Educating for the Unknown

David Perkins, Harvard

‘Basic’ Requirements

• 3Rs’• Web / M-Technology• Teamwork / Collaboration• Listening / Empathy• Green-ery• Creativity• “Spirituality”• Etc., etc., etc.

#1 Long for Adventure

(or Love the Unknown)

“Our task is to educate their our students’ whole being so they can face the future. We may not see the future, but they will and our job is to help them make something of it.”

Sir Ken Robinson

Bloom’s Taxonomy : The Affective Domain

How do we nurture a passion for the unknown?

• Include into KPI? Mission Statement?• ‘Curiosity’ as a key hiring / HR element?• Personal time to research ‘new’ areas?• “Super Idea” Week / Month?• Projects over exams? P2P assessment as

dominant?• ‘Every-student-a-teacher’ motifs?• Critical Questioning skills to be compulsory?• Curiosity 101 modules?• What else?

#2 Bring Maximum Supplies

(or Be the “Best in the World”)

“There are a gazillion things, a gazillion truly different and differentiated thing, a gazillion things of genuine value, to be the best in the world at.”

Quoted by Seth Godin

“Best in the world just refers to the world of your community in that moment, and best means the thing that most appropriately fits their worldview. In other words, you have to be the best in the world at classical violin…you can do great by having the innovative lecture notes in Damansara, or being the administrator with the most dependable filing system.

Compromise is the enemy of that. So is fear. So is the desire to fit in or be average.”

(Alwyn Lau re-wording Seth Godin)

How do we become recognized as the best in the world?

• What are we doing to become better than ‘very good’?

• How would people know we’re the best?• Does our best ‘finds it way’ into our everyday

lives, or only professionally?• What’s stopping us from being the best at that

‘thing’ we know we can be? Attitude? Belief? Bad habits? Other people?!

• Etc.

#3 Grab an Oar, Hoist the Sail, Wash the Desk

(or Augment Your Domains)

Johann Cruyff’s “Total Football”

How do we encourage multi-expertise?

• Make double/triple-majors the norm?• Have inter-departmental qualifications?• “Credentialise” as many skills as possible?• Charge lower for second (or third) degree of

the same level?• Etc.?

#4 Use the Telescope Often

(or be an Amateur Futurist )

How do we promote futuristic thinking?

• Initiate futuristic think-tank departments? To provide trend reports regularly?

• Include / Infuse futurist studies into curriculum?

• Teach research in secondary schools?• Focus on what “we don’t know we don’t

know”?• What else?

“We did not come here to fear the future.

We’re here to shape it.”

BARACK OBAMA