On the desk of Steve Clark, Treasurer of Kettering Schools, are two crystal eagles, each citing a commendation. Top performing treasurers, like Mr. Clark, have eagle eyes for detail and an eagle perspective that soars high above and sees the big picture.

The MESSENGER spacecraft snapped a great photo of the Earth and our Moon from about 114 million miles while on its way to the planet Mercury.

It’d be great if our leadership, in general, could have the POV of an eagle. But to solve really big challenges — like the challenge to transform public education — we need a POV that exceeds that of the eagle’s. The vision of the eagle is practical and immediate.  We need a vision that is inspiring, one that will deliver on Robert Kennedy’s words: “Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.”

We need dreamers in education, leaders who will excite interest in defining and pursuing excellence. As a society, we seem stuck in a medieval understanding of education, we are stuck in a medieval understanding concerning the purpose of education. As the development of technology has expanded, it seems the development of humanity has actually contracted. As a species, we seem less today, than in the recent past. I believe research would support the thesis that the educated person of 2011, in many ways is sorely inferior to the educated person of 1911, or 1811.  (I’d love to have insight into how research could answer such a question, one way or the other.)

In 1911, I would imagine that the term, “Excellent with Distinction,” would indicate a profound quality of a quite different order and nature than what the term, as appropriated by educational bureaucracies, has come to mean today. The evidence seems irrefutable that the nomenclature of quality has become corrupted.

I like the thought experiment, explored in a lot of science fiction, that imagines how an intelligent visitor from far away might analyze earth and the activities on earth. The photo, above, shows what such a visitor might first see — a diamond in the sky.

The scientist James Lovelock argues that earth may be seen as a single cell, a single organism.  He calls it the “gaia hypothesis.” According to Lovelock, the earth has attained a fever and that this fever will only get worse and worse and will last 100,000 year, or more. By 2100, according to Lovelock, this fever will have caused the death of over six billion humans. Six Billion.

I’d like to think that any intelligent visitors to earth would will share the perspective of Ray Kurzweil, author of “The Singularity Is Near,” and not the perspective of Lovelock. Kurzweil is confident that, thanks to the exponential growth of machine power, humanity will soon have the capacity to solve all of its problems.

These crystal eagles were awarded to Steve Clark, Treasurer of Kettering Schools

I’m working on the book I’m determined to write, “Kettering Public Education In 2030,” about the future of public education, and, the book takes the big picture view that Ray Kurzweil is basically right.  And, because Mr Kurzweil is right, my conclusion: The purpose of education, necessarily, will shift away from development of the intellect and toward the development of character and virtue. We will need a transformed system of public education to accomplish a transformed definition of purpose.

The question to ponder, here in 2011, is how do we prepare the green space where such a system might to developed by 2030? What is the structure that would empower the most visionary educational leaders?

As it is, a community like Kettering elects a five member school board and empowers them to spend tax money to create and administer a school system. The board, in turn, hires a CEO to oversee the operation, and the board and the CEO work together to review and set policy and make plans for the future.  What this amounts to, is, in Kettering we are paying $12,000 per year per student to this management firm, and have given them exclusive rights to tax money to educate the youth of Kettering. This management group, in turn, has structured an industrial type bureaucracy and hierarchy.

In the big picture, it is hard to argue that the structure we have today, a monopoly, is the structure with which to best respond to the challenges of the future. It seems to me, we need to open green space so that a board might offer teachers and independent operators entrepreneurial opportunities — the chance to define excellence and cost in a different way:  “For $9,000 per student, this is how we will define excellence…”

In Order To Reform Public Education, The First Task Is To See The Big Picture.

• Let’s Frame the Question of “Achievement Gap” to Include All Schools and All Students, June 4th, 2008
• Thinking Through Purposes and Principles Needed To Guide the Re-Design of Public Education, July 17th, 2008
• What Quality Guru W. Edward Deming Had To Say About Reforming and Improving Public Education, August 30th, 2009
• To Bring Excellence To Public Education We Must First Engineer A Better System, August 16th, 2010
• If The Aim Of Public Education Is To Provide Opportunity — How Should $150,000 Per Student Be Spent?, November 22nd, 2010
• What Is The Public Education That Will Sustain An Ever More Successful America? December 15th, 2010
• Ohio’s SB5 Provides The Greenspace Required For System Transformation — Needed: Profound Knowledge, March 4th, 2011
• When Computers Are Billions Of Times More Intelligent Than Humans — What Should Be The Aims Of Education?, April 12th, 2011

The documentary film, “Man on Wire,” tells about Philippe Petit’s 1974 stunning high wire walk between New York’s Twin Trade Towers.  Petit, and his accomplices, without the approval or knowledge of the authorities, managed to secure a wire between the two Trade Towers, and then early on the morning of August 7, 1974, Petit created a 45 minute performance at 110 stories above the ground, not stopping until the police threatened to remove him with a helicopter.

On the morning of August 7, 1974, New Yorkers were astounded to see a man, Philippe Petit, walking on a wire strung between the two Twin Trade Towers.

The film won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, and it is now on Netflix. It’s a movie I highly recommend.

This film is thought provoking. It shows how the determination and vision of one person can accomplish the miraculous. It shows how the human imagination can lead to stunning results.

What is mind boggling is Petit’s single minded focus, his lifetime of disciplined practice, his absolute confidence, his character, his courage. Can you imagine taking that first step from the building to the wire?  What is it that drives any human toward excellence?  How is it that some humans are strong willed and inspired to do the extraordinary?

As I continue my contemplation for the book I’m determined to write, “Kettering Public Education In 2030,” it seems to me that in the future we will need an educational system that will encourage a blooming of individuals like Philippe Petit. As it is, in America we talk the talk of individualism. We like to think that as a society we encourage individuals to develop strong character, to be independent thinkers, entrepreneurs. But, our educational system, as it is practiced, is all about imposing conformity. American schools, in general, practice the Japanese saying, “The nail that stands up must be pounded down.”

In my view, in the future, When Computers Are Billions Of Times More Intelligent Than Humans, the focus of human education necessarily will be centered not on developing what is now defined as intellectual capacity, but on developing those qualities that most elevate humans — qualities of virtue, qualities of character.

In the future, the height of human accomplishment will be defined by those qualities that are most uniquely human, those most un-machine like. The attainment of trivial knowledge — facts, algorithms — someday will seem unimportant, because such knowledge will be easily accessible via a machine.  Instead, the goal of education will be the attainment of self knowledge, and an integrated holistic point of view that will empower and thoughtful, harmonious and useful life. Humans will seek to attain their human potential, their potential for happiness. Humans will seek to become the most human humans they can possibly become.

When computers are billions of times more intelligent than humans, what schools will recognize as worthy of highest praise will not be displays of intellect, but, rather they will recognize those indicators showing the capacity to enjoy life, the capacity and inclination to actualize the best aspects of one’s character, the capacity to experience and develop and demonstrate virtue.

It seems an unreasonable idea that the elevated state accomplished by the most exceptional humans will one day be the state every human will aspire to reach. You may argue, “But everyone can’t be Einstein.” But, when machines are billions of times more intelligent than humans, then everyone will have access to much more intelligence than what was available to the historical Einstein who died in 1955. And besides, on closer inspection, it will be found that the secret to Einstein’s success was not intellect, but character, just as the secret to Philippe Petit’s success was not athletic ability, but character.

Humanity is on a wire, and the chance for our collective fall into a chasm of absolute destruction is more apparent now than ever before.  The contemplation of the character and virtue that empowered Philippe Petit’s success — 110 stories up in the air — is a contemplation of how and why the human race may yet save itself.  It seems to me, In The Future, Education Will Seek To Develop Character More Than Intellect.

See:

• How Did Einstein Become Einstein?  : Saturday, April 14, 2007
• When Computers Are Billions Of Times More Intelligent Than Humans — What Should Be The Aims Of Education?: April 12th, 2011
• What Is The Educational System That Would Empower An Explosion Of Virtue?:  April 21st, 2011
• Schools Of The Future Will Center On Development Of Virtue, The Whole Person:  May 2nd, 2011