Imagine if your high school offered classes on AI and quantum mechanics

It is difficult for any society, no matter how open or advanced already, to be completely self-aware of the speed or scale by which scientific discovery and new technology are changing its own understanding of of the world. If we currently live in a new Enlightenment, it seems appropriate to try to imagine a radical change to what we teach the young generations.

Just like the teaching of physics and biology long time ago moved on from Aristotle’s theories to Newton and Darwin, could it be time for us today to make an equally radical change. If so, how could an entirely new curriculum look like for, let’s say, middle and high school students? What could students be learning tomorrow instead of today’s French, triangles, incline planes, frog directions, band, drama and Shakespeare…yes, beyond Shakespeare?

Imagine a school of tomorrow where these would be some of the classes offered:

• Probability
• Molecular Biology and Evolution
• Quantum Mechanics
• Thermodynamics and Kinetics
• Object-oriented Programing
• Algorithms
• Artificial Intelligence and Human-Computer Interaction
• Robotics
• Logic and Lingusitics
• Design and Animation
• Music Composition
• Performance and Visual Art
• Data Science

As for the social science and humanties, many of the topics seem to remain equally important and relevant regardless of scientific or technical advances. These include, of course, above all, History, Philosophy, Religion, Literature and Creative Writting. In the end, we remain responsible for teaching new generations the works of Aristotle and Shakespeare no matter how much science and technology advance. Aristotle was wrong about most things and Shakespeare is virtually incomprehensible to kids speaking contemporary English, but the same will be certainly true of our science and language…and that future will arrive at lest 10 to 100 times sooner than Aristotle and Shakespeare’s did.