The World of 2040 for Our Children

I sometimes wonder, in today’s world of technological and information overload, what are the indispensable skills that we as parents should empower our kids with to be prepared for the world in 2040’s as they venture into their work life? Will it be beneficial in 2040 that my child can code in scratch/ Javascript/ C# ? Will it matter they can do long division of a 6 digit number ? Will it be helpful that they could solve fractions and quadratic equations in Grade 6 ?

I found the answer for all these questions to be NO. It won’t be beneficial. It won’t matter. And it won’t help. In today’s day and age, our children have a tsunami of information. Not wealth, tsunami. There is no end to the data available to them if they have access to internet (and lets be real, who doesn’t?). And the concern is that it is un-censored, un-checked information. A multitude of opinions and accounts from every Tom, Dick and Harry about every subject you could imagine.

Even as adults, we struggle to understand and infer what the real truth is out of the various accounts of the same event from the 10 different news channels, 100 different magazines, 1000’s of blogs and top it off with millions of social media opinions (again from every Tom, Diana and Harriet if you like). What is the truth in this world of falsehoods?

What our children need is not more information, but the ability to make sense of all this information. The skills to sieve through all this meaningless data and form well-informed and practical inference of what is important and what is just noise. To equip them to be able to validate any information and not let the dishonest and misleading information lead to debilitated behaviour.  

In the 20th century, parents taught their children life skills like cooking, farming, building and selling their own produce. They did that because they knew, whatever happens, their children will still need to eat, live and survive. The intention of modern education systems was to facilitate these simple skills. Food science to understand what is good for our body and how to improve the quality and quantity of produce. Lego’s as a tool for little children to learn the concepts of building and construction. Mathematic apps and games to put in practice concepts of accounts and selling. We need to remember that all these apps and cool things we’ve invented for education and progress are just mere tools. Tools to facilitate learning. Every child doesn’t have to use the same tools or excel at the same games to be successful in life. They are all just ‘a’ means to ‘an’ end. And to put things into perspective, everyone’s end is different too.

In the 21st century we’ve enabled computers to perform all basic activities. There is machinery that enables us to grow quality produce for the masses. Computer systems have the ability to control cooking gadgets, building machinery, e-stores to buy and sell anything and get it delivered to the comfort of our homes. In the coming years, AI will make more advancements and make a lot of current job profiles obsolete. Rather than the technical skills and cool new gear, we need to go back to basics. But the basic life skills have changed from the late 20th century to now - early 21st century. Again, what are the life skills that we think our children will need to survive the world of 2040? 

The answer I think is - critical thinking, creativity, communication (the real social communication instead of Instagram follows and Facebook likes) and most importantly the ability to deal with change. It will be categorically imperative that they are able to accept change, learn new things quickly and preserve their mental balance in the face of all this rapid change and uncertainty. To keep up with the world of 2040, they will need to more than merely invent new ideas and products. Predominantly, they will need to reinvent themselves over and over again.

Change is the only certainty in the future. As this rapid change becomes the new normal, our past experiences and the history of humanity becomes less reliable. Humankind will increasingly have to deal with things no one ever imagined. How do we live in a world where profound uncertainty is not a bug but a feature?

We, ourselves lack the mental flexibility that the 21st century demands since we are the product of the old education system. I loved a recent quote I read somewhere about growth mindset - “Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.” We need to let our children explore the possibilities, do things their own way. Teach them emotional balance instead. Teach them to let go of the things and ideas they hold most dear, to be comfortable with the unknown. Teach them to not accept something you say on face value unless they understand the logic and value of it. I know its a counter-productive idea to teach your children not to listen to you. But in the long run, you’ll be raising critical thinkers and doing the universe a favor!