Adam Rubin, a principal with the education design firm 2Revolutions, was a featured speaker at the Donnell-Kay Foundation’s Hot Lunch series Friday at the Hotel Monaco. He wrote this post with 2Revolutions co-founder Todd Kern.
What do you think of when you think of the future? Global warming? Smart houses? Driverless cars? Personalized vaccines? Colonization of space? The predicted “singularity,” where humans and computers merge? While each of these ideas conjures a new and decidedly different reality than our world today, the future can be both exciting and scary.
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For this reason, thinking about the future generally causes people to either dream or dread. When you dream about the future, exciting ideas flow, but they may not be grounded in reality. When you dread the future, fear governs your actions and often, you unwittingly work to maintain the status quo. But there is another way to react to the future: design. The designer sees the future as a challenge to be tackled or a problem to be solved. Design is a form of activism that makes it possible to engage the future, to make sense of it in a way that is both bold and feasible.
At 2Revolutions we approach the world as designers. Then we apply that lens to a set of problems we’re passionate about: reinventing a broken and outmoded education system. We’re working to build the future of learning. Specifically, 2Revolutions (2Rev)
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designs, launches and supports “future of learning” models and helps catalyze the conditions within which they can thrive. By working on both sides of the equation at the same time, we think we can be better designers. We apply an action-oriented approach to each project in our portfolio. We are currently collaborating with a range of forward-thinking state and local governments, funders, not-for-profits and entrepreneurs to build or accelerate the future of learning.
Our work begins with the belief that the state of education in America is mired in the status quo, not working for far too many students, families or educators. Based on an array of indicators that compare performance within a district, across regions, states or among different global economies, it is safe to say that today’s education system is leaving our kids unprepared. This, in turn, raises real questions about our national security, economic competitiveness and social wellbeing as a nation. Many economists agree that a majority of future jobs have yet to be created. The world is changing more rapidly than our strategy to prepare young people for it. We can’t tinker our way out of this problem. We need fundamental change. We must accelerate the shift from education to learning.
Over the past few years, through the course of our work, 2Rev has developed a Future of Learning Framework, which we use to make sense of the transition from education to learning. One part philosophy and one part taxonomy, it is constantly evolving and comprised of our research and experiences and those of colleagues across the field, and informed by trends we see impacting our students, schools and the way we think about learning. This framework provides one way to see how all the pieces can be designed to fit together in ways that yield the kind of change we all seek:
- Conditions This set of factors operates at the level of a system – district, state or network – that either enable or constrain the success of “future of learning” models.
- Model design parameters Drawn from our own and others’ research, this is a synthesized list of the broad principles or characteristics around which future of learning models should be designed.
- Model design levers These concepts define the structural core of any learning model. Together with their interplay with the model design parameters, they represent the foundation for driving the development of future of learning models.
- Model implementation levers With a learning model in place, these six implementation levers represent the next layer of development – and mark a transition from conceptual design toward models that can be implemented.
As an industry, we usually tend to direct our scarce resources and energies at one end of the spectrum or the other – either building models or focusing on the revamping of systems. But we must do both. By thinking critically about models and conditions, and the interplay between them, we believe we will help catalyze models (like a new blended, fully competency-based high school model in Vermont, an innovation accelerator lab in Ohio and a unique new approach to leveraging social entrepreneurship to foment the future of learning) and conditions (like a statewide network strategy to pursue innovation and improvement for 17,000 educators in New Hampshire) that are more successful at promoting and sustaining the kind of learning that will prepare our next generation of learners for success in the complex future that awaits them.
Ultimately, we hope to look back on the models and systems that helped them succeed and recognize that they were designed to be that way.
About the authors
Todd Kern is a systems-oriented generalist with two decades of experience in varied roles across the U.S. education industry including at the federal, state and local levels; in government, academia, for-profit and not-for-profit settings; and in strategic, analytical, advocacy and operational roles. He started 2Revolutions to leverage these perspectives to find new ways of addressing the complex social challenges that hold us back.
Adam Rubin has spent nearly two decades catalyzing change through the design and launch of social enterprises within existing and start-up entities across the education and community development sectors. He started 2Revolutions to feed this love, and to reinforce the belief that two critical levers we can pull are the birth and scaling of innovative education and training ventures in high needs communities.
Todd and Adam, I love the LearNYC Swarm model you’re building. I’ve wanted for some time to develop a model of learning that better enmeshes and situates the lives of children within the lifeworld around them. I don’t think a million years of behavioral evolution has happened with juvenile humans locked up in buildings or cages cut off from reality. How do we keep them safe, while gradually introducing them to a world in which they have a very real stake?
OK, now the criticism. Drop your obsession with corporate-speak, inside-the-studio tech-talk. I sifted through your entire website for an hour until I found something real. All the rest appears to be meant to impress, not illuminate. Most of what you’re offering is a re-packaging of what we know works in classrooms/systems as they are now. I looked through your “Portfolio” and found what appeared to be real things but the verbiage conveyed to me gobbledegook. I had to go to the actual websites to learn something useful. I mean, it just sounds like you talk a good game like so many other for-profit or non-profit experiments with innovation and really deliver very little that is new or different. Had I not wandered into the NYC model, I probably would have left turned-off and even more cynical than I am :-/
The tone of your précis borders on arrogant. You assert that American education is in trouble and then describe how you understand the future as if the rest of us are dullards when it comes to long-range thinking. As a systems person, Todd, don’t you recognize that human systems are notoriously difficult to control? Then why are you attempting to define boundaries/parameters? Yes, I get it that you will allow for your client’s desires but really and all, you have a product to sell and that product has a defined action space.
I would also like to hear more about the development of the whole child rather than child as glorified 19th century factory worker. Because much as your video tries to show how 2Revolutions is different, the old model is still very much alive and is on display in the rationale for modern reform as the preparation of a workforce. At the time, Industrial Revolution jobs were desirable; let’s be careful with the historical fallacy. To me, a huge dimension of human growth and learning is about discovering who one is and what one cares about. To feel empowered in one’s own life. None of your four jigsaw pieces address the humanistic dimension, they’re all about the design of parts, not the nurturing of a mind and a spirit.
There is some interesting stuff here though I was a bit surprised that after some build up to how out of date the factory model is these days nearly all the work here appears designed to try to make the current system work more effectively. I’m all for that but I would not call it it revolutionary. Also this a consulting group like many other consulting groups working the ed sector these days. 2 Revolutions may be providing some good value for clients from KIPP to the state of Vermont but it doesn’t look like they are creating new models of schooling or designing new policy environments for how public education is organized. It would be interesting to to see how we might compare all of the ed consulting groups and determine their relative value.
I really admire how you all think and what you all are trying to do. I am interested in creating a charter school to develop and increase the creative and entrepreneurial capacities of high school students. Your work is on target because it is broad-based and also deep. The educational landscapes needs victories like you are trying to achieve at the schools and school districts you are trying to influence and transform. Once these victories are achieved, you will inspire others. Keep up the great work!
P.S. Here’s my web site — http://www.welovecreativity.org — where I am starting a conversation to connect with and learn from creative and innovative folks in the educational field.
As a senior partner at 2REV, I really appreciate the comments and also would welcome to unpack how our “on the ground” work is really far different from some of the sentiments suggested in the comments. Look forward to the dialogue, and you are welcome to email me at bryan@2revolutions.net so we can gain a better understanding of each other’s work and concerns.