The Fourth Industrial Revolution: We Stand On The Brink

The summer 2013 issue of Independent School magazine was about technology and schools and posed the  question The Great Disruption?

Just then retiring NAIS president Pat Bassett article’s The Third Great American Revolution outlined what should by now be the familiar big shifts in education.

And he delivered this stirring  call to action and imagination.

Fast forward two and a half years to the World Economic Forum in Davos this past January. There the talk was not just of three American revolutions but of four industrial revolutions.

In dramatic terms the reports, infographics and blog posts from the event outlined what the future holds.

Predicting the future is always hazardous but in well defined ways the outline of what is to come is shown as already emerging, making the predictions not so much imaginative leaps but rather likely projections.

Where the imagination comes into play is around the issues of how we will cope with the changes and disruptions of this magnitude. Here’s how the WEF describes the fourth revolution:

The overly dramatic picture is my addition.

OK. So now what? Are we ready? No, of course not. But what would be the best way to start thinking about that express train of change bearing down upon us? Well first – we have to start talking about it, exploring what we see, what we can know and what can be imagined. We have to identify the challenges and starting developing the capacities to take them on.

And we have to start talking about it at every level and especially in schools and with those concerned with education (i.e. all of us) and of course with our students. Here are a few questions for starters:

And thinking about all that we are going to have to examine some pretty fundamental assumptions about learning. If we come to grips with that new world of the fourth revolutionwe will need to think about some of these questions that have a direct bearing on how we educate.

• For what roles are we preparing our students?
• What skills will they need to thrive and how have we determined what they are?
• How will they learn them, from whom and where?
• What experiences should they have now that will have the best chance of providing those skill-sets and mind-sets?
• And if the future world is to be one of rising social tensions and inequity – what ethical compass will they need to help them navigate the changed ethical and moral boundaries?

Work to be done indeed. We have it within our ken – but do we have it within our will? Our collective will will have to emerge from a strengthened democracy and depends on a civil society for any wisdom and direction to emerge. Not seeing an excess of that this election season.

The current obsession with education as test scores and standardized achievement marches apace. We don’t have the understanding nor the will while they remain the measure of success.

Fortunately we do have an abundance of voices to help us through this challenge of shaping and embracing the future with optimism and courage.

For a quick list of some of those voices I turn to Mike Crowley’s always interesting blog Maelstrom. His post Learning About Learning: Inspiring Voices on Modern Schools is a crash course in getting up to speed. Reading the books he mentions would be one one to get started. And making Educating Modern Learners a habit would help too.

All that would have to be followed by getting connected with others doing this work. We have to delve deep into just what must become the moral and ethical drivers of the decisions with which our society is, and will continue to be, confronted. And a  sense of urgency – we need that too!

And that’s just for starters. So many more. But of course – trading quotes and writing blog posts is not the work we need to do. But it doesn’t hurt!