Perhaps it's time we dumped the old-fashioned idea of school. A place to send children 6-7 hours a day to get the 12+ years of programming to upgrade their "stone-age" brains ready for 21st Century use.
Worth the wait? Of course you say. But think of it this way. How would you feel if you had to wait 12 years before you could use your brand new computer? You might prefer to start with what's available today. So why not kids?
Imagine a new kind of learning place/space. For Wisdom Age-ready kids. Who learn how to design and facilitate their own knowledge discovery and wise applications methods. Or go out into their communities to undertake useful projects for others, to serve not only their own interests as learners and people, but also the broader community interest. Who create their own jobs. Or the rich relating, negotiating and inspiring skills that are critical to success.
It's a problem that no one can escape. Our collective knowledge is expanding at an exponential rate. Yesterday's theory is tomorrow's mythology. It's the driver for accelerating change. So by the time our children graduate, the jobs they aspire to today and the tools they will use, will no longer exist. And the content they have been exposed to, but may not have absorbed, will be marginally useful.
So here's a workshop to help young people explore the careers they might like to pursue:
1. Make a list of the top 10 wicked problems or unsolved issues in the world today e.g. injustices that people feel they have to take action against, diseases like malaria that can be dealt with successfully.
2. Thinking about the kind of career you would like to pursue, how could you re-invent this job so that it was a great fit with your sporting, hobby, home or other interests? e.g. rock climbing archeologist, Deep sea diving plumber.
3. Thinking about 2-3 different kinds of jobs/careers that you might like, how could you combine these kinds of jobs into a new super-job which would be more exciting, powerful or interesting.
4. Creating a better world: If you had any powers that you liked, what would you do to change the world for the better e.g. bake scrumptious cakes that people would drool over.
5. Important to keep: What do you really love about the world that is really important to keep and how would you like to play a role in doing that?
6. You have the job of re-inventing jobs, so they are more interesting, exciting, but most-of-all require that you do your work WISELY. How does this change your job? e.g. a hairdresser who helps you develop a plan for different ways to wear your hair, for different occasions or care for your hair between haircuts.
7. In the upcoming Wisdom Age (post-Knowledge Age world) new jobs are being invented in hunter gathering, agriculture, mining, construction, manufacturing, information, and knowledge sectors which add a Wisdom component. Brainstorm some new jobs e.g. Certified ethical hacker, global governance consultant, ecological foot print auditor.
8. Thinking about your new career idea, how could you best serve the interests of others, so there is a win-win-win result? You win, they win and other people win as well.
9. Thinking about your career preferences, how could you redesign the job, so you are always inventing better ways to make the jobs simpler, more efficient, more interesting, or something that others could easily do for themselves?
10. Which other kinds of people in the room could you connect up with to offer a new-to-the world product or service that you could not do alone e.g. hairdresser, self-help expert and trainer.
11. Thinking of a job such as a personal trainer, computer programmer, tour guide, singer, etc. what kind of tool could you invent which would help lots of people improve their lives using your methods?
12. What is the title you will wear on your name badge this year?
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