On lists of ‘21st century skills’ that we’d like kids to be learning, adaptability is usually near the top.
We don’t know what the future will bring, except change. So students need to be prepared to deal with how the world will be, rather than how it used to be.
But how can public schools teach adaptability when no institution in our society has proved to be less adaptable? Is there any business, any trade, any industry, that still does things in 2018 in basically the same way it was doing them in 1918?
An institution that regularly demands more money to do less for fewer students is one that needs to adapt, not be rewarded with increased funding so it can keep pretending that the world hasn’t changed.
