School of Gumption: Humanizing our education system in the age of robots

Our examination-orientated education system has been around since the time of China’s Imperial Examination — or even earlier. Knowledge used to be power, available only to a few in hierarchical structures. But today with the Internet, knowledge is commoditized in the hands of all. Even the Harvard’s Case Study model is pre-internet more than 100 years old. Our examination-based education is now quite useless because no matter how high your child’s test scores may be, he or she will not beat out artificial intelligence in an examination. Linear thinkers and rote learners are doomed to be replaced by robots.

What is needed are people able to think and feel like nature’s ecosystem.

We need education to deliver people who can:

1. See patterns of opportunities beyond linear logic; identify service gaps, and harness technologies for integrated delivery;

2. Predict the future by creating it;

3. Create solutions to converge with future technologies not invented yet;

4. Have empathy and compassion to see the under-served and disadvantaged as opportunities instead of burden.

Humans have spirituality, morals, ethics, aesthetics, philosophy, and love. Our future competitiveness against robots lies in these human virtues. Our ability to care, love, and imagine will allow us to continue to be masters of robots.

School children sitting in the shade of an orchard in Bamozai, near Gardez, Paktya Province, Afghanistan

Transforming Education: School of Gumption

I graduated from Singularity University’s flagship Global Solution Program last year. At first, I was shocked at the rapid pace of technological advances and worried that so many people will be unable to cope with this exponential change.

It’s also hard to understand why Silicon Valley is so obsessed in innovation and technology without considering the regulatory framework and risk of these technologies being applied to the detriment of society and environment.

The truth is that the engineers and innovators are driven by the fear that if they did not invent it first, someone else will beat them to it. The Western Alpha Male & Masculine philosophy drives Paolo Alto and there is a serious lack of Eastern Feminine philosophy to balance their lopsided strength.

Herein lies an tremendous opportunity for Singapore to offer Holistic East-West education marrying both Silicon Valley with Lao Tze.

In the 4th Industrial Revolution, our current educational system has two major weaknesses: measurement and reward of talent. Examinations are blunt tools measuring talents in single common dimension while each child is talented differently. In trying to be fair, exams are not fair to all those talented beyond academic pursuits.

I’m now planning a School of Gumption to nurture the soft-skills inside each child. If a child is equipped with the following skills, we can prepare them for the uncertain future in a very calm and confident manner without fear and with circumspection.

1) Curiosity

Curiosity is the seed of genius. Children have to take ownership of their learning process by exploring solutions in context of situations. Teachers are facilitators and students conduct their studies with peer discussion. Students are sent out learn from the city and come back to class to teach each other what they’ve learned outside the city. Teachers facilitate them with appointments to visit various companies, government agencies and organizations. For example, if a group of students want to understand how transportation or parks or factories work and what the revenue models are, they can go themselves without the teachers.

2) Courage

Courage is critical to dream and to ask questions. The child must not to be worried of making a fool of himself. Permission are not required to dream and the dream will not be judged upon. The student is instead encouraged to probe deep into the potential outcomes of his idea and how to implement them. Teachers are trained on outcome-based Entrepreneurial Dare making decisions in real-life social businesses that solves social problems.

3) Compassion

Kids are taught to stand in the shoes of others and feel how the others feel individually and collectively. There is no prejudice to others different and to appreciate diversity of opinions are not weaknesses but strengths and opportunities to harvest. When empathy and acceptance work, communication will also work. The earlier this is taught, the easier to be absorbed.

4) Communication

Each child has to learn to communicate and to express themselves and their thoughts without fear of retributions and without being judged as right or wrong. Their moral compass and decision making will allow them to share their ideas with multiple channels of communication and tools that allows them to communicate in whatever mode they feel comfortable. Communication unlocks entrepreneurship, empathy and trust.

5) Collaboration

Understanding others motivations allow us to design incentives to motivate others into win-win collaboration.

Instead of going alone, we need to nurture an Ecosystem Competitiveness Mindset with the realization that if all of us knew what all of us knew, we can prevail over all challenges.

We can unlock the power of synapses and synergies in between all stakeholders inside our communities and the outcomes will be larger than the sum of its parts.

6) Community

This sense of identity and belonging is built on the Social Capital of our society. Nations can be efficient and cohesive if we build the AI to incentivize collaboration inside our community. By empowering and trusting the people to unlock their own ingenuity, the government moves from a Masculine Philosophy of Alpha Male to the Feminine Philosophy of the Mother, always facilitating new growth. This sense of community bonding is superior to the confrontational approach of having opposition parties fighting the ruling party in an environment of fear.

To be inclusive, the future marketplace must also include the 4 billions low income folks at the Base of Pyramid www.bophub.org

7) Calmness

At Moore’s Law speed of digitization, we’ll reach Singularity soon and will rely on the AI and Quantum Computing very largely. Human and machines will merge externally and also physically inside the body. Our ability to compete with the robots in thinking will be more limited as the days passes. However, as humans, our ability to feeling is superior to the robots. Feeling is rather accurate at our calm state and we do make more decisions on a daily basis through feeling than through thinking anyway. We can’t think what colors or styles we buy. We just feel it by summoning all our entire being. With calmness, we can empathize and we can feel what others feel. This is a much-needed skill today and in the future.

To be surviving well at every level, corporations, nations and the global community have to see itself as part of an entire ecosystem. Every child has to embrace the above 7Cs for a holistic education. I hope the School of Gumption will become mainstream eventually. I welcome all readers to give me feedback at jacksim@worldtoilet.org

Jack Sim is a Distinguished Fellow at the GFCC and founder of the World Toilet Organization. He broke the taboo around toilets by bringing the sanitation crisis to the global media spotlight in 2001, and has since mobilized a global movement involving governments, policy makers, United Nations agencies, international civil society, thought leaders and activists to work together in addressing the global sanitation crisis. Jack also founded Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) Hub, a business-centric organization using hybrid cross-sector collaborations to alleviate poverty sustainably through creating efficient BOP marketplace for the 4 billion poor.