredibly powerful it would be if every learning experience we had generated data about those two. Fundamental questions I asked before: what do I love and how can I be great again, in the same way as every time you shop, every time you watch a TV show, every time you interact with your social networks or any platform. it could be data about you that was generated, what was actually this is the critical point used to help you not use it to drive the kind of business model of a giant corporation without your consent and without transparency about what it was being used for that data, but to really help you get a real view of what you love, what you're good at, what your options are, because if we can harness the power of that data from those technologies, that's how we start to really get to the nexus.

I think about some of these fundamentals. trouble learning, um, what would this be like? Okay, we can talk a little bit about this in Q&A and I'd love to hear a little more from you. Well, I guess it means we're all going to learn. of the time and this goes back to that kind of fundamental part of learning, being part of who we are as people. I believe that learning will, if we succeed, become second nature to us, as it should be. Just like eating it, just like talking and building community, I think these digital technologies that we're developing and that the world is seeing, immersive learning, will allow us to learn every day, all the time, often in ways that We don't necessarily even realize that we are doing it consciously and that is an incredibly powerful thing.

Secondly, well, why would we? We will do it because we want to, we will do it because just as these technologies have allowed us to have incredibly rich, satisfying and above all, low friction and easy experiences when we are shopping, seeking health, finding which vacation we want to go on and communicating with our friends. , this will make it an enjoyable and impactful experience that we will want to learn because we can see the value and the potential of doing it I often think about the type of exercise bike that was in your basement, you know, 20 or 30 years ago, the early phases from the fitness fad, oh okay, I have to buy it, I have to buy a stationary bike that is sitting in my basement collecting dust because why would I want to sit on a stationary bike?

I don't go anywhere I don't talk to anyone it's horrible and it hurts I have no idea what I'm supposed to do Look how successful the peloton is, it's fundamentally the same, but they've created this incredibly rich experience and they've made that what cycling can do in your basement feels really important and relevant to achieving your goals in life. That's just an exercise we came up with. There are many different examples from other environments, but the power of that type of technology and that type of approach to learning we haven't even begun to scratch the surface and if we are successful, we will want to learn every day because it is enormously fun and enormously relevant for what we want to pursue in life what we will learn we will learn what is relevant to us you know that we all have different talents we know that we all have different aspirations above all we cannot avoid the fact that we know that we need a greater diversity of skills and talents to be successful at work, so I'm very confident that there will be a fundamental change in the way people can navigate their lifelong learning course.

It's easier to do it. As an adult, I obviously believe that we will learn more and more through experiences. You know, let's go back to the point I made at the beginning. Learning won't be so much one thing, you have to go to aplace to do it, to an institution to do it. it will be something much more relevant and closer to what you do every day it will be much more experiential if you are at work it will be connected to your real job everything will be a potential learning experience that you know everyone learns every day we all learn every day this It's a self-selected group of people who are interested in the world, so I assume that you all learn every day and probably do so through your own skills and abilities, you already know where to find things that interest you, you know where to find people that They share your interests and can help you along the way, reducing that friction and bringing learning closer to you every day.

From your experience of everyday life, I think it is a big change that we will see in the future, fundamentally enabled by technology and boost that data that will help the entire system work better, so two things, I think that really come together in the end, are The two messages that I want you to take away from this, first of all, that we need and we'll get back to the basics from learning, the joy and normality of it, to the centrality of it in our daily lives and, secondly, that we will do it. Being able to do that through the adoption of technology as long as we set the kind of terms of reference for that in the right way, so that it's based on trust and transparency and it's about empowering you as an individual because I really believe that technology can, as he has done. in many other areas of life increasing and optimizing our learning experiences and fundamentally increasing and optimizing our own opportunities in life and our own path in life and the choices we make, so I'm a techno optimist, okay, that's not It's immediately obvious, but I'd love to know if you agree with me or not, thank you.