Will our students solve the world’s wicked problems?

The concept of a wicked problem was popularised by Horst Rittel, a professor who worked in the field of design theory. A wicked problem is a complex, multi-faceted social or cultural problem which is either difficult or ‘impossible’ to solve. Climate change, poverty, an obesity epidemic, could all be described as ‘wicked problems’.

Interestingly the language around wicked problems comes from the language of design, at least according to Rittel. He looks at solutions as designs which can be implemented upon a problem. Nonetheless, he sees that it is difficult to measure impact when one problem bleeds quickly into another. For example, if you successfully create a situation for a developing nation to develop its agricultural offering and raise itself out of poverty, you may inadvertently set back the climate change agenda as an unintended consequence.

But ‘wicked problems’ exist at more tangible levels and they exist for people in more personal ways. Our children are growing up in a world which tells them that the result of factors implemented before they were born, have doomed their planet and their society. They see these messages and many have attempted to rise to the challenge in their own ways. Whether this is the very public work of Greta Thunberg, or the quiet campaigning of school children to reduce the use of plastic bottles in their own school in many ways doesn’t matter. What matters is that we help facilitate the problem-solving.

At my school we have introduced a course which sits alongside the A Levels our students take. The course, called Digital Inquiry, is designed to deliver learning, information and ideas around many of the skills schools have traditionally found it difficult to teach, and that will hopefully better prepare them for the world after school. Modules include Ethics, Critical Thinking, Entrepreneurship, Coding, Film Production and Design Thinking.

The aim of the course is to give our students an opportunity to collaborate on a problem of their choosing. They must find an innovative solution or, design a product, which improves a situation that they care about.

Not every group is going to attempt to solve a wicked problem, however, already we are seeing how quickly environmental and mental health issues come to the surface as things they want to tackle. We have groups developing a legal aid app, because they were frustrated by what they had read regarding a drop in funding for this area, we have overlays for social media being designed to support young people who come across content that upsets them and a group designing a plastic free shampoo, with a fantastic narrative around a zero emissions journey for their product from development to consumer. By empowering them with a set of skills, both real-life and digital, we are giving them the opportunity to have a rounded view of a problem, with the tools to begin tackling them.

Where I think the course really succeeds, is that groups will pitch their ideas to our alumni community, who will then mentor groups with ideas they perceive as viable or exciting. This gives our students a genuine opportunity to break through the barriers of the school bubble and turn their attention to matters beyond their immediate community.

The course is delivered both online and face-to-face with opportunities for our students to meet entrepreneurs and agents of change in the real world, giving them invaluable insight into what it really takes to take an idea to reality.

To use an analogy fitting to the fact that the Rugby World Cup is currently playing out, we have in many ways thrown our children a hospital pass; maybe it wasn’t intentional, but it has happened. What we need to ensure, is that we have coached them well enough to deal with this challenge, and overcome some of the obstacles that lie ahead.

If you would like to support our students, by coming to speak to them about your work, you would like to mentor them, or you would like to know more about the Digital Inquiry course, do feel free to contact me.