Self Organisation is new the purpose of Education

Compliance or self organisation?

Someone once said: "The future isn't what it used to be". This is certainly true for education where the timeline for a basic education (20 years) is much longer than the foreseeable future. This has big implications for the planning and organisation of schooling. 

The industrial age arose from the use of new technology in highly organised ways. The result was factories supported by schooling that prepared people to be compliant and organised by managers. In many ways, schools were education "factories", teachers were "managers", and "production" was determined by the "owners of the factories". Learning was treated as "work" and students as "workers".

Now there are many fewer factories, new technology continue to disrupt work and, as a result, work is increasingly difficult to organise in systemic ways, and there is growing uncertainty about the future of work itself.

To the extent that they remain "factories" and promote compliance over self organisation, schools are less and less relevant to the present and future of today's students.

Schooling for self organisation

Designing education faces an enormous challenge. A basic education takes the first 20 years of a person's life and we can't envisage what the future world in general, and work in particular, will be like in a fraction of that time.

Self organisation occurs in personal and social contexts

• Learning for self organisation requires high levels of social and emotional learning

Perhaps the only things that are certain about the future are that the

• The current rate of change will continue and increase
• Uncertainly about the future of education and work will increase accordingly
• Planning education will be increasingly difficult 
• Preparing people for new forms of compliance will be counter productive
• Individual and shared success will depend on innovation and agility as all levels
• Education will need to utilise and promote self organisation 
• Educators should revisit constructivism 
• The "factory owners" may be in charge, but they are no longer in control
• Planning and policy making need to reflect the emerging reality

There are systems of education that are already addressing these issues

• Finland
• Big Picture
• Negotiated studies
• Real-time project learning
• ...