Education for world futures: that future is now! | Neville Bruce | TEDxPerth

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.
The 21st century presents the greatest challenges and opportunities ever faced by humankind. It will span massive transitions in technology, society, human wellbeing, values and our world ecosystem. In this lively and thought-provoking talk, Neville discusses how to prepare our youth to meet these challenges with awareness, understanding, engagement, empowerment and action.

My golly.

I want to congratulate everyone here.

You know why?

You're a member of the most magnificent
species: homo sapiens.

And what does that mean? Wise human.

Go on, look at each other.
Take a bow. Isn't it marvelous?

(Laughter)

We are the greatest,
the wisest, the most powerful,

and the most dangerous species on Earth.

And possibly, the cosmos; we don't know.

And yet, we're such a recent invention
in evolutionary terms;

we haven't been around very long.

Yet, in an incredibly short space of time,

we've gone from a primitive,
axe-bearing ape

to - sorry about this -

a sophisticated human, just like you,
all wielding a mobile phone.

Aren't we smart?

This is great. (Laughter)

But how did we do it?

And how did we do it so quickly?

Very simple: we did it
on the back of education.

Education, handing down of ideas
from person to person, building them up,

that's what gave us
our great advantage in civilization.

Education has served us
incredibly well in the past,

but - and this is a big but -

is it serving us well now
and into the future?

We think, not really,

because there's some important
ingredient missing: wisdom.

The "sapiens" behind homo sapiens.

Now, let's begin on a journey
and just expand that idea a little bit.

Let us think:

we actually evolved on this planet
about 200,000 years ago,

which is not very long
in evolutionary terms.

We were very weak, little, naked apes;

totally at the mercy of the environment.

We almost died out 70,000 years ago.

We didn't, we were lucky.

We had very bright little minds,
we were very clever.

And because of that, we gradually
got control of our environment.

10,000 years ago, we invented agriculture.

Suddenly, we had
a food surplus, food security.

And because of that,
we could suddenly start to breed.

Build our numbers up,
like you people here.

We could stratify our community.

And think about that,
our early communities,

- maybe this lot over here
in the audience -

you became stratified into the serfs,
the workers, the laborers, the slaves;

you made all the profits, you made
all the--sorry, you made all the work.

This little group over here
- the middle class, if you like -

you became the teachers,
the merchants, the thinkers.

And you four people over there,
you know who you were?

Yes, right, I mean you.

You were the elite, you were
the princes, you were the high priests,

you were the Chief Executive Officers,
living off the fat of the land.

Right, stratification was a great thing.

Despite the inequality, it meant
we could build civilizations; and we did.

Marvelous civilizations, and we all
started to live longer, happier lives.

And gradually, gradually, gradually
we built great monuments, great cities.

Look at that city. Carefully.

It's full of little
naked apes just like you,

and just like you, now wearing clothes.

And that's all we are, little naked apes.

Can I put the stone down?

Thank you. (Laughter)

Now, this did come at a cost,
a very high price.

And as everyone here probably realizes,
we are living beyond our means.

The Earth cannot support us, we know that.

We've got to change
our lifestyles, we know that.

But we're not doing it.

Is that wise?

And let me go further.

Two incredible idiocies that we've done.

70 years ago, we harnessed
the atom, and what did we do?

We made two big bombs.

And what did we do with those bombs?

We dropped them on ourselves, in Japan.

We did. We killed
150,000 people, just like that.

Horrified, appalled, disgusted.

And so what did we do?

We built another
20,000 bigger bombs; incredible.

And we still have 8,000 of them.

And you know what we call them?

"A balance of terror."

"Mutually assured destruction."

Acronym: MAD.

And you call us homo sapiens.

And we know that we're mining
our fossil fuels,

throwing them up in the air,
changing our climate; we know that.

And we know we could do something
about it, but are we? No.

We're just wrangling,
just discussing, we're just thinking.

Is that wise?

OK, have I made the point?

Homo sapiens, are we wise?

Well, no, we're not.

We're very clever, genetically endowed,
we have great minds,

but do we have wisdom?

No.

Wisdom is not within our minds,
wisdom is not genetically endowed.

We never had the wisdom
to cope with things like this.

Wisdom has to be nurtured.

We get nurture through education.

Education is what we must have
if we're going to cope with the future.

Let's move on to education then.

Amazing. Education, particularly
over the last 300 years, has boomed.

Everyone here has been dragooned
through schools and probably universities.

You've been stuck in these institutes

like little academic sausages
coming out the other end.

(Laughter)

And hopefully, you've learned something.

But I challenge you:
have you learnt wisdom?

Let me ask you a question.

In all of your years and years

of sitting in those schools,
in those university halls,

did anyone ever ask you,
or encourage you to think:

"What will the world be like
in 50 years' time?"

"What sort of a world
would you like to have in 50 years' time?"

"And what could you do
to make that happen?"

Did anyone get that sort of information?

Come on, there must be someone.

Ah yes! Great!

Now that's interesting.
You're one of the youngest members here.

And I think you're right.

Because I think it's quite possible

our primary schools and our teachers
are beginning to inculcate

these ideas into education.

And I'm so grateful.

It is happening.

It's just that we want it
to happen faster.

When we get on to universities,
it's happening ever so slowly.

It really is.

Easiest way to describe this:

the world has problems;
universities have disciplines.

They're not meshing.

We've got to go beyond disciplines.

And so, I and a number of colleagues,

- over 10 years ago now - felt
that we've got to make a change.

We've got to educate in a different way.

We've got to bring wisdom back
into our halls of learning.

And so we decided two things.

Firstly, that we'd work very,
very hard to create curricula,

- like you might be getting
in primary schools -

curricula specifically trying to enhance
and enable wisdom to flourish.

And the second thing
we felt was terribly important

is that we must learn to link up
with each other, all around the world,

working with similar groups like us,
working with primary school teachers,

working with secondary school teachers.

Collectively - although
we don't have much power yet -

we just might be able to make a difference

and get wisdom back where it belongs;
in our halls of learning.

So, let us move on and think about
what we actually did.

Let us think, how do you create curricula

where wisdom is not taught,
- you cannot teach wisdom -

but you can nourish it,
you can allow it to flower.

It does so naturally,
in such a beautiful lot of students.

First of all, we had to define wisdom.

And again, when I wandered
around my university,

and said, "Look what's wisdom?"

- and remember, my university's
motto is "Seek wisdom" -

if I wander around my students

- and a lot of you went
through my university, I suspect -

most of you don't even know
what the motto was, and even if you do,

when I ask you,
"Marvelous, you got the motto!

Now, tell me please,
what is wisdom?" then I get silence.

So, what is wisdom? Think.

Well I don't know, but I think
we can try to get a working definition.

And it does imply knowledge and know-how,

but it also implies values, human values.

And it also must imply action.

Knowledge and values
without action is not wisdom.

OK, so we started to get a bit
of a working definition of wisdom.

And then we said,

"Right, now let's create a curriculum
where that wisdom can flourish."

Well, what are we going to do?

Surely the most important thing
is human well-being.

Isn't that marvelous?

Well, of course, we'd all agree with that.

Homo sapiens would be rapt
if we brought in curricula

where we were looking after
human well-being.

And we also realized
- and you all do here too -

that human well-being is impossible

unless you couple it
with the environment.

Bring those two things together,

and we're really starting
to get somewhere.

So, here we are:

we've developed curricula
about well-being and sustainability,

and on top of that, we promoted them
to think about human and world futures.

We've got to get them thinking
about, and engaging with the future.

So they were the prime things
we were doing.

And that was great, but I tell you what.

Some of my rather hard-nosed
academic colleagues felt,

"That's crazy.

"All you're really doing is
coming up with motherhood statements,

and you can't do that at universities."

And our reply is, "Well, yes,
you're right, in the first instance.

"Motherhood: mothers
give life, they give birth.

Mothers love their children,
they nurture them.

Their whole essence
is well-being of their children.

So, if you want to call us motherhood,
we're proud to be associated with it."

Yes, of course.

What about the academic challenge?

We maintain these ideas are not easy.

They're very, very difficult.

Human well-being demands
that you understand

Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology,
Science, Economics.

We must bring all those together,
weave them together

to really understand human well-being.

Not an easy task; a very challenging task,

but a very rewarding task.

OK, and over all of this we must realize
when we're giving these sort of courses

that we must offer hope and enthusiasm.

Too often we look at the problems
of the world and get defeated.

We must go beyond that.

So, we have developed courses;
and they're working well.

I just want to show you
not our courses, but someone's here,

Michael Graffen, who spoke
very briefly last year.

His job is to get people working together,
primary school teachers working together,

on the internet around the world.

I think that's absolutely laudable.

And as he puts it, "We are not here
to learn about each other,

we're here to learn with each other."

And that's what it's all about.

On that panel on the bottom left,
this is one of my colleagues, Angela Janz.

She is teaching postgraduate courses,
if you like, in wisdom,

to people all around the world
on the internet, totally online.

That panel on the right, these are
my first year students that I work with.

They are doing a subject called,

"Humanity in the 21st century
and human action for world futures."

They're a marvelous group to work with;
they understand what we're talking about.

And when they posed for me like this,

I said, "Look, please, please.
Look as if you're enjoying the course."

They kind of managed that.

And then I asked them
a much harder question:

"Look as if you're wise."

(Laughter)

You go home tonight, look in the mirror
and see if you can do it, it's not easy.

However, we know these courses work.

We know they're appropriate,
we know the students love them,

we think we're accruing wisdom.

But we have a problem.

Just like everyone else working
in these areas around the world,

we're on the periphery.

We're sort of tolerated,
but not much more than that.

We want to think
that wisdom is mainstream

in our universities and schools,

and we need your help.

We need you students to talk
to your lecturers and demand it.

We need everyone here,
and everyone watching.

Just look at this slide:
that is a group of people marching.

We had it a month ago. Marvelous.

A whole lot of very wise people
working for the future.

Just imagine if we could harness you,
and everyone else like you,

to placard yourselves with,

"We want wisdom and we want it now!"

Go to your universities, picket.

Go to your politicians, ask them.

Get wisdom back into our halls
of education, please help us there.

Now, just imagine
you're doing all of that,

and I want you to really
stretch your imagination.

There's the blank screen:

put on that blank screen all your favored
and least favored politicians;

all your favored and least favored
religious leaders;

all your favored and least favored CEOs;

your bosses and yourselves.

Now just think:

if you'd all had the advantages
of an education for world futures,

we could then truly
call ourselves homo sapiens.

And with our wisdom and our action,

what a wonderful world.

Thank you.

(Applause)