This post was lost in the Crocapocalypse – I’m reposting it with its original date.
Education is empowering in a very literal sense, and most of the powers that we gain through it are easily weaponised.
Driverlesscroc– Education for the future: foundations (1)
“Who are we empowering?”
This is a fundamental question that we often overlook – and incidentally I think it underlies many of our fears about artificial intelligences.
We often ask: What are we building? Can we trust the machines?
It’s rarer to ask: Who are we augmenting? Can we trust our children?
We spend a great deal of time focusing on technical aspects of education. We concentrate on the raw materials and tools – information, ideas, knowledge and ways of understanding, skills – and neglect the more difficult conversation about deeper ethical or moral foundations.
As we augment our children (and our peers, and ourselves) with new and more powerful tools, we need to pay attention to how we’re shaping them as people – the people who will use those tools to change the world around them.