Schooling for Life

It is my belief that the impending challenge to our civilization will not be how to cope with the future shock of a rapidly developing technology of material abundance but, rather, how to live with less. The pre-eminence of institutional schooling, either as a form of moral suasion to inculcate the masses in the age-old values or as a human assembly line feeding the economy, must give way to the learning needs of individuals struggling to reorient their lifestyles. This reordering of priorities will produce the most profound sense of change our society has experienced since the Great Depression ... Our present system of schooling by technician must give way to a new concept of teacher as change agent. This person will continue to stress literacy as a basic life skill, a fundamental on which to build patterns of lifelong learning. However, other basic skills must include cooperative problem solving, social and emotional fulfilment, and the ability to identify, analyse, develop, and use resources as part of a process of learning to cope with continuous change.