Blog Post: Preparing For a Future We Don’t Know
Author: Kristi Kraychy, Head of School
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The next generation, more than ever, will need the essential ‘Changemaker Competencies’ that we teach, model and infuse into our school over the course of a day, week and year. Such skills include empathy, collaboration, communication, curiosity and critical thinking. Demonstrating traits of flexibility, perseverance and creativity, especially when working to solve real problems, are already known to be better indicators of long-term success. Success is no longer about arbitrary numbers or tests or who is the most ‘ahead’ on a linear path of school to career; it’s now about ideals such as overall happiness and meeting personal goals, reaching a certain amount of wealth to live comfortably, and making a difference in your chosen field or lifestyle (all of which will look different for each individual). The skills we prioritize at our school most certainly will serve any child now (and childhood in and of itself is also important) as well as into a future we can’t even imagine yet.
A re-post of an article by The Telegraph’s, Marianne Power:
“Most of the professions we do today will be obsolete in two decades…
So, what lies ahead for children being born today? What will the workplace look like when they turn 18 in 2040? Will university still exist? Will robots be doing our work?”
“It’s not which jobs will be automated, but when they will be automated: every part of the economy will be affected,” says Badminton, whose book on the subject, Facing Our Futures, will be published by Bloomsbury later this year.
Machines are predicted to be better than us at translating languages by 2024; writing high-school essays by 2026; driving a truck by 2027; working in retail by 2031; writing a bestselling book by 2049; and performing surgery by 2053. In fact, all human jobs will be automated within the next 120 years,” says Badminton.
Some jobs may not exist at all in the future: taxi drivers are likely to be replaced by self-driving cars; cashiers and retail staff will largely be replaced by machines that will let you pay for items yourself (such shops already exist). Deliveries might be done by drones, and much of telemarketing and customer service will be done by artificial intelligence (AI)…
What is more, AI has proved to be more effective than human doctors in terms of diagnosing certain conditions. That, of course, has huge implications for human doctors. Similar advances are being made in dentistry, where robots are already doing routine jobs better than humans can do them…
But amid all the disappearing jobs there is good news. “While there will be a shift towards automation, I think we’ll be a world of the human and machine working together in symbiosis,” says Badminton. “We will be freed from repetitive work to do more creative things together. I call this new world the ‘wisdom economy’.”
He explains: “A.I. will not be good at creative problem solving, empathetic reasoning, philosophical debate and the human group dynamics of collaborating for a very long time. Deep human connection, empathy, curiosity — very human things — will be vital. Our human inquiry is still going to steer the ship.”
READ THE FULL ARTICLE:
Here are the jobs that will pay the highest salaries in 2040
Author of the article: The Telegraph, Marianne Power Publishing date: Apr 04, 2022