“The old ways of learning are unable to keep up with our rapidly changing world,”is one of the premises of A New Culture of Learning, by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown. We know that when children are young they learn by playing — imagining things, experimenting, and so on. In our world of constant change, adaptability and innovation are highly valued. Interestingly, in a world of flux the ability to play at all ages becomes more necessary. Why? Because an attitude of play is an attitude of inquiry — as Thomas and Brown describe it, “A child playing with a new toy and an adult logging onto the Internet, for example, both wonder, ‘what do I do now?’…play becomes a strategy for embracing change.”
Thanks to John Johnson for recommending A New Culture of Learning. It gave me another look at systems thinking in education. A new way of living has ushered in a new way of learning. Unfortunately, the public school system is such an excruciatingly slow moving bureaucracy it can never facilitate the adaptability today’s children need to learn to be prepared for tomorrow’s future.
