The Future of our Students

Did you know that 65% of our Kindergarten students will end up in jobs that haven’t even been invented yet? What are the future jobs waiting for our students? What can we teach them how to prepare for the future? Will there be robots doing our daily tasks? Will people be traveling to space? There are no answers yet. However, there are some skills that we can teach our students now to prepare them for the future.

First, let’s take a look back a couple of decades ago. In the 1980s, the Internet didn’t even exist. We didn’t know yet what new links were coming our way. Now we are surrounded by the Internet and jobs that never even existed ten years ago. With the Internet, new jobs evolved with social media, cloud computing, robots, designing phone apps and more. The next decade will be full of even more Internet surfing for our children.

How can we teach our students today to be prepared for future careers? We can lead them through daily learning activities. We can motivate them to learn to teach themselves. We can put less emphasis on what we teach and more focus on how they learn to teach themselves. What are some of the predictors of future success beyond intelligence? 

Successful adults are persistent, resilient, and have a strong work ethic. We can model these traits for students. We can also teach students to be learners and not test-takers. We are all guilty of memorizing facts for a test, but forgetting them when the test is over. Instead of tests, students can prepare portfolios of their work in a folder or on the computer. Students can show what they have learned in a creative manner to their parents and classmates. How has our picture of a learner changed over time? A student now is not just a test taker but has a willingness to share their learning experiences with their classmates. They collaborate together on class projects and presentations. 

We lead groups of students to show their learning with models, projects, and group presentations. These are beneficial skills that will help them become successful in the workforce when they are older. Our future depends on the students of today.