The Future of Work

This short video offers a stunning view of what the future holds for our kids. Share it with members of your community to spark discussion of the competencies your students will need as adults. Machine intelligence is advancing at a blistering pace. Anything you see in this video will be pervasive by the time elementary students are out of school. So be forewarned.

What competencies and mindsets do your students need to thrive in this world?

Is your school preparing kids for their futures?

What broad societal issues does this raise?

To what extent are your kids being pushed, year in and year out, to excel at narrow skills (memorizing material, replicating low-level procedures, following instructions) that machines perform perfectly? What’s lost in the process?

What role do high-stakes standardized tests play in giving these narrow skills priority in our schools?

Too often, the school we have today is a modest extension of the school we had a decade ago. Consider laying out a vision of what our world will be a decade from now, and then design a school that prepares kids for that future. This article describes the likely impact of automated solutions on the future of work: Washington Post: Robots could replace nearly a third of the U.S. workforce by 2030