Moonshots founder Dr. Woj on the Future of Work and making school work in the 4iR
There is a need for a paradigm shift in the fourth industrial revolution (4iR). Dr. Esther Wojcicki in her book, “how to raise successful people” talks about moonshots being a product of trust, respect, independence, collaboration and kindness (TRICK). These characteristics work only not in raising succefful people, but in schools as well. When we build a moonshot school, or rebuild a school into a moonshot, we need to insist on doing the right thing, and doing it completely. We must create a learning space that is physically and virtually safe, psychologically safe, emotionally safe for every child. And that learning space needs to be surrounded by a community, a nation, and a state with that same abundance. Only then can our kids truly be kids, and truly be kids on their way to being happy, healthy moonshot thinking adults. Adults who will be way better than we adults have been.
Putting Kids First
Our education system was built from the very beginning on adult needs and adult priorities. Whether it was Jefferson’s goal: “By this means twenty of the best geniuses will be raked from the rubbish annually, and be instructed at the public expense;” or Woodrow Wilson’s goal, “ We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity… to forego the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks…They must make a selection, and you must make a selection…;” or Ellwood Cubberly’s goal: [schools need to be] “factories in which the raw materials (children) are to be shaped and fashioned into products to meet the various demands of life. The specifications for manufacturing come from the demands of twentieth century civilization, and it is the business of the school to build its pupils according to the specifications laid down;” or even the Eisenhower administration’s goal — an education modeled after the post-Stalin Soviet Union.
But what might school look like if we were helping kids to build their future society, a better society, a better world? If that was our goal would we do anything that we do now? Would we build boxes around kids, around curricula, around age groups, around time? Would we design a secondary school without observing and asking current five-year-olds? Would we make it difficult to go outside? Would we make sitting still a virtue? Would we accept the idea that we would prefer to “harden” learning spaces for children rather than take away weapons designed for only one task — murder?
What Do You Want Your Children to Be?
It is that question that needs to define everything about what a school is. If you want your children to be creative, to be collaborators, to be great communicators, to know how to make choices, to know how to build their own work and/or learning environments, to be kind, to be curious, to learn throughout their lives from the great wide world, to engage with technology well, to build healthy relationships and lead healthy lives then can you really do that within the closed boundaries of traditional schools? Can you do that with age-separated learning? With closed classroom doors? With separated subject areas? Without seating choices? Without technology choices? Without culturally engaged learning groups?
Can you do that with bells ringing telling kids to stop what they are thinking about and move on to another subject? Can you do that when you artificially divide kids, whether via reading “levels,” or with honor rolls, or with one or two student activities honored above the rest?
What — from space, to rules, to time schedules, to how and where lunch is eaten, to what voice a teacher uses, to where the teacher desk is, or if there is a teacher desk, to homework attitudes, to whether kids can personalize computers — creates the school that is most likely to yield the learning our kids need?
