As many of you who subscribe to my Shift Age Newsletter know, I co-authored a book with Jeff Cobb on transforming education. Shift Ed: A Call to Action for Transforming K-12 Education was published in April by Corwin Press.

Now, three months later, I am happy to report that the response from the education community has been strong and extremely positive. Two conferences that had me as the keynote speaker purchased copies of the book for all attendees, and the feedback from these educators has been so positive that I am humbled. In addition, several school superintendents have purchased copies for the principals in their districts. I am currently scheduled to present to three large education conferences this summer and fall, as word of mouth on the book is spreading across the country. As I am a futurist and not a professional educator, it is truly gratifying to hear such positive reactions from K-12 educators.

Why did a futurist write a book on transforming education? Here are some of the reasons:

-There is so much noise, finger-pointing and argument about K-12 education today that it became clear to me that there’s a lack of vision. Many people have points of view, but they are relative to practices they either criticize or support, all based on the present landscape. The present system doesn’t work, so we have to completely start over with a new vision.

-The current system is from the Agricultural Age for its school year, the Industrial Age for most of …

We are ten years into the 21^st century.  We are entering the Shift Age.  We all have experienced rapid and almost unbelievable change in our lifetimes.  We sense even more change in the years ahead.  Everywhere we look, we see institutions that we grew up with starting to crumble before our eyes yet their replacements are not yet fully discernable. This is a time of great transformation.

In the U.S. many of our institutions were created in the first part of the 20^th century.  It is now time to take them, one by one and transform them for the 21^st century.  Health care, transportation systems, infrastructure and the environmental caring for our beautiful land all must be looked at through the lens of this new century.  Equal to, if not of greater importance to all of these is education, particularly the K-12 stage of education.

The history of K-12 education in the U.S. is largely mapped with the ages we have experienced.  During the first century of our country we were basically an Agricultural Age country with the vast majority living in small towns and deriving wealth from the land.  The single room school house of Abraham Lincoln  was the educational system of the day.  The town was small so kids of all ages went to the same one room school usually with a single teacher moving from student to student.  The school day and the school year were scheduled to fit the rhythms of agricultural life.  The school day ended in …

The post today is an interview I recently did with Nonprofit Online Learning Update, which is being published on-line today. The interviewer was Jeff Cobb, a leader in the field of on-line learning for non-profits. Non-profits provide an incredibly valuable function in today’s world and can be even more influential in the future as they can become networks of like minded people, organized around ideas, issues, professions and agendas.

As the biographical note at the top of the interview points out, my father, Cyril O. Houle was not only the man who most popularized the phrase ‘life long learning’ but also wrote two of the most influential books on boards. I therefore grew up with a keen understanding of the value of adult education and the importance of boards in society. I have also worked at an e-learning company and consulted with major training and adult education companies, so it is a field I know and respect.

It is because education is so important for all of us in the future that I share this interview with regular readers of this blog. I welcome the subscribers of Nonprofit Online Learning Update to www.evolutionshift.com.

An Interview with Futurist David Houle

Nonprofit Online Learning Update recently had the opportunity to talk with David Houle, a noted futurist and the mind behind www.evolutionshift.com, a blog devoted to providing ‘A Future Look at Today.’ The son of Cyril O. Houle, one of the pioneers of adult education …