WHILE I MIGHT not recognise it, I knew
it by the sound of my professor’s steady
voice.
I remember thinking I’ll know the future.
But I don’t. I know of a future. I also
know a thousand other ways we don’t end
up there. This present, once a future, is not
one I’d ever prepared for.
What strikes me is this: in me0eting rooms,
in conversations after the meeting ends, the
language sticks. ‘The future’ — of education,
of work, of learning. The skills they’ll
need. As if there’s only one path forward,
and our job is to point them toward it.
It’s changing now. That the old agreements
about what education promises – a
degree equals a job equals security – are
loosening.
The first crack in the ice is AI. The thawing
is neither good nor bad, but it is simply
here. In classrooms, in the tools we use to
write and think. It has walked through the
doors. The question is what we do now that
certain work can be done by something else.
Beyond the obvious panic, there is intrigue
— students want to understand
what it means to work alongside something
that can produce but not feel, that
can calculate but not care. They’re asking
how to stay human in proximity to a thing
that isn’t.
The second thing is harder to name. It has
to do with skills that don’t show up neatly
on a transcript. Collaboration that actually
requires listening. Creativity that can’t be automated
because it emerges from doubt, from
trying something and watching it fail.
These capacities have always mattered,
but they matter differently now. Because
if a machine can draft the memo, write the
code, analyze the data, then what’s left
for us is the part that requires being alive:
the noticing, the connecting, the deciding
what’s worth doing in the first place. These
tools are no longer supplementary.
HOW DO WE RECOGNISE IT?
The third, and perhaps the most divisive,
is the matter of credentials. I’ve been in
higher education long enough to feel protective
of degrees. They meant something
to me, years ago. It was a promise. It opened
up the world. But I’m also watching what
happens when someone can learn to code
in six months, build a portfolio in a year,
demonstrate competence without ever setting
foot in a lecture hall.
The future
is a rolling
mass. No one
has seen it.
So, it’s best
to regard
the future
as already
before us,
and work
accordingly.
This doesn’t reject the idea of a university;
it simply rewrites the only legitimate
path forward. Students aren’t less willing to
learn, they’re more curious than ever. They
have the autonomy to decide their curiosity,
and they’re not willing to bend to rigid
4-year programs decided decades ago.
THE MONOPOLY ON EDUCATION IS ENDING.
All this adds up to is this: uncertainty. The
future, in spite of technological advances,
and new schools of thought, remains uncertain.
More so than ever.
Perhaps the preparation isn’t in the
knowing. Perhaps it is in embracing the
perpetual uncertainty — in remaining curious
in the face of the unknown. To keep
building as the blueprint changes.
What can I give students, if not the
answers? Perhaps nothing more than
company, as we figure this out together.
We can ask each other the questions,
fumble around the answers. We can learn
with each other.
We’re making it up as we go. The future,
really, is now.