I believe many educators will share my feelings when I say that we are educating our children for an unknown future. We have begun experiencing the Fourth Industrial Revolution with frequent major developments in many fields including genetics, artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology, augmented reality, 3D printing, and biotechnology. The exponential growth in these fields and many others rapidly change everything in our lives. According to the World Economic Forum, 65% of the children starting schooling today will work in jobs that do not even exist yet. It is also expected that today's children will change multiple careers during their lifetime.
So, the big question is: How do we prepare today's children for jobs that do not even exist yet? Or in other words, how do we educate them for the unknown?
There are many ways to answer this question. In this post, I would like to share the answer of the famous historian and the author of multiple bestselling books, professor Yuval Noah Harari. His answer resonates well with me.
According to Yuval Noah Harari, even though we never fully know the needed skills since we do not know the future, his best bet will be focusing on emotional intelligence and mental resilience/mental balance so that we can adapt to frequent changes and regularly learn new things to be successful in tomorrow's world.
He also has some other interesting ideas about other possible future developments. Even though I do not agree with all of his opinions, I still think he has many great ideas. If you are are not familiar with his thoughts, please see a video of him below. To see his answer to this particular question, please skip to minute 32. Enjoy!