TEDxCreativeCoast - McGrath Davies - The Future Will Not Be Multiple Choice
Third and fourth-grade students, when guided by design challenges, can move beyond passive consumption of technology to becoming active creators who build complex, feasible digital products. The speaker argues that modern education, designed for the industrial age's rote labor, is obsolete because the future is characterized by "messier" problems requiring imagination. Therefore, learning must shift toward critical, creative, and playful thinking, exemplified by shifting from multiple-choice testing to projects like designing a school's furniture or building a virtual fitting room. ## Speakers & Context - Unnamed speaker, who teaches young children (third and fourth graders). - Speaks to an audience that is potentially skeptical of educational overhauls. - Initial pop quizzes establish the premise that complex inventions are often simple in origin. ## Theses & Positions - Children are initially proficient in understanding the surface aspects of objects but lack awareness of their creative origins. - Education must transition students from *"passive users of things to becoming active creators."* - The current education system, structured around *"the straight rows and columns regimentation"* of the industrial economy, prepares workers for a *"bygone reality."* - The coming era is the *"imagination age,"* requiring students to think critically and creatively, not just select an answer (A, B, C, or D). - The future demands problem-solving through design challenges, not adherence to standardized tests, because *"the future is not a multiple choice test. It's a design challenge."* ## Concepts & Definitions - **Design:** A process of deconstruction (taking apart a tissue box to examine die-cut cardboard, registration marks, and tensile strength). - **Active Creators vs. Passive Users:** The desired shift in student role in education. - **Imagination Age:** The current era requiring creative problem-solving skills. - **Design Projects:** Educational activities where students solve real-world problems (e.g., pressure sores, crappy school furniture disorder) by proposing functional designs. ## Mechanisms & Processes - **Deconstruction Unit:** Students taking apart common items like tissue boxes to understand underlying engineering and manufacturing processes. - **Goal Setting:** Asking students the desired function of a website first, then the mechanism to achieve it (e.g., solving the problem of online clothing fit). - **Design Challenge Integration:** Applying design thinking to subjects like biology (patent process for medical devices), ecology (interactive shows on pollution), and math (measuring PVC pipe for a greenhouse). - **Learning through Play:** Analogizing learning to playing with blocks, suggesting that *"learning is playing and to create something is to learn something."* ## Timeline & Sequence - **Present:** Current classroom experience involves deconstruction units and website ideation with third and fourth graders. - **Past (Industrial Age):** The system that produced modern education, designed for factories and bureaucracies needing workers who *"show up on time and do what they're told and not cause trouble and keep quiet, sit still, don't ask too many questions."* - **Future:** The *"imagination age,"* marked by unsolved, complex problems (e.g., *MacArthur Foundation estimate: 65% of the jobs of the future likely haven't been invented yet*). ## Named Entities - **Lev Vagotssky:** Pioneering Russian psychologist who formulated the first scientifically based theory of child learning. - **Athena:** Greek goddess, subject matter for a poetry/art retelling project. - **Manhattan K through8 school:** Example of a school where design projects could be assigned. ## Numbers & Data - **65%**: Estimate of future jobs that likely haven't been invented yet. ## Examples & Cases - **Tissue Box Deconstruction:** Examining die-cut cardboard, printer's registration marks, and plastic slit tensile strength. - **Online Fitting Room:** Shayla's idea for a site providing a personalized avatar to model clothes for women. - **Cologne Differentiation:** Chris's idea to categorize colognes by fragrance, occasion, and *age specific* (e.g., "distinct third grader musk"). - **Personalized Pet Adopter Site:** Kyler's improved idea linking animal research to IP-sensing modules finding local zoos and offering live video feeds or adoption programs. - **Pressure Sore Design Challenge:** High school students designing solutions for bedridden patients, learning biology, research methodology, and patent law simultaneously. - **Crappy School Furniture Disorder:** Proposing a design project to improve school desks and lockers, noting that *"who better to come up with a better school desk design than the person who has to use it day in and day out?"* - **Greenhouse Build:** Teaching linear measurement to third graders by having them correctly cut 112 pieces of PVC pipe for a greenhouse. - **Mural/Haiku Art:** Teaching fourth graders math scale by having them draw a picture, creating a mural, and illustrating haikus within it. - **Teaching Shift Examples:** Replacing vocabulary matching worksheets with designing a dinosaur website; replacing reading mythology with shooting/editing stories of Athena. ## Tools, Tech & Products - **Avatar Technology:** Virtual representation of the user's body type for clothing visualization. - **IP Address Sensing:** Module technology used to automatically locate the nearest facility (like a zoo) based on a user's location data. - **PVC Pipe:** Used in the greenhouse build to teach precise measurement skills. - **Google/Websites:** Used as the medium for students to demonstrate design skills. ## References Cited - **MacArthur Foundation:** Source for the estimate regarding uninvented jobs. - **Lev Vagotssky:** Source of the theory that *"a true understanding of reality is not possible without a certain element of imagination."* - **CES (Consumer Electronics Show):** Venue where Microsoft unveiled its Connect shopping experience. ## Counterarguments & Caveats - Skepticism that the entire concept of design in education is a *"hairbrain scheme"* that will be too messy or expensive. - Acknowledgement that these projects *will* be *"very very messy"* and *"absolutely" riski. ## Methodology - Learning must proceed by giving students a *challenge* and *space* rather than presenting prescribed knowledge. - Utilizing **project-based learning (PBL)** to naturally integrate multiple disciplines (e.g., patent law, biology, construction skills). ## Conclusions & Recommendations - Education must evolve to prepare students for designing the future, rather than passing a multiple-choice test. - **Recommendation for educators:** To flip worksheets, using the blank backside as a template for a novel, creative, and interdisciplinary design project. ## Implications & Consequences - Failure to evolve education means preparing children for a *bygone reality* and an obsolete industrial landscape. - Adopting design education prepares children for a future characterized by *"a wide open frontier filled with unlimited possibilities"* (the design challenge). ## Verbatim Moments - *"the gears turning beneath the surface."* - *"We want to move my students from being passive users of things to becoming active creators."* - *"They're like pesture discovering microbes or even Moses on Mount Si."* - *"Coincidence? I'll let you decide."* - *"What kind of reality are we preparing our kids for? The same old industrial landscape, a wide open frontier filled with unlimited possibilities, or one with silver uniards and Google glasses?"* - *"a true understanding of reality is not possible without a certain element of imagination without departure from reality"* - *"The future is not a multiple choice test. It's a design challenge."* - *"Maybe instead of doing that vocabulary matching worksheet on paleontology, Nathan can design his own dinosaur website."* - *"The future... a wide open frontier filled with unlimited possibilities."*