The Inevitable Future of Humanity in Education — And What to Do About It

Humanity in the Era of A.I.

Photo by James Pond on Unsplash

In his book The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future published in 2016, Kevin Kelly, a leading technology maverick, identifies twelve inevitable technological forces that will shape the next 30 years, one of which being “Cognifying”. That is to say, under the context of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, everything — such as healthcare, sports, music, and more — will be more intelligent. As automation replaces our jobs due to its higher efficiency and lower cost, we should return to the question “What makes us human”?

First of all, Kelly proposes that machines’ intelligence is different from that of humans, as machines are fed complex algorithms and numerous data without owning the ability to think cognitively like us. Humans are able to think about thinking itself and create new ideas and objects, while machines mostly perform routine works.

Additionally, in his recent Ted Talk and book AI Superpowers, Kai-fu Lee, an AI pioneer and venture capitalist, shed lights on this question. After being diagnosed with Stage 4 lymphoma, he reflected on how he neglected his family as a result of his workaholic habits and realized that empathy, love, and compassion are what make us human. Admittedly, AI is taking over some of our work, but Lee considers this our liberation from routine jobs. Facing such a rapid change, society would demand more social workers, caregivers, and teachers to help make the transition.

However, our current education system has not changed much in preparation for such a transition. As Geoffrey Canada points out in his Ted Talk “Our Failing Schools. Enough is Enough!”, many institutions have not made improvement over the past several decades, thus delaying the potential benefits they could deliver to their students had they adjusted to the needs of society and the pace of technology. Furthermore, amid the craze for STEM education, more people are focusing on developing technical skills possibly more than their sense of humanity.

Then, shall we take a step back, reflect on the essence of education, and think about how to prepare the next generation for the inevitable future? In the following sections, I will identify three educational approaches that highlight some unique aspects of humanity.

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)

The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) first formed in 1994 to address humanity in education, and in recent years, there have been steadily increasing mentions of SEL (Source: Google Trends)

Source: Google Trends. Number of mentions of SEL

SEL is defined as “the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions”. SEL emphasize five important skills (Source: CASEL):

1. Self-Awareness: The ability to accurately recognize one’s own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behavior
2. Self-Management: The ability to successfully regulate one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in different situations
3. Responsible Decision-Making: The ability to make constructive choices about personal behavior and social interactions based on ethical standards, safety concerns, and social norms
4. Social Awareness: The ability to take the perspective of and empathize with others, including those from diverse backgrounds and cultures
5. Relationship Skills: The ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with diverse individuals and groups

Many studies have proved its benefits for students. A 2011 meta-analysis of 213 studies involving 270, 000 students shows an 11 percentile increase in academic achievement compared to those who did not participate in SEL. In addition, SEL has a long-term and global impact for students’ mental health and social skills.

Generally, students participating in SEL tend to have “positive social behaviors and attitudes, skills such as empathy and teamwork”, which are crucial skills for the increasingly globalized world. However, a survey by CASEL reveals that while 97 percent of teachers believe teaching SEL skills will improve student behavior, learning, and development, only 35 percent report that their school has developed a plan for SEL.

Some articles on SEL:

1. The Future of Education Depends on Social Emotional Learning: Here’s Why
2. 3 Tips to Incorporate Social-Emotional Learning Into Everyday Literacy Instruction
3. Social & Emotional Learning (SEL)? Not Just a Buzzword

Habits of mind and foundational concepts (HCs)

While SEL emphasizes the social and emotional aspect of humanity, HCs aim to develop cognitive and analytical skills in everyday life.

The Habits of Mind are a set of 16 skills identified by Costa and Kallick in their book Habits of Mind: A Developmental Series, including the following:

• Persisting
• Thinking and communicating with clarity and precision
• Managing impulsivity
• Gathering data through all senses
• Listening with understanding and empathy
• Creating, imagining, innovating
• Thinking flexibly
• Responding with wonderment and awe
• Thinking about thinking (metacognition)
• Taking responsible risks
• Striving for accuracy
• Finding humor
• Questioning and posing problems
• Thinking interdependently
• Applying past knowledge to new situations
• Remaining open to continuous learning

A new, innovative university, Minerva, has adopted Habits of Mind in their “Habits of mind and foundational concepts” (HCs) curriculum. They believe HCs are foundational to students becoming innovators, leaders, global citizens, and broad thinkers.

Minerva has identified nearly 80 of these HCs. During students’ first year in college, learning objectives are incorporated across their courses and cohorts. Interestingly, each HC is marked by a hashtag such as #utility, and when students approach a problem, they may refer to a certain HC as an aspect of thinking. Teaching about HCs in this way enforces the idea that no matter what the students do after graduation, the foundational concepts and mental skills will be applicable in their lives.

Now, you might want to ask, why HCs? How does it differ from other existing curriculums that emphasize core skills? Here, I would like to expand upon my experience with Duke’s Trinity College General Education Requirement. Each course contains at least one code, and students are required to complete two courses in each of five Areas of Knowledge and six Modes of Inquiry.

Personally, I favor such requirements because they expose students to multiple disciplines and help students hone analytical skills. However, from my observation, some students — especially those in STEM field — tend to pick easy classes that contain many codes. Doing so does not necessarily involve in active learning, and by the end of the semester they may neither retain nor be able to apply to their everyday lives the class’s teachings.

HCs, on the other hand, seem highly applicable to everyday life. According to this reflection about his freshman year, Eugene Chan said he already started using HCs just over the course of four class sessions, such as #rightproblem and #gapanalysis. And Sandra Jirongo, a current Junior at Minerva, described in this article that she is continuing to apply HCs in her life every day. For example, from one of the four Cornerstone classes during her freshman year, she learned to use empirical analysis to evaluate the world around her and become more conscious of her biases.

Humanics

The third approach to stress humanity in education is humanics. Concerned with the potential threat to skilled labor brought by Artificial Intelligence, Joseph E. Aoun, the current president of Northeastern University, wrote the book Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. He proposes a framework for a new discipline, humanics, a model of learning that “enables learners to understand the highly technological world around them and that simultaneously allows them to transcend it by nurturing the mental and intellectual qualities that are unique to humans — namely, their capacity for creativity and mental flexibility”.

Three literacies are included in the humanics curriculum: Technological, Data, and Human literacy.

In its simplest form, “literacy” refer to the ability to read and write in letters and numbers. In the digital era, human beings require more sophisticated and multifaceted literacies in order to communicate with other people and machines. By cultivating these three literacies, students will improve their cognitive skills, such as critical thinking, system thinking, entrepreneurship, and cultural agility. In such way, they are empowered to achieve their potentials and make a bigger impact.

Technological Literacy — As digital citizens, we are living in a world imbued with technology, but many of us don’t necessarily understand how software and hardwares work. Although not everyone needs to code, enriching our technological literacy never hurts. It broadens our horizons and empowers us to think big and create. Such literacy includes math, coding, basic engineering skills, etc.

Data Literacy — The 21th century is marked by the explosion of data, thus earning the title, the “Big Data Era”. The enormous amount of data, fast processing power, and advanced algorithms enable us to build models and explore correlations. Meanwhile, data analysis is stimulating more interdisciplinary studies involving not only STEM but also social science, which include fact-checking, sports, politics, etc.

Human Literacy — The most important literacy among the three. Human literacy prepares us for social milieu, facilitates engagement with others, and enhances human capacity for love and grace. In the global community, we need to interact with people who have different backgrounds and perspectives. Therefore, embracing diversity at schools and workplaces is essential for us to build human literacy.

Putting it all together

Facing the potential threat brought by technological advancements, we should constantly seek a better way to educate our next generation. SEL has been around for more than 2 decades, HCs are being experimented by Minerva since 2012, and humanics is a new framework from a book published in 2017. Thanks to them, more and more people are encouraged and empowered to challenge and reform the current education system.

However, implementing these ideas is certainly harder than coming up with them. As students, although we might not make a big impact, we could start being conscious of what you are learning and raising the awareness of humanity education. For educators, it is important to keep informed about current educational approaches and listen to students’ voice.

Today, schools carry extremely important missions. They not only need to highlight students’ innate strengths as humans, but also need to prepare students for a competitive labor market. Instead of competing with productivity-driven machines, we humans should further develop the aspects that make us unique. Only then are we able to cooperate with machines and build a better society.