Unschooling and Other Signals of Disruption in Education

Unschooling Could Be Addictive

Margaret Mead was a futurist and anthropologist who predicted the concept of lifelong learning in 1966. She was concerned with how to “bring about a desirable state of mild addiction to learning” among students. She espoused that we should encourage school “dropouts,” in the sense that a society where people voluntarily drop in and out of learning experiences throughout their lives is actually healthier than one-size-fits-all educational environments.

The image of the future Mead envisioned is being realized in the form of Unschooling, a contemporary education trend that rejects standardized curriculum in favor of student-designed learning. The corporation Beyer recently moved to self-management which resonates with the sentiment behind unschooling: autonomy offers invaluable benefits to an individual’s personal and professional development. Un-mentoring in the professional environment might take a similar approach by expecting the mentee to decide what they would like to learn about. Should the future workforce be prepared for an environment of "Un-mentoring" and "Un-management"?


Disruptive Signals

· The toolbelt generation: Gen Z is rejecting university in favor of trade school. This trend toward blue-collar career paths suggests community colleges and vocational education will become more relevant. The demand and wages in trades could strengthen the middle class and provide a higher quality of living for Gen Alpha and Beta.

· AI Cold War could revamp public school system, which was designed for the industrial era and to defeat Soviets in STEM: ”AI, like space in the mid 20th-century, is a new frontier; it’s a blank sheet for global norms.” Microschools, unschooling, homeschooling, vocational education, online schooling, and AI educators are potential sources of disruption to traditional schooling.

· Outdoor education: Half the world’s population will be nearsighted by 2050 and “Surveys involving children and their parents affirm the critical influence of prolonged focus on close objects — and a marked reduction in time spent outdoors — on rising myopia rates.” Natural outdoor classrooms could be seen as a way to reduce behaviorally-induced vision loss among Gen Alpha and Beta. Screen time is a major cause, which may add to the building case against screens in childhood.

· The Care Economy workforce is in decline, so is the teaching profession. A shortage of teachers, childcare providers, home health workers, nurses, and early education experts is creating high demand for labor. The demographic trends of aging and low birth rates play into opportunities for automation, AI, remote and migrant workers to fill the gap.


Photo by Soheb Zaidi on Unsplash