There are many things happening around the world with varying intensity, but a very top few would make this list to affect the way in which the Education will reshape 21st century.
– Extinct knowledge, Extinct Society, Extinct world. The rate at which the technological advances are being made are making the knowledge of yesterday as a useless one for today and a dead wood for tomorrow. If I start blogging the extinct knowledge, it would probably fill the biggest of the biggest library. However, if you let your minds wander on why coliseum has become a ruin but still exist, Great Wall of China has become ruins only in parts and why the 20th century technological breakthroughs are becoming extinct in 21st century, you will get the idea where I am going with it.
– The corruption levels at which some of the governments around the world are working are reaching new heights – unless something is done about it. One such thing happening is the drive by Anna Hazare to establish Lokpal. Lokpal can be viewed as a monitoring tool and also as a benchmark for others around the world. These new benchmarks are necessary to be created to rise the standards of governments around the world and let know the governing bodies on the reasons for their existence. I hope such drives take deep roots to drive out the lobbyists corrupting the governments that are established by the people, of the people and for the people. This is a significant happening that may take off or die, but it all depends on the support it gets.
– Connections can be made easily and quickly by click of a button on Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter and so many other social networks. However, as noted in the speech under my blog ‘Three Friends’ you have to think in terms of making connections that are worthwhile as friends of blood, friends of your times and friends of your hearts – not through these social or professional networks, but by actually touching them with your hearts, minds and spoken words that are rich in emotions. I am warmed by the fact that such organizations like Toastmasters are enabling human connectivity in all dimensions through the basic form communication.
– Actionable alerts are increasing ten-fold each day by everyday impregnation of new technologies in our lives. Each and every such alerts that have become essential to manage global presence, global travel and global needs, are taking away those essential hours, minutes and seconds away from the other things that could have contributed well to an overall productivity increases over time. This off-loading of complex workings of a complex society on simple minds is a significant happening in terms of psycological impacts of such stressful environments needed to exist to continuously monitor one’s pride and prejudice in the complex world that has been created.
– Having enjoyed the instantaneous communications with anyone around the globe, the email system has now burdened with commercial emails that are ten times the number of personal emails that you would get. These things range from webinar invitations disguising product marketing with information sharing, promotional materials, coupons, white papers to training libraries. The information explosion seems uncontrollable, but is a significant happening when looked at closely. They are like sprouting mushrooms of the same knowledge around a tree of knowledge that existed for centuries distracting you away from the tree to these mushrooms by clever marketing adding no new knowledge.
– How is it possible to still hold onto your age-old systems that protect the borders when the geographical boundaries are disappearing commercially and personally. Only entity that still exists as a product of its nation is the government – does not matter the size, type or the form of government is. Since the product of its nation is nothing but its people who are transforming everything around them by what they see, hear and feel globally, how can governments can exist in the same size, shape, form or type? This societal impact at the roots of humanity will reshape the governments of tomorrow.
– Seventh happening is more closely related to the happenings around an adult, a child and interactions between those entities in a family and community environment. The disintegration of families are not new in urban cities due to the pressures that are often fast paced, unnoticed and uncalled for. Happenings around an adult usually starts as a mid-life crisis. However, this crisis is now becoming unmanageable due to the factors that are affecting the mid-life increasing tenfold. The aimlessness resulting from this is to some extent contributing to the 8th happening.
– A child when being exposed to more uncontrolled content through televisions, movies and social networking chats, the shock value towards the dangers of drugs, sex and violence keep diminishing and at some point in time a child no longer can think or act like a child. Its world is crumbling with the pressures from teen-ads to even baby based or oriented marketing. Is it possible to keep a sense of sanity to protect the young from the onslaught of a few of these flaws of a modern society?
– The combination of all these happenings is the eighth happening. All these happenings are having a significant impact on how a nation’s economy is sliding into either a recession or into situations that are becoming more complicated to govern through the existing laws as they themselves are becoming complicated. The impact on the economy of an emerging diverse society cannot be underestimated. The community that existed in its simplest form of a marriage that was intended to grow the community is now diverse with free-thinking individuals who are shaping and reshaping the economic growth in diverse fashions.
– The ninth happening is in the field of education and must take more prominence in the eyes of all. To constantly correct the mis-alignments, a realignment process becomes necessary and will become seedlings for a new form of education on how it can be delivered, how it can be conceptualized and on how it needs to be constantly evolving as the impact of other happenings are absorbed. This is the philosophy of Circle of Learning. It’s the learning circle that can grow bigger while not losing sight of the requirements of all its quadrants. Any mis-alignment in any quadrant will make the circle other than a circle and hence the imbalance will become easy to identify and correct. Education is the only way to correct any mis-alignments resulting from all other happenings from one to eight or even prevent those mis-alignments with the help from COL.
– The tenth happening is the one that is beyond our control. I include all natural disasters around the world where we can correct the mis-alignments only after they have happened, but not before then. We can argue that the efforts to stop global warming is one such preventable action taken by humanity. However, look at the efforts taken and the results achieved, and then the number of natural disasters that we can list that need preventable actions from humanity – from earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, storms just to mention a few. Education will help us to mitigate some of the impacts of these disasters, but will not help us to avoid them.