The Future of Education with Francis Valintine

We gathered to listen to Francis Valintine (founder of mind lab) who shared her fundamental view regarding 'The Future of Education':

What skills do we need for the future?

Francis discussed that we have previously been able to look ahead in linear ways and that we now need great visibility about what our future looks like. She suggests we need to understand what technology is and how we can use it to improve our future.We are all challenged, all having to rethink the future of education.We are in a time where we have great visibility and now need to look at how we can prepare our kids for the global world.

Francis pointed out views parents have and how they are questioning ways we can support technology when it brings us the likes of fortnite. The use of technology to play fortnite has involved many young students exhibiting behaviours where they are showing increasing signs of being tired and losing concentration in class due to lengthy time and energy spent playing fortnite. This present us with a challenge. Francis likened our role to support students to requiring similar effort to learning the road rules. That we need to teach students to know when to get off and make them aware of other implications.

Children under the age of 13 are fundamentally wired differently. Their natural fall back position is to talk and discuss what they are doing, therefore to collaborate. We must embrace this and be aware that jobs of the future will be replaced by people with greater technological skills. We have already seen great technological advances. Scientific breakthroughs are happening everyday. If we don't teach students how to use technology they could use it as a consumer. We need to encourage use of technology as a tool and allow students to use it properly.

We need to consider how we manage our students learning and  acknowledge the vast amount of learning that takes place outside of school from students learning skills from YouTube, sport and experimenting with baking and making things at home.It's important that we aren't intimidated by the technology that we have and that we learn to use it to benefit our students. Francis pointed out that we have to have some discomfort with the future of education due to the impacts technology presents us with. I believe that it's important that we embrace the positive aspects of technology. Knowing we have the likes of wearable s that tell us we are not so well are going to help us live better.

Some of what Francis pointed out that I believe we need to consider moving forward for our students:

• How do we do things with a different lens when opportunities are great?
• How can we create cohesion between digital kids and analogue teachers/ parents?
• Retaining knowledge matters less than the ability to gain new knowledge as you need it.
• Find ways to guide our students by getting out of their way, hearing their voice and extracting what they see differently to us.
• Be aware that generation 'Z' may not have been into a bank or even know what banks are for.
• For the roles that are disappearing there are more being created (re branded jobs with elements of traditional roles).
• Our students already imagine a different world.
• We have to figure out what we are teaching our kids for future jobs.
• Right now half the worlds population are under 30. They are rewriting the rules at a fast pace. 
• Use of cognitive robot teachers to provides augmentation for kids that want to go further.