There is little question that there is a huge opportunity for redesigning our education systems at this moment. The need is urgent and well-articulated in this article: at the heart is the need to prepare students to work on more complex problems than those of the industrial past. Our systems are still largely designed for "shaping" students to overcome the simpler challenges of the past.

Ian, above, highlights a barrier to taking advantage of this opportunity which is difficult to ingore: one of the primary functions of the current system is simply to look after children while their parents are working. With this function suddenly disappearing, I know many parents who are so desperate to send their kids back to school that educational concerns are quite secondary. Survival comes first, and it seems unlikely we will see a large movement back to only one parent working anytime soon, or ever.

The shift from "shaping" to "modelling" (very interesting to consider how the latter relates to indigenous approaches) seems to be the task. Since learning by modelling happens through doing, I will venture a controversial proposition: how can we put students to work in a way that will help them build the skills they need for the future? What problems can they help us solve within their communities that the market is not currently solving? How can we organize this "work" in a way that makes it engaging, fulfilling, and meaningful?

I imagine a future system of education where high school students are graduating with many years of work experience - skilled in designing and managing projects, leading others, making difficult decisions, and with clarity around their own strengths and weaknesses, based on a lifetime of trial and error.