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 All who want work are fully "employed".
But in most "developed" countries only a minority are working
"nine-to-five" for major corporations. The largest percentage are working for
themselves on work they love to do, selling their goods and services on the Internet to
niche markets around the world.
Nearly all companies are learning organizations.
Their main role is to organize people, not necessarily employ
them - for most people are self-employed and contract either singly or in small groups
to handle specific projects.
Nearly all the new community learning centres are
closely linked to business and other organizations in a full "learning
community".
Does all
this sound utopian? Light years into the future?
On the contrary. It is all possible now. And all
aspects are being practiced in pockets around the world. We will cover examples
through-out this book.
But the need is not merely to study them. It is to
actively reinvent the future of education.
The giant Arthur Andersen consulting group puts it
bluntly: "The traditional education system is obsolete."1
It says: "We need to replace today's
assembly-line lockstep with 'self-directed' learning that is based on modern-day
principles of cognitive science - including discovery, meaning making, immersion and
self-assessment - and the natural love of learning with which every person is
born." It feels so strongly about it that it has designed its own model school for
the 21st century.
Its
thoughts are echoed by a 1995 Canadian Royal Commission: "The demands of schools have
increased so greatly over the last few years," it says, "and the world has
changed so drastically that nothing less than a radical reform of the school system is
necessary if we are to walk boldly into the 21st century."2 Many other countries and states are also searching
for new roads to school reform.
But if your aim is only to create the world's best
schools, then the answer is surprisingly simple: you need only to identify the
best ideas already operating and link the ones that fit your needs.
But the real revolution is not only in schooling. It is
in learning how to learn, in learning how to think, in learning new techniques
that you can apply to any problem, any challenge, at any age.
Contents Page Preface
Introduction
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