We are now at a point where we must educate our children in what no one knew yesterday, and prepare our schools for what no one knows yet.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the necessity of adapting education to the evolving knowledge and future unknowns.
Margaret Mead highlights the importance of progressive education that goes beyond current knowledge and prepares students for unforeseen challenges and innovations. As society rapidly advances, it is crucial for educational systems to equip children with skills and knowledge that will be relevant in the future, which may not even be known at present.
In practice
In a conference about future educational practices, this quote can be used to emphasize the need for curriculum innovation.
Earth Day is the first holy day which transcends all national borders, yet preserves all geographical integrities, spans mountains and oceans and time belts, and yet brings people all over the world into one resonating accord, is devoted to the preservation of the harmony in nature and yet draws upon the triumphs of technology, the measurement of time, and instantaneous communication through space.
Prayer does not use up artificial energy, doesn't burn up any fossil fuel, doesn't pollute. Neither does song, neither does love, neither does the dance.
Instead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, color, class, or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful.
We won't have a society if we destroy the environment.
EARTH DAY uses one of humanity's great discoveries, the discovery of anniversaries by which, throughout time, human beings have kept their sorrows and their joys, their victories, their revelations and their obligations alive, for re-celebration and re-dedication another year, another decade, another century, another eon.
American society is very like a fish society. . . . Among certain species of fish, the only thing which determines order of dominance is length of time in the fishbowl. The oldest resident picks on the newest resident, and if the newest resident is removed to a new bowl, he, as oldest resident, will pick on the newcomers.
Think about every problem, every challenge, we face. The solution to each starts with education.
Mathematics is being lazy. Mathematics is letting the principles do the work for you so that you do not have to do the work for yourself
The PhD system is the real root of the evil of academic snobbery. People who have PhDs consider themselves a priesthood, and inventors generally don't have PhDs.
People think that it is important to learn by assisting the great photographers. I say that is a big mistake. Be happy; just learn from any little guy. Learn how to use the camera - you don't need anything else. You can't be taught the real skill anyway.
I always set out to tell a good story, to create a character that young people can relate to, place them in a situation that will be interesting, intriguing, eventually suspenseful. But what I find is that after I do that, then there are themes that emerge, which teachers can then use to provoke discussion and debate.
I went to college because I didn't have anywhere else to go and it was a fabulous hang. And while I was there I was exposed to this world that I didn't know was possible.
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