Knowledge to wisdom: Educate for the future
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
It is my great pleasure to be here in San Diego at the ASU+GSV Summit. In this time of great opportunities and challenges, as we explore together how to navigate the changing landscape of education, it is essential to explore how to educate for the future and contemplate the evolution from knowledge to wisdom.
The world around us is constantly changing. And the first few years of early 2020s will be remembered as extraordinarily turbulent. Extreme weather is now the hallmark of climate change; a pandemic has scarred the world; the global supply chain is unraveling; and machines start to think.
Education system, while supposedly to be part of the solutions, is largely unable to pull itself together to meet these challenges.
Some of the disruptive changes are meant to caught us off guard. No matter how long we have prepared for the potential breakthroughs of artificial intelligence, few of us had expected that ChatGPT and GPT-4 lately, could change the dynamic of in-class teaching so much so fast. As a result, we are deeply divided on applying advanced AI in schools, with some in favor of it while others against it.
Many of the leading education systems yield to their instincts and reject technology that may bring uncertainty.
Others embrace the new development of technology. Mr Sal Khan recently announced the GPT-4 powered Khanmigo and opened to a selected number of educators and students, to make the full of AI assistant while assure the ethical risks would be minimized. Mr Sam Altman, founder of OpenAI will join us virtually tonight. It would be good to know his take on educational application on GPT.
Banning is a knee-jerking reaction. Holding back the applications of technological advances in education is futile. We should do better than this.
The future is here, whether we like it or not. Denying it is not a precaution but reveals only two things. The first is the awkwardness of teaching in the prefigurative era: the younger generation may have an upper hand in dealing with bots like ChatGPT. The second is how much we fear of competition from a smart machine.
That said, I asked the sensational chat bot about how it views today’s education system, and how to improve it accordingly. The following is our little conversation.
Me: “Hi there, what are the critical challenges for education?”
ChatGPT: “There are many critical challenges facing education today, including:
Inequality;
Access to education;
Quality of education;
Technology integration;
Teacher training and retention;
Funding;
Assessment and accountability;
Globalization.”
I raised the same question to GPT-4, which provided a richer answer, adding three more points, namely curriculum relevance, early childhood education, and higher education/work preparation.
Quite comprehensive, isn’t it? So I dig a little bit deeper.
Me: “Nice, but then what would be your suggestions to improve education quality?”
ChatGPT: “There are various ways to improve the quality of education, and here are some of my suggestions:
Invest in teachers;
Emphasize personalized learning;
Incorporate technology;
Focus on critical thinking skills;
Encourage parental involvement;
Foster a positive school culture.”
The answer from GPT-4 is longer, but points are quite similar. Never mind, here comes the third round.
Me: “How to encourage parental involvement in education?”
ChatGPT: “The most effective way to encourage parental involvement in education is to get involved yourself. Reach out to parents in your school community and find ways to collaborate, such as hosting workshops, conferences and other events. Additionally, provide resources to parents that explain the positive impact of engaging in their children’s education, such as offering research results and tips. Lastly, model behavior and support parents in setting a good example, as this sets a great foundation for parental involvement in education.”
This one is a bit loose, although not without some flair.
How would you like those answers? I asked some of my friends, their feeling is mixed, some were amazed by its well-organized ideas and expressions, others said they expected something more original and with more depth.
Pondering upon my own small encounters with ChatGPT and those of my friends, aside from the awe of its humanoid performance, I have two thoughts in mind.
First, it is easy to say but hard to do. For flaws in current education system, it is easy to identify but hard to fix. What the bot told me is quite extensive and deep. Its suggestions are also genuine and apparently right.
Yet, these hardships remain. Not because we don’t know how to solve them, but because the proposed solutions are often quite hard to implement in the real world.
Advances in the digital world, if not full-heartedly embraced by us, by stakeholders of education systems in the real world, will lead us nowhere.
Second, it is easy to do but hard to understand. The flip side of the first point, is that these difficulties remain because we are still unaware of the underlying causes. Based on this lack of understanding, some schools banned ChatGPT, while others embraced it.
A better way to resolve divide of opinion, is practicing in real life. Education for the future, should bridge ChatGPT and other major advances in technologies, with our everyday life and work. Adapting to these technologies is not only urgent for those still in school, but also an increasingly important element for lifelong learning.
The essence of the two thoughts, is that no matter how far technology takes us, the core of education is humanity and virtue.
The wisdoms of Eastern and Western sages align harmoniously. The Confucian classic, The Great Learning, begins with, “the way of great learning consists in manifesting one's bright virtue, loving the people, and stopping in perfect goodness.” Similarly, Socrates advocated for cultivating virtues first, teaching, and guiding people to be individuals of moral character.
In this era of rapid change, some virtues that are uniquely human have never been so vitally significant. Creativity, leadership, and grit, the characteristics and capabilities that are at the center of today’s education, are much desired in the future.
Creativity is to imagine the unimaginable, believe in the unbelievable, and think the unthinkable. The essence of free will is to expect the outliers, thinking out of the box. Outliers, which are hard to catch by statistical models, are where human is superior.
Leadership is to unite people under a common positive vision of future. This is the much-needed virtue in today’s increasingly polarized world. We can’t rely on machine to do our job in this prospect. With the right leadership, we can carefully monitor the application of AI in schools to make sure it is used ethically, responsibly, as well as effectively.
Grit, a distinct human quality, embodies unwavering dedication and passion in pursuing long-term aspirations. Unlike machines that tirelessly perform repetition and calculation, grit stems from the human spirit. When the evolving landscape of generative AI catering to users, the significance of human grit shines through with great value.
These three qualities are nurtured rather than learned. Knowledge cannot simply be equated to wisdom. Education if only focuses on knowledge delivery, will fail to enlighten their recipients.
Creativity, leadership, and grit are not only the goal of education, but the much-needed qualities for education itself.
Developing education is so important, and our approach is to establish the Yidan Prize, which recognizes individuals and teams who have contributed significantly to education research and development.
I was often asked why I chose education as the focus. I had shared some personal experiences at the Launch Ceremony of the Yidan Prize. My grandmother was illiterate, but she believed strongly in education even though she didn’t articulate that in words. She managed to raise a son, my father, who made it to university and then went on to live a fairly pleasant life.
She was an inspiration to me.
Still, I believe that the power of education extends beyond an individual level. Soon will be the seventh anniversary of the Yidan Prize. The seven-year journey has been intense and fruitful. This the right path to take. And the conviction that education is the ultimate driving force for social progress, is so true to me.
In the Yidan Prize, we celebrate creativity in the education sector.
We’re joined today by the Yidan Prize laureate Professor Anant Agarwal, his edX has set the bar for accessible, affordable online education benefited millions of students.
And by Professor Carl Wieman, an accomplished physicist who spent the past two decades pioneering new pedagogies in STEM education.
And Ms Vicky Colbert, founder and director of New School Foundation (Fundación Escuela Nueva), the very first laureate for Education Development. Thinking outside the box, her way of organizing and teaching equips students from the most resource-constrained regions with 21st century skills.
In the Yidan Prize, we applaud leadership in the education sector.
In leading the education policy research, we have Professor Eric Hanushek, whose research has influenced education policies in both developed and developing countries.
And Dr Linda Darling-Hammond, the founding president of the Learning Policy Institute, strives to enable equitable and empowering education for each and every child through high-quality policy research.
Sir Fazle Hasan Abed KCMG, inspired by the same mission, founded BRAC, a network helped alleviate poverty and empower the poor across 11 countries in Africa and Asia for the past half century.
And Professor Carol Dweck, whose research on growth mindset not only revealed the power of believing in oneself, but also inspired numerous fellow researchers and practitioners in the education sector, including another Yidan Prize laureate Professor Usha Goswami, who linked the growth mindset theory to cognitive developmental neuroscience.
In the Yidan Prize, we salute educators with grit.
Professor Zhu Yongxin, founder of New Education Initiative, tirelessly promoted the idea of learning anywhere and everywhere.
Ms Lucy Lake and Ms Angeline Murimirwa, the Chair of the Executive and CEO of the Campaign for Female Education, or CAMFED, relentlessly working on leveling the playing field for girls and women across sub-Saharan Africa.
Dr Rukmini Banerji and her Pratham collaborates with policymakers to unswervingly ensure children in India develop foundational skills from the earliest days of their education.
Professor Larry Hedges—his personal journey from a small village to a highly accomplished career exemplifies the power of grit and the potential of education.
In addition to the Yidan Prize laureates, some members of our Council of Luminaries also attended today’s event, among them, Ms Wendy Kopp, CEO and Co-founder of Teach For All. And Professor Thomas Kane. Each and every one of those leading figures mentioned above excels in more than one category of creativity, leadership, or grit, often a combination of all three. They are the representatives of educate for future. Their influence is not only present, but into the times to come.
Creativity, leadership, grit, the triangle of strength forms the essence of education, empowering us to embrace the unknown future.
In the near future, we may increasingly turn to an “it” that understands us better than ourselves for guidance in our actions and thoughts. The arrival of such an era is inevitable, and its progress is astonishing.
Denial would be futile.
Instead, we must dance with it. While it possesses brain power that may far surpass human limits, it lacks the wisdom of the heart. This calls for the continuous development of human wisdom. Our current society operates on a stable system of a five-day work week. If the day comes when “it” rapidly boosts productivity, reducing our work hours to just two per week, how will we spend the remaining time? Meanwhile, “it” will magnify all the virtues and vices, beauty and ugliness, truth and falsehood, and right and wrong present in society. In the long run, humanity needs a social system that can adapt to “it”.
Therefore, education is not only about fostering brain power but more about nurturing virtues, self-love, and love for others. The future path of education is a journey from knowledge to wisdom.
What is the future of education? Is there an endpoint? To conclude this speech, I went back to ChatGPT for some ideas.
Me: “What would be the end of education?”
The bot outlined three perspectives, one personal, one societal, one philosophical.
But it was the concluding paragraph that truly captured my attention.
ChatGPT: “It is important to recognize that education is an ongoing and lifelong process, rather than a finite endpoint. The pursuit of knowledge and understanding is a never-ending journey, and there is always more to learn and discover.”
This time, I totally agree.
Thank you!
