Twenty-one Trends for the 21st Century: Out of the Trenches and into the Future

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Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.

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Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center and Champion of High Performance Instructional Leadership, Justin Bader.

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Welcome to Principal Center Radio. I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm thrilled to be joined today by Gary Marks. author of 21 Trends for the 21st Century, Out of the Trenches and Into the Future. Gary is a noted author, futurist, and education expert with over 20 years of experience with the American Association for School Administrators, and he currently serves as director of the Center for Public Outreach in Vienna, Virginia.

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And now, our feature presentation.

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Gary, welcome to Principal Center Radio.

[00:46] SPEAKER_02:

Thank you, Justin. It's so good to be with you this morning.

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So tell us, what brought you to the point in your career where you identified these 21 trends and their relevance for school administrators?

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I wrote 21 Trends for the 21st Century, Out of the Trenches and Into the Future, as the third in a series of trends books that I have put together over the past decade or so. And the reason for these trends books is that it's very, very important Whatever we do, whether we're educators, work in other, some field of endeavor, some other walk of life, to be connected with those forces in society that impact virtually everyone. So that's what we do. We take a look at those tendencies that impact the whole of society and then ask people to consider the implications of those trends for whatever they do. In the case of education, We'd ask people to identify the implications of those trends for how we run our education system, how we run our individual school, what students need to know and be able to do, their academic knowledge, their skills, their behaviors, their hopes for the future, and so on.

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And also, as leaders in education and our communities, we might ask people to identify the implications of these trends for economic growth and development and quality of life in our communities.

[02:21] SPEAKER_00:

Well, Gary, I'm thinking about how we talk about people who tend not to pay attention to what's going on around them. And I think of terms like kind of small minded or narrow minded or kind of having a limited vision or a limited perspective. And if I understand what you're saying correctly, it's that we need to lead. We need to do our work, not with a narrow perspective on what my job is right now, but with a big vision for where the world is going.

[02:51] SPEAKER_02:

That's true. We need to be masters of detail. In other words, we need to work on those things that we find on our desks every day. However, there are some people, we've all met them, who feel that the world is no bigger than what they can see from looking out their windows at the horizon. Even if they're standing on a ladder, they feel that the world is no bigger than what they can directly see. In some cases, people believe that the world is no bigger than the tops of our desks.

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If it hasn't landed on the desk, it must not be important. And we need to be connected with the whole of society because we live in a fast changing world. I believe that one of our jobs in education and in other fields is to interpret the organization to society or interpret the organization to the community. But to make that circle complete, We also need to be interpreting society to the organization, to the school, the school system, the college, the university. We need to make sure that what we do is connected to the needs of students and the needs of the whole of society, because that's what we serve. We serve everyone, including the students we might have in our schools.

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So on the one hand, we need to make sure that We interpret the organization to society. On the other hand, as leaders, we need to interpret society to the organization. If indeed people see us as understanding trends and issues, they'll likely say we're in touch. If we don't understand trends and issues, they'll likely say they're out of touch. So we certainly want to be in touch with the needs of a fast changing society. I might just add to that that we are generally committed in the education system to aligning our curriculum and instruction to our goals.

[04:57]

It's also imperative for us to align our goals to those needs of individual students and the needs of society.

[05:06] SPEAKER_00:

So one example of that kind of awareness where we need to, as school leaders, interpret the outside world or even just the immediate community to the organization that comes to mind for me is demographic shifts. And I think often within a school, it's very easy for people to imagine that things will stay the same forever. But the reality of our communities is that they change. You know, people move in, people move out, and the student population that a particular staff is used to working with can change very rapidly. And if, as educators, we're not prepared for that, we don't understand that, We're not going to be able to make the systematic and instructional shifts that we might need to. And I think you're bringing us that idea on a more macro level as well.

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And I wonder if you could share with us three demographic shifts in terms of generational transitions, diversity, and aging that are going to have a profound impact on society. And I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about those demographic shifts.

[06:05] SPEAKER_02:

Because people are living longer, we now live on the same planet and in the same communities with all our parts of about six different generations, from the GI generation to an emerging what I call Generation E. And these are young people born beginning in about 2004, probably will be born up through about 2024 or so, considering a 20-year generation. And among those generations are the millennials, born between 1982 and 2003. Generation X, born between 1965 and 1981. These two generations will soon take over positions of elective and appointed leadership in all of our organizations, including schools, school systems, colleges, universities, communities, and countries.

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And it will be a different type of leadership. It'll be a form of leadership that is less vertical and more horizontal, more collaborative. So we need to be ready for that because that is our next generation of leaders, and they're already showing up on the stage. The other thing we need to be concerned about is another reality, and that is that beginning in 2011, boomers, baby boomers, started hitting 65 at the rate of about 10,000 a day. And that trend will continue for about 30 years. And as if by some demographic magic, in 2012, the oldest of those millennials started hitting 30.

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And they'll be from about 27 to 48 years of age in 2030, move out to 2050, and the millennials will be in prime time, ages 47 to 68. They'll have a profound impact on every institution in society. And that's very important for us to understand. Another demographic shift that's very important for us to consider, and I know our communities vary a great deal demographically, but in the United States, non-Hispanic whites will become less than 50% of the total population by 2043. Let me repeat that. In the U.S., non-Hispanic whites will become less than 50% of the total population in 2043.

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That whole phenomenon has been happening with children through age one since July 1st of 2011. Age five and under this year, 2014. Age 18 and under by 2018. So we need to understand that the face of the country is changing. And there are some people who tell me in some communities that aren't highly diverse, at least ethnically and racially. They say that's a very important issue.

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However, we aren't very diverse, so it doesn't really affect us. Well, our graduates, the people who come out of our schools, are going to have to work in, survive in, succeed in a highly diverse world. So all of these trends are extremely important and especially those demographic trends.

[09:28] SPEAKER_00:

Is there an education trend that you would particularly like to emphasize since our audience is school administrators?

[09:34] SPEAKER_02:

Let me go through these trends just briefly to show the scope of the trends we have addressed in 21 Trends for the 21st Century. We were advised in doing this book by what we've called a Futures Council 21. And these were about 26 people from all over the world who advised us in a kind of Delphi process as we developed 21 trends, which we hope will be helpful to school leaders, college and university leaders, and people in other walks of life in engaging staff and community and perhaps even customers in in a discussion of their implications for them, whatever they do. But these trends come together under, as you've indicated, demographic spheres.

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There's a demographic sphere that includes generations, diversity, and aging. There's a technology sphere that addresses trends in technology and identity and privacy. Several years ago, when I did the last trends book, identity and privacy was included in the technology trends. but it's become a major issue in itself. So it has a chapter of its own in this book. There's an economic sphere that addresses, of course, the economy as well as jobs and careers.

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There's an energy and environmental sphere, which, of course, addresses trends devoted to energy, the environment, and sustainability. There's an international global sphere, which introduces and discusses and looks at the implications of a number of of trends internationally and globally. There's a public and personal leadership sphere, which includes trends and chapters on those trends devoted to polarization, to authority, to ethics, and continuous improvement. There's a well-being sphere, which addresses poverty. It addresses scarcity versus abundance and also concludes with personal meaning and work-life balance. And then we have one sphere.

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All of these trends impact education because education is of this world. It is not separate from it. If you ask many educators, what are the issues you face? They'll logically talk about the fact that we don't have enough money. You know, our budgets are tight. Or we'll talk about the fact that indeed, you know, we're facing a lot of stringent standards and high stakes tests.

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But let's talk about some of those trends that directly impact, right on top of the desk, the education and learning sphere. In the education and learning sphere, we discuss three things. One, we discuss personalization. Two, ingenuity. And then the depth, breadth, and purposes of education. One thing that came up in our discussions with our Futures Council 21 was a repeated phrase.

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Lifelong learning will be taking place any time, any place, any pace, and any way. We might say, that sounds like a threat. It's not a threat. It's a reality. And we need to plan around that reality that lifelong learning is taking place any time, any place, any pace, and any way. Personalization is becoming increasingly important.

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We have a market of one society. People want everything to be tailor-made for them. We need to make sure that we consider diversities and differences, abilities, talents, skills, aptitudes, motivations, interests, dreams, cultural backgrounds, and all the rest as we consider how we will personalize. And then we need to address this issue of standards and testing. We have developed in our nation, and it's happened in some other nations as well, a kind of scoreboard mentality. There are people who think that we should be able to get the education scores the same way we get basketball scores, football scores, hockey scores, baseball scores.

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Well, it's not that easy with education. And in some cases, those numbers, those scores, those ratings, those rankings, have become our goals, which is very, very frustrating to many educators who know that they want to turn out highly educated and fully educated people. We need to make sure that we concentrate on thinking and reasoning, problem solving skills. We need to create intellectual entrepreneurs who are curious and persistent. Show me a person who's curious, a person who's consistent, persistent, and I'll show you a person who will be pretty well educated for the rest of her or his life. And we need to make sure that our institutions are connected.

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We need to make sure that we see that big picture. We need to make sure that what we do is in the context of a fast-changing world. We need to consider perspective.

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We need to make sure that we're turning out people who are creative, who can deal with paradox, controversy, complexity, who can conceive of new knowledge and can conceive of creative solutions to problems. And we need, as we said, to think and learn and teach across disciplines. Ed Wilson, the famed scientist, author, futurist, tells us that our disciplines are really artifacts of scholarship. We, of course, break down knowledge into various disciplines to make it easier to teach. However, when we graduate from school and go out into the world, we live multidisciplinary lives, and we need to make sure that we prepare our students as good thinkers, as knowledgeable people, as good citizens, as prepared for the economy, who can live multidisciplinary lives.

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I would just add a quote here from Jane Goodall, that famous primologist, who said, we have not inherited this planet from our parents. We have borrowed it from our children.

[16:09] SPEAKER_00:

Beautifully said, Gary. Thank you. And I think back to some of my study of the role of organizational leaders within a larger environment. And I think one of the most critical roles that we play as school leaders is kind of filtering what's coming into the school and, as you said, interpreting it for the organization and for the people involved. in the organization. So I think it is absolutely incumbent upon us to be aware of these trends and not wait until someone shows up at our door with new standards or a new assessment or a new mandate and makes us respond.

[16:43]

I think it's our job as leaders to be aware of these trends. And I think you've outlined them so well in the book. And they are big trends. They extend beyond what I have to do tomorrow into what we need to do as a society far into the future. So Gary, thank you so much for sharing with us from your book, 21 Trends for the 21st Century, Out of the Trenches and Into the Future. Thanks very much, Justin.

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And now, Justin Bader on high-performance instructional leadership. So high-performance instructional leaders, what did you take away from my interview with Gary? As Gary went through the 21 trends that he's identified taking place in our communities, in our society, and in our world, I hope you got the sense that this is a big responsibility on us as school leaders to look around, to see what's going on around us, and to stay a few steps ahead of shifts that might be coming our way. Because it's all too tempting. to just wait and to sit back and expect the mandate and put off any action until that mandate comes. If we're going to change standards, if we're going to change graduation requirements, if we're going to change the way we teach, if we're going to change what we emphasize in the curriculum, it's all too tempting to put that off until someone makes us.

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And one of my clearest takeaways from speaking with Gary and learning about these 21 trends is that it's our job to get ahead of them. Now, one place that you will see people getting ahead of these trends is in marketing. You will see vendors sending you stuff that emphasizes these trends and that tries to get you to respond to those trends proactively. And to the extent that that's helpful, if those vendors make you aware of shifts like the need for greater text complexity in Common Core, things like that, that can be helpful. But it's our job to know what the difference is between good marketing and what's actually taking place in terms of the shifts that we're facing and the changes that we need to make. So again, the book is 21 Trends for the 21st Century by Gary Marks.

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So as you review those 21 trends, think about what's taking place in the world around us that needs to filter in to your school and make it onto your school's agenda.

[18:56] Announcer:

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