Last month, the MACTE congress was challenged by a futurist, Gary Marx to think about teacher preparation in the context of our changing world.  We were asked to imagine our students in 5 years, 10 years, and beyond in terms of their preparedness in a society very different from our own experience.  As professionals passionate about education, knowledge and pedagogy, we must embrace the proposition that future trends will change how we do “business” as educational professionals.

In his book, Sixteen Trends: Their Profound Impact on our Future, Gary Marx encourages his audiences to consider the impact of the future trends for students of all ages, education, the community and society as a whole.  As teacher educators, we must seriously examine the future trends if we expect to see the candidates we prepare become effective educators.  We must take responsibility for preparing individuals that will in turn prepare their students to become productive citizens.

As a futurist, Marx believes that all Sixteen Trends will have a profound impact on the future of education.  As an example of one of those trends, Marx states that, “By 2030, 24 percent of our population will be 18 or younger and 31 percent will be 55 or older”.  This will be the first time in the history of our nation that older citizens will outnumber the younger people in our population.  An aging population has a direct impact on the work force and the continuous strain on an already deficient Social Security System.  Marx reports that, “by 2020, it is expected that for every person drawing benefits from the U.S. Social Security System there will be 2.4 people of working age to support them”.  If that statistic is true, I want those 2.4 people to have a skill set that has prepared them for well paying positions in order to support me.

Critical to our existence in this century and centuries to come is a technical expertise that by far exceeds any I have ever needed in my lifetime.  My grandchildren now in kindergarten and first grade will be 21, 22, or 23 in 2023.  The experts in the field of technology tell us that the amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years.  It is predicted that by 2010 this body of information will double every 72 hours.  According to former Secretary of Education, Richard Riley, the top 10 jobs that will be in demand in 2010 didn’t even exist in 2004.   It appears, then, that we are preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist using technologies that haven’t yet been invented in order to solve problems not yet known as problems.

Gary Marx would say, “The 21st Century skills we need to teach our students are the skills of collaboration, diplomacy, critical and creative thinking”.  To do so, curriculum must be aligned with standards and assessments, but they must also include more that what can be measured via a paper-pencil test. Therefore, we must seek strategies to develop and improve assessments that measure growth and higher order thinking skills.

No one would argue with the fact that the world is in the midst of rapid change.  However, Marx would contend that due to the impact of rapid change on our world and society, personalization is the key to effective teaching and learning.  As partners in this challenging movement towards educating our society, let’s join our forces to embrace the changing future with “rigor, relevance, high expectations and personalization”.