Ai Will Transform Our Public Education System!

Welcome to the New World - The World of Smart Technology. Smart Technology will completely change both your way of life and your way of working. We will live in the most disruptive job-time since the Great Depression.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be used to optimize human performance, but it can be a Technology Bomb used to manipulate or transform human thinking and behaviors in manipulative ways that harm humans, society, and global peace. We have seen the bad results of social media manipulating human emotions in ways that have led to teenage deaths in the United States. What is possible now is the manipulation of how human beings think.

Technology will continue to advance in many areas: artificial intelligence, biotechnology, nanotechnology, genetic engineering, virtual and augmented reality, human-like robots, 3D Printing, digital medicine, imbedding technology in your body, and powerful drones, among others. All of this is likely to unfold in this decade!

Technology will automate blue- and white-collar jobs. In all cases, technology is going to take over doing the work that many of us do now.

Occupations generally predicted to be automated include customer service , banking , taxi driving, long-haul truck driving, bus driving, data entry, accounting, auditing, law, assembly-line and factory work, travel agencies, market research, telemarketing, courier service, business management, bookkeeping, typing, cashiers, retail sales, radiology, library services, loan officers, delivery of small parcels, and typing, cashiers, retail sales, radiology, library services, loan officers, delivery of small parcels, and data-based jobs that involve doing the same tasks over and over again.

Having the same job working for the same employer for five years or more will be history for most people. The best scientists predict that the average person will have five completely different jobs in the next two decades, necessitating ongoing skill updates or acquiring new skills. To thrive, individuals will have to continually adapt as technology adapts. Your biggest competition going forward is not other people—it’s YOU!

Every organization and every person will have to learn how to adapt at the speed of technological change. That means we all will need to become a Highly Adaptive Learner who can learn-unlearn and relearn at the pace of change.

People will have work if we can do the tasks that add value in ways that technology can’t add value, at least for the foreseeable future. There are three ways for us to do that:

1. Thinking in ways different from smart technology’s way of thinking. Those ways are higher-order critical thinking, making moral judgments, going into the unknown and figuring things out, creative, imaginative, and innovative thinking, and making decisions in situations where there is lots of uncertainty and not a lot of data.

2. Excelling at building caring, trusting, positive emotional relationships with other human beings, including teammates, customers, co-workers, patients, and clients. This will be our big differentiator from technology.

3. Excelling at doing trade jobs that require human dexterity and iterative diagnostic definitions of the problem and iterative trial- and-error approaches to solving the problem.

Are our Public Schools empowered to transform and train people for the Smart Ai Age?

That Is a Societal Existential Issue!

Our Public Education System is hindered significantly by achievement gaps underserving the students who will likely be at the highest risk of automation; the Digital Divide and the need for educational learning to become personalized to meet individual needs. Education in the United States is not an equal opportunity game. Wealthy families can buy the best education starting from kindergarten going through graduate school. Most American families can’t do that. What is at stake now in this new era of Smart Technology is the American Dream for those individuals and families who are not wealthy.

In this new era, the purpose of public education will be to teach every student how to become a “Highly Adaptive Learner” who can learn, unlearn, and relearn at the speed of technological change. That will require every student to learn how to “Take Ownership of You” so you can bring your “Best Self” to your world every day. To “Take Ownership of You” will require every student to learn how to take ownership of and manage their ego, their body, their mind, their emotions, their listening, their thinking, and how they emotionally relate to other people.

The goal is to help every student develop the foundational "soft skills”, learning skills, and technical skills required to do the type of work that humans will be needed to do. That is how people will have good jobs and stay relevant workwise. That is how people will have a meaningful life in the Age of Smart Technology.

That requires many schools to change what they teach and how they teach. This will require more teachers and more teaching aides because learning will be optimized by students having a personal “coach” and learning will be optimized by having students working in small teams. Hiring more teachers and more teaching aides will optimize each student’s cognitive, emotional, and behavioral development. Likewise, schools will need to offer out-of-school-time (OST) programs liberally to help all students become all they can be.

If we do not train our students fast enough to do the types of work that Smart Technology can’t do well at any given time, people will be left behind. That will further increase income inequality further polarizing our country. If we do not transform our way of educating people, the result will be horrendous – millions and millions of people will not have work. How will that work in our Country which does not have a viable social safety net system?

It is essential that our Federal, State and Local Governments immediately fund an “AI Public Schools & Workforce Transformation Program” that will ensure all students and workers are equipped with the necessary skills and competencies for the Smart Technology Era. Technology will not wait on education. An AI Public Schools & Workforce Transformation Program must be initiated and fully up and running by January of 2025.

Below are Chat GPT-4’s answers to my question: “What will be the impact on our Society if Public Schools do not embrace fast enough the need to train students to do the types of work that Smart Technology can't do well?”

“If public schools do not embrace the need to train students for work that smart technology cannot do well, there could be several potential impacts on society:

1. Skills Mismatch: Failure to adapt the curriculum to prepare students for work that requires uniquely human skills that could result in a significant skills mismatch. If schools do not prioritize developing these skills, students may graduate without the necessary competencies to succeed in the evolving job market.

2. Increased Inequality: The lack of preparation for work that complements smart technology can contribute to widening socioeconomic disparities.

3. Economic Competitiveness: Failing to train students for work that complements smart technology can have broader implications for a country's economic competitiveness. As the global workforce evolves, nations that successfully equip their students with the skills needed for future jobs will have a competitive advantage.

4. Hindrance to Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Neglecting to foster human creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills in students can severely impede innovation and entrepreneurial endeavors.

5. Erosion of Social Cohesion: The failure to prepare students for work that complements smart technology undermines the development of social and emotional skills essential for effective collaboration, communication, and empathy. Neglecting to emphasize these skills carries the risk of eroding social cohesion and intensifying polarization within society.”

The Smart Technology Age Requires the Complete Transformation of K-12 Education. Our current education system was built upon principles necessary for the Industrial Age, and that age is over. Many public schools are still in that era – the era of rote learning, memorizing, standardized tests, and the lack of individualized human development student by student.

Every school will have to become very student-centric focusing on the developmental cognitive and emotional needs of each student via individualized and small team learning activities.

Teachers Will Become Human Development Coaches.

Student-centric development is not new. Many schools in the United States have embraced that approach including Montessori Schools and Olin College of Engineering in Needham, MA. In the Era of Smart Technology, teachers, teacher aides and out-of-school providers will become more like coaches - coaching each student in the unique ways needed by that student to develop the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral skills that will enable her or him to have continuous work in an environment of continuous automation by Smart Technology. Human Development will be the new priority of schools.

The learning experiences of students will have to become more experiential, student-centric, and personalized. Education’s main purpose will not be the delivery of content – it will be the individualized development of each student. Optimizing student personal development will require in most cases more teachers, more teacher aides, and more individualized learning along with small team projects.

That requires a positive emotional school and classroom environment. Every school and every classroom must be a safe place emotionally and physically for every person. Psychological Safety will be required to optimize the type of learning that must occur in the Smart Technology Era. A safe place where people treat each other in a kind, caring, compassionate, respectful manner. Emotions and the emotional environment of the school will determine the quality of learning and the effectiveness of students being able to learn the skills they will need to prosper in this new AI age.

Every student is unique and that requires schools to create learning environments and processes that enable each student to learn “Soft Skills”: how to take ownership of self – ownership of one’s ego, mind, body, emotions, behaviors, words, listening, thinking, and how one relates to others. That is the Journey to Best Self which will be the new goal of public-school education.

That is how students learn to be resilient, to achieve emotional steadiness, a growth mindset, humility, become a reflective listener, and learn how to think in ways that smart technology can’t think. That is how students will learn how to have the courage to go into the unknown and figure it out. That is how students will be able to manage their negative emotions and generate positive emotions which is the pathway to optimizing learning with others. Students will need to learn how to collaborate with other humans in ways that build carrying, trusting relationships that optimize learning and collaboration.

The new purpose of public education in the AI Age is human development: The Journey to Best Self – one student at a time. The goal is to help students become Highly Adaptive Learners who can learn – unlearn and relearn at the speed of technological advancement.

Students will need to learn how to think critically, how to stress test their thinking, how to think creatively and innovatively, how to create and do projects, how to go the unknown and explore, and how to make sense of what they learned. Likewise, each student will have to learn how to reflectively listen to others; to manage their ego, mind, body, emotions, behaviors, words, and how they relate to others.

The goal is optimizing the development of every student, so they leave school knowing how to think differently than the technology; knowing how to emotionally connect and build positive emotional relationships with others and have the adaptability to learn – unlearn and relearn at the pace of change.

A successful teacher will be a teacher that does not teach to get good scores on state-wide tests. A successful teacher will be one who creates a classroom environment that optimizes: the human dignity of every student, psychological safety, collaboration, listening to learn not to confirm, and individual student development. That requires teachers to build trusting, caring relationships with each student in ways that the student feels listened to, being cared about, that the teacher is talking with me not to me, and the teacher is really understanding me.

This is not the first time that leaders have strongly advocated the need to reform Public Education. In 1962, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, a department of the National Education Association invited four renown educators: Earl C. Kelly, Carl R. Rogers, A.H. Maslow, and Arthur W. Combs to write a new book: Perceiving, Behaving, Becoming: A New Focus for Education (Yearbook 1962). Yes, over 60 years ago these four leading educators espoused their beliefs that a new education model was needed to optimize human development:

“The fullest possible flowering of human potentiality is the business of education.” (Page 2). They were very concerned with the lag time it takes to introduce new needed ideas in public schools. They concluded in 1962 that: “Survival itself is at stake. It is essential that the best we know be converted into practice as quickly as possible.”

Sound familiar? That is where we are now. Their advice was mostly ignored. The difference now is that technology is advancing much faster than we humans are advancing. The game now is very different than it was in 1962. The stakes now are even higher because of the probability of significant job automation by 2030 as technology continues to advance.

Ultimately, what is at stake over the next two decades is our democracy, the American Dream, and our ability to be a global leader. The stakes are high and speedy transformation is imperative. School Systems must adapt very quickly. Time is not on our side because of the way our education system is designed, funded, and operated. School leaders and teachers need to be at the forefront of driving these needed changes.

The purpose of Public Education in the Smart Technology Age will be human development. Public Education will be a human development “business”.

Personal development is highly dependent upon how the individual perceives her or himself. One’s perception of self is highly dependent upon how others treat each other. If a person feels respected and cared about by his or her teacher and teammates, then learning and exploration can really take place. That comes about from people having “Making Meaning Conversations”. That will require more teachers, more teaching aides and more Out of School Time Providers who are individually trained in ways to optimize the student’s self-development and their abilities to learn and collaborate with others. That will require teachers, teacher aides and Out of School Providers to role model having “Making-Meaning Conversations”.

In 1962, the authors of the forementioned book set forth a design of what learning by “making meaning” together with others would look like in the classroom:

“An educational system that hopes to change behavior must do more than provide facts; It must deal actively with meaning or personal perceptions. The learning of “the facts”, it must now be recognized, is but the first and simplest phase of the education process. Bringing “the facts” into the meaning world of the child is a teaching activity which will make a difference in the lives of students.” P.68

“The classroom must become a place where the exacting experience of exploring and discovering meaning is the central activity…They(students) learn how to learn”. P.70. The classroom climate must be made safe for exploration of meanings if they are to be changed”. P.71

Our Public Education System must be transformed. Teachers must transform themselves to deliver the education model needed for the Ai Age. Every school will need more teachers, more teacher aides, and more OST Providers. The curriculum must be redesigned to enable students to learn how to be on their Journey to Best Self cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally and to learn how to be a Highly Adaptive Learner who can learn – unlearn and relearn at the speed of change. That is how students will have meaningful work in the Smart Technology Age.

What is at stake?

From a Country perspective what is at stake is our Democracy and our ability to be a Global World Leader.

From an individual perspective, what is stake is the opportunity for every human being to have meaningful work and a meaningful life in the Era of Smart Technology.

It is essential that our Federal, State and Local Governments immediately fund an Ai Public Schools and Workforce Transformation Program that will ensure all students and workers are equipped with the necessary skills and competencies for the Smart Technology Era. Technology will not wait on education. An Ai Public Schools and Workforce Transformation Program must be initiated and fully up and running by January 2025.