Preventing extinction -task 1 curating missing curricula of 5th grade up

[chris macrae]

To tartt with- can i mention my dad (Norman Macrae0)strange need to question both educaoirs and economists and journalists (his working life at The Economist and as biographer of Von Neumann0;

he  had spent his last days as teen navigatot alliued bimber comand world war 2 burma- he didnt feel ed had prepped him much - more at teachforun.com & teachforsdgs.com

==========lots of typos editing this as i fly off to hong kong to catch up with 500 educators I was due to meet nov 2019 but riots and then covid delayed departure - yesterday world bankalso caught up with educator fazle abed - with billion asian womens copperation/empowermemt my greatest hero - see Abedmooc.com

Please note : I would like tro linkin with people who are happy to simplify where we 8 billion beings and abundant technolgy have got to. Lets asume 202-0s are most exciting decade to be alive, becasue they may be the last that we can join together to prevent orweel's big brother syndrome (and evential exinction ofour species)

As a mathematicain it would certainly be the biggest maths error ever to race to extinction. BUt before we discuss that racing to extinction suggests there is something wrong with education systems. If I understand correctly, most schooling systems are designed with a primary phase up to age elven. This phase's overall purpose is to maske sure every child is equippend with core literacies such as the 5 r's as well as to help each child with what senses they have been given. If for example a child's eyeisght is impaired spectacles can be the solution for most children. Of course for the blind, we need a different approach which bincliudes braille. After 11 we are saying a child needs to start selecting a unique combination of skills to make the most of life and livelihood.

So if there are missing curricula around age of 11 thats a problemn both foir children and tecahers ((what system and time do they need to both learn and teach- if a system is confgured around examinations, is that in danger of propadating wrong mindsets of both kids and teachers). I have talked to quiet a lot of peopel since 1984 when I coauthored 2025 report on education and sustainability. They tell me missing curriuculum inckude:

understand from 11 how to be healthy

understanding from 11 how not to be wasteful giiven a conflict between 2 types of energy - cleasn food and water humans need to be energised by, whaatever sources of energy applied to engineering and technology

Another missing curriculum my family and siadpiora scots have explored for generations is what I call missing world trade maps. When I grew up in mid 20th c London , I could understand geiohistiry at school. For example we never got to thge 20th Century. It was only later I realsied ist socially and polutically hard for a nation to agree what to say to children on the subjevct of : by 1039 most of the world's people had be colonised (trapped in various ssytems blocking trades they most needed) and our nation did more of that bad system design than any other.

My afther's education was unusual. Until 13 he was ,ainly home schooled in British Embassies where his father collected more intel for Breitain on the risks posed by Hitker and stalin than any other single civil servant. The dad went to boarding school in London and found himself spending is last days as a teenager navigating airplanes on allied bomber command Burma. . I hope you can see my father needed to find a way to maximise curiosirt/exploration, minimise certainty (which can be imprinted by education systems that assume there is only one correct answer0

Forunatley my fartherv survived world war 2. What haooenbed in his next 6 years - he was in Keynes last class at cmabrideg, he was hired by London's economist, he was seconded to New york for a year in 1951. There he met Von Neumann at Proncton. John said the biggest scoop you can share ewoth journalists leat alone economists is; what goods will peopels do with 100 times more etch every decade.

To my father tht doubled and reoubled the importance of asking what are education's missing curriculum. From 1945 we humans were entering an era of new new worlds, whose consequenvces would compoiund orders of magbitude fatser than old and new world mapping from late 1400s (and the emsses eg British had made of that, especially when they has a cnetiry of being the first ton play with enegine's physicalk power, before in 1865 electricity not only chnaged the world of dsitributing power but also of sharing knowhow across the world). From what I see the workld trade of things and of knowledge involve very different valuation mapp0ing even as the whole needs by each new geration to be questioned as one overall game. The game's players incluide the forces of humans, of engineering with 100 times more every decade, and of nature who still is overall judge of which species to extingusih next.

Game on?

Actually I would like to extend the list of missing curicula from research which has mainly be done around the half of teh wotrd's children who elave formal education at about 7th degrade - it turns out that they have extra missing curricula which include

money

coding

innovation/local entrepreneurship

abiulity to teamworkd and chair community devcsiin making across cultures

Now when we say these are missing curricula, we might be well advised to think of tese as apprentice networkin g opportunities more than classroom theory studies. Whilst I think most parent know there are arristic and spoirtings kills that take practice practice practice, it is at least arguable that these additional missing curricula are accomplished more by practice than theoretical studies

There is one more meat-challenge to waht already looks like a huge task list if youi accept my farming. Back in 1984 i coa-uthired a future histiry. WE explored one overall hypothesis- coudl tech be used so that children of teh 2020s are identified with their own skils dashboars and their own personal curatir of next action learing opportunities. Nothing i have seen in the ast 40 yeras has changed my mind that if we did want the 21st C to be one in which every next child birn has a chnace to thrive then ed and etch and every disvcipline needed to cooperativly value the 3 decades known so far as web 1 and 2 so that every childs sorinbiard to the future worked for that child her teachers, her communities as well as whatever it is that global forces count as griwth and sustainability

[chris macrae]

In my view of the world we are all hugely fortuante that the person withy most reponsibility for safety and trust of telationship mapping between all of us is Antonio Guterres- both an engineer and before hos 10 yera leadership term 2017-2026 at the UN one of the most dedicated servant leaders responsible for developing the UN;s ervices ti refugees - a very local chalenge even as the world's global descisions are spun up to 100 time sfaster by webs we design

After hisr first year of revoiewing where we had all gotten to, Guteres asked everyo ojm earth to help redesting un2 - a cooperation in digital roamapping that does not simply inbvile every innovation opportunity of how the un governs, but every way and place governs

In tanking stick of the situation of our soecies, Guettere had been given th 2015 framweork that all natiosn had agreed to communiacte around - 17 sustainabilirt development goals. Now of course 17 goals is far too much for any one human moind to translate into every behavoiopral inetraction but still they provide a copass for mapping overall cooperation needed if indeed consequences of life in the new new world are every next child flourishes and not hurling towards extinction. Peerhaos we should not be surprsied that after a year of asking digital and global experst to question where we had got to: the conclkusion fall 2019 was multiple systems needed simulataneour updatinf including money heath and education, let alone how we mediate web world. As kife turned out nature from december 2019 demonstrated what no diffusion of ideas could with the plague that is covid which is redoubking what we need to question about money and energy, human health and nature, commons of airwaves and technolgy, let alone the missing curricula and processes of what we call education.