Reclaiming Purpose

CHAPTER 8Reimagining the Postsecondary Ecosystem

For all the ways we can get AI wrong, particularly in education, it offers a thrilling invitation to harness its potential to enable a powerful model of education that is not only commensurate with the new Age of AI era we are entering but also necessary, even imperative, if we are to build a new world order that keeps humans and humanity at its center. The educational model outlined in the preceding chapters imagines a profound shift from the Information Age economy to a new care economy built on human flourishing, the health of communities, and the kind of new Golden Age that comes after every technological revolution. We do not today educate for that world.

Doing so requires shifting from the epistemological to the ontological, from content delivery to the intentional cultivation of human skills, from teacher as expert to teacher as curator of human connection. A care economy focused on human flourishing would look different than what we mostly see around us. It would offer amazing public schools filled with talented teachers, coaches, social workers, and staff, places where kids feel loved and nurtured and are enthralled with learning. It would mean robust, compassionate systems of care for our most vulnerable: the elderly, the poor, and those struggling with mental health and addiction (and a healthy society should have a lot less of both). It would be a place in which the arts are everywhere, and each person's creativity ...