A ticket out of Mesopotamia

Up until fairly recent times - the '80s of my childhood, the '90s, still the early 2000s - even the most basic knowledge wasn't yet widely accessible beyond the gates of School. When something was available, in the form of a tv program here, a kids magazine with some pretense of educational content there, then it was bereft of any structure or consistency.

When I was a child an encyclopedia was, to some extent, a luxury. The digital, much cheaper ones published on optical discs instead of sumptuous tomes - would only appear a decade later. But then, it was the devices to access such media, to be out of financial reach: a cd reader back in the mid-90s could easily set one back 500 USD.

Today, historical, geographical, humanistic knowledge, some foundations of scientific understanding – are completely accessible, with a level of ease of consultation, research, and most important - interdisciplinary coalescing - that were absolutely unimaginable not long ago.

Take it a step further, and there you have AI - this soon-to-be ubiquitous, always available companion who also happens to be an all-knowing polymath with access to the entirety of humankind's knowledge not just horizontally but vertically as well, with the ability to be queried with the casual comfort and familiarity of plain human language.

So, my attention fell on this little humorous video, where a young adult complained to his mother that when he was a child, according to her, "school would teach him everything" - and yet now, as a fresh grown up, he found himself with no idea of how to face life... but, on the bright side, he learned that Mesopotamia rose between the Tigris and the Euphrates...

It got me wondering: is it perhaps time for school, for education to undergo this humbling yet inevitable metamorphosis and set aside - say - what countries does Belgium border, the reading of Moby Dick, the year and month and day Napoleon died? Teach, instead, how to learn. We keep handing a mackerel to a poor man, rather than showing him how to cast a fishing net, when there's now an ocean brimming with fish just outside his door.

Is it perhaps time, too, to collectively accept that, yes – the ability to mentally add three-digit numbers soon won’t be necessary anymore in any meaningful context (if that isn’t already true right now) - just like it’s no longer vital to know how to wield a sword, ride a horse, or start a fire. Is it perhaps time to demote certain notions from 'fundamental' to just 'useful,' and make space for something else, harmonize education with what have become the present’s needs?

And if we take a good look at what the needs of this fragile present really are, then I'd pluck out some school hours away from multiplication tables and square roots and repurpose them to nurture those emotional and character-building foundations that recent generations seem to be lacking almost entirely. I would use them to teach those practical know-hows that today can make or break an entire life journey just as it gets started.

I would educate soon to be young adults on how to cope with the end of an important relationship or the death of a family member. How to manage rejection, how to stave off delusions, avoid manipulation, distinguish facts from disinformation.

I would prepare these wide-eyed kids to the quirks and pitfalls of a wire transfer, tell them what a mortgage is, how an insurance policy works. Work ethics. Finance. God knows I wish that - given the same level of complexity - back in high school someone had at least given me half an idea about stocks and bonds, instead of waxing lyrical about telomeres and messenger RNA.

I guess it's too late for a disclaimer on the naiveté and sheer controversy of this article that hopefully didn't devolve too much into a provocatory rant. But really, never before has the time been so right to consider that shift:

Results of the gap analysis of the last couple generations are in, and we're heading toward a future of shambling, disoriented youths who can barely function practically and emotionally in this world disconnected by an excess of connectivity.

It is, I truly believe, a state of emergency - and Educators should step out of the comfort zone of pure notion-pushing.

Into new territory,

out of Mesopotamia.