Turns out the future of education is in full color.
A mosaic of color.
A mosaic of color with words like “n+1 is always greater” and even “joy.”
When the Mind the Gap team sat for 1.5 days and backward designed what constitutes an adult, #adulting, we ended up with these outcomes. This picture is of just ONE wall. Turns out we are complex creatures that bear a heavy load. Adulting is not easy and these last two generations have been ill-prepared. And its only getting harder.
I think it’s fair to argue that the load they will carry as adults is getting heavier. Much heavier. The world is looking more complex. Especially when there might be two worlds your child will inhabit, physical and digital.
If you asked me going into this which of the panes of glass (our “categories”) would have the most outcomes (pieces of paper), I would have guessed metacognition, the ability to monitor your own thinking.
But when we stepped back and looked at our mosaic, we saw something else.
“Relationships/collaboration” and “mental health” were darker than the rest. Too dense with paper that the sun struggled to come through.
It was shouting, LOOK AT US! We need some attention. We need light
Isn’t that interesting and it only reinforces my interviews with college deans when they boiled down why 48% drop out, why it takes six years to graduate, and even the bigger WHY, why some graduates walk out the same as they walked in, dependent and not real life ready.
Everything always boils down to relationships and mental health.
Even when doing a team exercise, where we looked at pictures. The pictures ranged from a board meeting to young adults on a date. We asked ourselves to list skills that are required to find success in these situations, and there we were talking about relationships/collaboration and mental health panes. Each picture brought us back to those windows.
It makes sense when you think about it.
Relationships will make you or break you. As you validate my existence, and as I do for you too. Without the other, we don’t have characters in our “movies.” The blockbusters that play in our minds that star YOU as the best actor. Your movie would be pretty boring and lonely without a supporting actor and you got to have “extras.” We need people to find success in this world.
Relationships matter.
But yet that very truth can cause the second pane to light up with bright colors, mental health.
Often others can cause us pain. Or our movie set goes HORRIBLY wrong. And we find ourselves off-script and spinning.
And none of the activities we do day to day are possible without control of anxiety and a good dose of confidence. No adult will be able to make it through the first date without confidence and no adult will be able to have a healthy relationship with anyone without a strong sense of self.
Knowing yourself and feeling confident is pretty damn important.
I leave the off-site with this truth. Adding it here to remember it. To read it over and over.
Knowing yourself + Confidence = TRUST
TRUST
MTG is built on trust. Our team is the definition of trust (knowledge of the gaps + confidence that we can fill them = TRUST). We are trustworthy.
I trust that we are going to change education for the better, because that is what we are giving our graduates.
We are giving them TRUST…trust in themselves.
They can Trust who they are
They can Trust that if they fall they can get up
They can Trust that they can navigate and even accept the unpredictable world.
And this Trust will be built by learning to trust others.
We are really in the business of TRUST. We are in the business of allowing young adults to feel equipped, to trust their emotions, to trust their skills to navigate through the storms that life can bring.
And with that, they will earn the ultimate trust, the trust of their parents to allow them to fly.
They are getting MADE.
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