Teaching is an interesting challenge. While we are teaching content now, we are also preparing students for 10 years from now. This felt achievable when I started in 2001, there was no expectation of significant change by 2011 (we were wrong of course as smart phones, social media and streaming changed the media and social landscapes).
Somehow that naivety was comforting. There was a confidence that a senior in high school was prepared for the world (even if we were wrong). Today, there is no such confidence, we are seeing the world change rapidly enough that, at best, that confidence would be considered misplaced.
There are solutions to this problem, perhaps unexpectedly, they stem from “soaking in the now.” Think about what is happening at this moment, explore it, experience it and learn some things about it. That knowledge will (most likely) not be terribly useful in the future, however, the ability to generate that knowledge for yourself in the future is invaluable.
When I was in high school in the ’90s, the term life-long learner was thrown around as a philosophical nicety without much substance. In 2023, being a life-long learner is no longer a nicety, it is an essential skill for having agency in a changing world.
The cognitive trap, mostly pushed by technology-minded folks, is to identify the future (whether it is mobile apps, the internet of things, artificial intelligence, etc.) and decide that EPS should be teaching that now to prepare students for the future. That is a failing strategy. The problem is that what you need to succeed in the future is not defined yet, and further, even if it is, the tools and skills you need 10 years from now have not been invented yet. We have to abstract a level.
What does that look like? It looks like three skills:
- Identify a trend or change in society
- Think about what consequences there might be (what becomes easier, what becomes harder?)
- Take a deep dive to understand that trend
Those skills are invariant in time. They will always be what is required. Even if it is 20 years post-EPS, you should be able to do these things to figure out how the world is changing and get yourself up to speed on the consequences. Not just in tech but also in societal and political movements whether it is social justice or climate change.