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What Would When technology pairs up with Socratic inquiry,

students have an opportunity to start a purposefulconversation—with the world.

Peter W. Cookson Jr.

My greatest fear about 21st century education is thatSocrates’ humility will be turned on its head. Thenoted philosopher once said, “I know nothingexcept the fact of my ignorance.” My fear is thatinstead of knowing nothing except the fact of our

own ignorance, we will know everything except the fact of our ownignorance. Google has given us the world at our fingertips, but speedand ubiquity are not the same as actually knowing something.

Think of learning as a continuum of cognitive and expressive experi-ences that range from gathering data for the purpose of understandingthe world; to organizing data into useful and coherent informationalpatterns; to applying information to real questions and problems and,in the process, creating knowledge; to developing wisdom that offersthe hope of transcendent unity. As our minds travel along this learningcontinuum, our understanding and depth of awareness grow, reshapethemselves, and continue to evolve. At the same time, the great unex-pected disrupters—imagination, spontaneity, and revelation—enableus to see the world differently and change it.

Socrates believed that we learn best by asking essential questionsand testing tentative answers against reason and fact in a continual andvirtuous circle of honest debate. We need to approach the contempo-rary knowledge explosion and the technologies propelling this newenlightenment in just that manner. Otherwise, the great knowledgeand communication tsunami of the 21st century may drown us in asea of trivia instead of lifting us up on a rising tide of possibility andpromise. LA

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Socrates Say?

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Two Opposing CampsSome advocates believe we can Google,blog, Skype, and Twitter our way toenlightenment. They assume that dis-organized, radically democratized datalead to useful information and thus toreal knowledge through some process ofcollective, randomized, constantconnectivity. This argument rests on thepremise that we learn best through datacollection without the burdens of judg-ment and discernment. From an episte-

mological point of view, this is a highlyquestionable hypothesis. Learningrequires stable, flexible cognitiveframeworks and consistent forms ofadaptive assessment.

In opposition are the skeptics, suchas Mark Bauerlein, who argues in hisbook The Dumbest Generation (Penguin,2008) that this incessant communica-tion is really a complex manifestationof miscommunication that does notlead to intellectual growth, but ratherto a stunting of genuine intellectualdevelopment. The Internet culturefacilitates a kind of solipsistic, perma-nent adolescence that is profoundlyanti-intellectual. A quick walk throughthe cultural landscape of the Internetsuggests that “being online” cancontribute to hyper-individualism anda sense of unearned celebrity, not tomention occasional weirdness.

The inventive curve of new tech-nologies is so steep that the Internetculture will undoubtedly become moreubiquitous and communicatively dense

as it continues to challenge the intellec-tual and academic culture that hascome down to us from the EuropeanEnlightenment and the IndustrialRevolution, both of which convincedus that we can make a better worldthrough creating knowledge andapplying it to human needs. Thisprocess requires literacy, a personal andcommunal discipline that appears to bein decline. As fewer of us are readingbooks, more of us are surfing the Webfor fragments of thought. The collapseof the conventional newspaper busi-ness is perhaps an early warning signof what is to come in the next 5 to 10years.

Human society has experiencedthree profound social, economic, andcultural transformations—the agrarianrevolution, the Industrial Revolution,and now the electronic revolution. Weneed to be on the right side of historyif we are to survive and thrive. If weharness them correctly, we can blendthe best of our traditional intellectuallinear culture—Socrates’ wisdom of the5th century BCE—with the currentdigital culture, creating a new learningand intellectual environment consistentwith the cognitive and expressivedemands of the 21st century.

The 21st Century MindA child born today could live into the22nd century. It’s difficult to imagineall that could transpire between nowand then. One thing does seemapparent: Technical fixes to ouroutdated educational system are likelyto be inadequate. We need to adapt toa rapidly changing world.

The 21st century mind will need tosuccessfully manage the complexityand diversity of our world bybecoming more fluid, more flexible,more focused on reality, and radicallymore innovative. Four elements of the

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As the challenges facing the globe becomeincreasingly complex, our frames of referencemust be flexible, expansive, and adaptive.

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21st century mind could be the basisof a new approach to education.

Critical ReflectionEvery day we are exposed to hugeamounts of information, disinformation,and just plain nonsense. The ability todistinguish fact from factoid, realityfrom fiction, and truth from lies is not a“nice to have” but a “must have” in aworld flooded with so much propa-ganda and spin.

Human beings already are prone tothink in magical terms; our media-driven social environment has intensi-fied this tendency to live in imaginaryworlds. The celebrity cult replaces realheroes with made-up ones, much to thedetriment of children’s mental health.Tragically, far too many young peopleexperience this manufactured culture asthough it were real.

Critical reflection enables us to seethe world from multiple points of viewand imagine alternate outcomes. Forexample, for many years, the dominantU.S. culture described the settling of theAmerican West as a natural extension ofmanifest destiny, in which people ofEuropean descent were “destined” tooccupy the lands of the indigenouspeople. This idea was, and for some stillis, one of our most enduring anddangerous collective fabricationsbecause it glosses over human rightsand skirts the issue of responsibility.Without critical reflection, we willcontinually fall victim to such notions.

Empirical ReasoningA second element of the 21st centurymind that we must cultivate is the will-ingness to abandon supernatural expla-nations for naturally occurring events.Floods, famines, and human misfortunehave often been attributed to angrygods, fate, and fantastic cosmologiesthat externalize our locus of control,

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The 21st Century Skills MovementSince 2002, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills has been the leadingadvocacy organization in the United States focused on infusing 21stcentury skills into education. Its Framework for 21st Century Learning, theresult of a consensus among hundreds of stakeholders, describes the skills,knowledge, and expertise students need to succeed in work and life.

In their discussions with the partnership about the framework,� Educators recommended a combination of rigorous courses imparting

both core content knowledge and skills to engage students and increaseachievement.

� Civic and community groups outlined a set of 21st century skills andknowledge that citizens in a participatory democracy must possess.

� Business leaders identified skills and knowledge they perceive as essen-tial for success in the workplace.

Four components of the framework describe these skills and knowledge:

1. Core subjects and 21st century themes (such as language arts, mathe-matics, science, global awareness, and financial literacy).

2. Learning and innovation skills (such as creativity and innovation andcritical thinking and problem solving).

3. Information, media, and technology skills.4. Life and career skills (such as initiative and self-direction).

Each stakeholder group independently identified these skills, supportingthe need for students to develop deep content knowledge and the ability toapply that knowledge across disciplines.

To provide educators with concrete solutions from the field, the partner-ship collaborated with the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics,the National Council of Teachers of English, the National Council for theSocial Studies, the National Science Teachers Association, and the NationalCouncil for Geographic Education to craft core subject maps that showhow to infuse 21st century skills into core classes.

In 2005, the partnership began the State Leadership Program. To date,13 states—Arizona, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Dakota, West Virginia, andWisconsin—have joined the program. Leadership states develop standards,assessments, and professional development programs to ensure thatstudents have the 21st century skills they need. To join, states must demon-strate strong commitment from their governor, superintendent, and otherstakeholder groups.

To successfully face rigorous higher-education coursework and a globallycompetitive work environment, schools must align classroom environmentsand core subjects with 21st century skills. By combining both skills andcontent, educators can impart the expertise required for success in today’sworld.

Paige Johnson is Chair of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. As GlobalManager of K–12 E ducation for Intel’s Corporate Affairs Group, she is respon-sible for the Intel Teach Program, which helps educators integrate computertechnology into teaching and promote 21st century skills.

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making us perpetual victims who mustplease the gods or fate to survive. Thesenon-empirical “theories of everything”require us to suspend reason, fact, andlogic. Although we can appreciate theseworldviews for their aesthetic andpoetic beauty, they are a poor founda-tion for problem solving. We can over-come our ignorance not with wishfulthinking, but with testable hypothesesusing observable data.

Thinking empirically is a form ofsocial responsibility. The methods ofscience offer us a way of thinking that isa strong framework for a healthy andviable approach to problem solving andliving together peacefully.

Collective IntelligenceThe third element of the 21st centurymind must be the recognition andacceptance of our shared evolutionarycollective intelligence. Many peoplebelieve that education is a personalrather than a collective possession.Echoing our culture of possessive indi-vidualism, education has taken on therole of dispensing “cultural capital” toindividuals on the basis of a meritsystem that is a camouflaged proxy forsocial class and social position.

Yet even a moment’s reflection tellsus that all knowledge is social. None ofus are educational islands untoourselves. There is a great deal of talkabout teamwork today; the real basis ofteamwork is the willingness to thinkcollectively to solve common problems.Think of a team of astronauts in a spaceshuttle: No one astronaut, no matterhow highly trained, can master thecomplexities of maneuvering a space-craft alone. It requires a team on theground and a team in space to over-come the technical and scientificcomplexities of exploring space, thusenlarging our understanding of theuniverse.

MetacognitionTo solve the 21st century’s challenges,we will need an education system thatdoesn’t focus on memorization, butrather on promoting those metacogni-tive skills that enable us to monitor ourown learning and make changes in ourapproach if we perceive that ourlearning is not going well.

Metacognition is a fancy word for ahigher-order learning process that mostof us use every day to solve thousandsof problems and challenges. When wethink about thinking, we turn ourmental pictures around ever so slowly toview them from different angles.Imagine yourself as a landscape painter.

How do you decide on your angle ofvision, on your perspective, or on yourcolor palette? We do this type of deci-sion making in a seamless cycle ofrethinking and reshaping our internalimagery.

As the challenges facing the globebecome increasingly complex, ourframes of reference must be flexible,expansive, and adaptive. Consider theworld water crisis: Thousands ofpeople—mostly children—die everyday from diseases caused by a lack ofclean fresh water. Today, roughly 30countries experience water stress orscarcity. By the year 2025, that numberwill be 56, meaning that 817 millionpeople will be without adequate freshwater. Solving this crisis requires usingmultiple frames of reference and diversemethods of analysis that includegeology, hydrology, economics, soci-ology, cultural history, politics, and law.By looking at a challenge from multiplepoints of view, we are more likely toarrive at a realistic, effective solution.

Learning in the Electronic AgeWe are at the threshold of a worldwiderevolution in learning. Just as the BerlinWall fell in 1989, the wall of conven-tional schooling is collapsing before oureyes. A new electronic learning environ-ment is replacing the linear, text-boundculture of conventional schools. Thiswill be the proving ground of the 21stcentury mind.

In the age of print, people thought ofknowledge as fixed and hierarchical,something that only great minds couldchange in a slow process of discovery.Not so in the age of electronic learning,where knowledge creation is fluid, fast,and far more democratic. The linearliteracy of the age of print gave birth tothe concept of accumulating knowledgesystematically in archives, libraries, anddatabases. The age of electronic learning

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Thinking empiricallyis a form of socialresponsibility.

No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account n

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calls out for an updated approach. Weneed virtual libraries that host genuineknowledge and that enable learners ofall ages to interact with one another inknowledge creation, as they currentlydo on Wikipedia.

In a 2008 issue of the Harvard Busi-ness Review, Bala Iyer and Thomas H.Davenport published a provocativearticle that outlined Google’s businessstrategy: Practice strategic patience, ruleyour own ecosystem, exercise architec-tural control, build innovation intoorganizational design, support inspira-tion with data, and create a culture“built to build.” This approach ofcontinual innovation supports Google’smission “to organize the world’s infor-mation and make it universally acces-sible and useful.”

Today, we use Google to obtain infor-mation. Imagine being able to accessorganized learning in the same manner.In a concept I call the LearningSphere, afree and open-source Web-based portaland platform would enable learners toaccess organized inquiry, demandingcourses of study, and communicationcapacities that would join people allover the world in mutual discovery.

Evolving technologies are making thisconcept more plausible. In a recentarticle, Gerald Huff and Bror Saxberg(2009) describe what they call a “fullimmersion” learning experience. Insteadof thinking about the new learning andcommunication technologies as “tech-nology,” they suggest that in the futurewe will incorporate a whole array oftechnological options into how, when,and where we learn. We will cease tothink of technology as something thathas its own identity, but rather as anextension of our minds, in much thesame way that books extend our mindswithout a lot of fanfare. According toHuff and Saxberg, immersive technolo-gies—such as multitouch displays; tele-

presence (an immersive meeting experi-ence that offers high video and audioclarity); 3-D environments; collaborativefiltering (which can produce recommen-dations by comparing the similaritybetween your preferences and those ofother people); natural languageprocessing; intelligent software; andsimulations—will transform teachingand learning by 2025.

Technology Meets Socratic InquiryIn addition to having free access toknowledge and using immersive tech-nologies, we also need a method ofsystematically applying knowledge to

real-world challenges. Here’s whereSocrates can help. He believed thatlearning came from within and that thebest and most lasting way to bring latentknowledge to awareness was throughthe process of continual questioningand unconventional inquiry. ForSocrates, answers were always steps onthe way to deeper questions.

So imagine that a group of teachersand middle school students decides totackle the question, What is justice?Young adolescents’ discovery of injusticein the world is a crucial moment in theirdevelopment. If adults offer only self-serving answers to this question,students can become cynical ordespairing. But if adults treat theproblem of injustice truthfully andopenly, hope can emerge and growstrong over time.

As part of their discussion, let’s saythat the teachers and students have co-created a middle school earth sciencecurriculum titled Water for the World.This curriculum would be a blend ofclassroom, community, and online activ-ities. Several nongovernmental organiza-tions—such as Waterkeeper, the EarthInstitute at Columbia University, andWater for People—might support thecurriculum, which would meet nationaland state standards and include lessons,activities, games, quizzes, student-created portfolios, and learning benchmarks.

The goal of the curriculum would beto enable students from around the

world to work together to address thewater crisis in a concrete way. Studentsmight help bore a freshwater well,propose a low-cost way of preventinggroundwater pollution, or develop alocal water treatment technique.Students and teachers would collaborateby talking with one another throughSkype and posting research findingsusing collaborative filtering. Studentswould create simulations and gamesand use multitouch displays to demon-strate step-by-step how their projectswould proceed. A student-created Website would include a blog; a virtual refer-ence room; a teachers’ corner; a virtualliving room where learners communi-cate with one another in all languagesthrough natural language processing;and 3-D images of wells being bored inAfrica, Mexico, and Texas.

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Just as the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the wall of conventional schoolingis collapsing before our eyes.

not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be. —Isaac Asimov

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In a classroom like this, somethingeducationally revolutionary wouldhappen: Students and adults wouldconnect in a global, purposeful conver-sation that would make the world abetter place. We would pry the Socraticdialogue from the hands of the past andlift it into the future to serve the hopesand dreams of all students everywhere.

The Future Is Here—AlmostSome of what constitutes this newapproach to learning is alreadyunderway. Teachers and studentsalready use the Web to create lessons,communicate, and share with othersacross the globe. Schools have Web-based curriculums, and many peoplealready use Web 2.0 technology to reachthousands, if not millions, of learners.

But a model like the LearningSpherewould add another dimension. Learningwould take place both in and out ofschool. Teachers would no longermanage learning through the rigidenforcement of rote learning but wouldlearn alongside their students, creativelyadapting curriculum to their students’needs. Like any creative effort, thiscollective journey would include errors,lack of good information, and falsestarts—a process of which Socrateswould approve. Because teachers areknowledgeable about the learningprocess, they could serve as capableguides for their students, all the whilepromoting the requisite 21st centurythinking skills of critical reflection,empirical reasoning, collective intelli-gence, and metacognition.

Organizing this new learning modelis the work of the 21st century. Just asthe industrial age developed a particularform of organizational life, the electronicage is developing models of organiza-tional life that are more atomic in theirstructure than they are brick andmortar. When Einstein shocked the

world by suggesting that energy ismatter moving at twice the speed oflight, he gave us a metaphor for our era.

There has never been a time inhuman history when the opportunity tocreate universally accessible knowledgehas been more of a reality. And there hasnever been a time when education hasmeant more in terms of human survivaland happiness.

What Would Socrates Do?At the beginning of the 20th century,the world’s population was 1.6 billion;at the beginning of the 21st century, it isroughly 6.6 billion. To meet the educa-tion needs of this rising tide ofhumanity, we must think outside thebox of conventional schooling.

To start, we must overhaul andredesign the current school system. Weface this great transition with bothhands tied behind our collective backs ifwe continue to pour money, time, andeffort into an outdated system of educa-tion. Mass education belongs in the eraof massive armies, massive industrialcomplexes, and massive attempts atsocial control. We have lost much talentsince the 19th century by enforcingstifling education routines in the nameof efficiency. Current high schooldropout rates clearly indicate that ourstandardized testing regime andoutdated curriculums are wasting thepotential of our youth.

If we stop thinking of schools asbuildings and start thinking of learning

as occurring in many different places,we will free ourselves from the conven-tional education model that still domi-nates our thinking. Socrates did notteach in a conventional classroom; hisclassroom was wherever he and hisstudents found themselves. His was thefirst “personal learning network,” andhe taught with the most enduringteaching tool of all time—thepurposeful conversation. He calledhimself a citizen of the world becausethe questions he asked were universal.

Even though Socrates was a philoso-pher, he did not hide in an ivory tower.He used knowledge to challenge thestatus quo. I think Socrates wouldembrace the new learning era with allthe energy he had. We need that sameembrace today to move beyond the falsedichotomies and empty arguments ofour tired education disagreements andto joyously engage with the future.

ReferencesHuff, G., & Saxberg, B. (2009). Full immer-

sion—How will 10-year-olds learn?Education Next, 9(3), 79–82.

Iyer, B., & Davenport, T. H. (2008, April).Reverse engineering Google’s innovationmachine. Harvard Business Review.

Peter W. Cookson Jr. holds the KatsusoMiho Scholarship in Peacemaking at YaleDivinity School. He is the author ofSacred Trust: An Education Bill of Rights(Corwin, forthcoming) and a boardmember of the Partnership for 21stCentury Skills; peter.cookson@yale.edu.

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In the future, we will incorporate a whole array of technological options intohow, when, and where we learn.

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