Boldly Go

Education has the opportunity to "forecast the future and move boldly forward," according to Turahn Dorsey, but "it needs to iPhone itself before it gets Kodaked."

Dorsey's reference was to the once-famous camera company's demise when it refused to adapt to the disruption Apple's iPhone brought to the camera and telephone industries.

Dorsey served as the first chief of education for the City of Boston and a member of Mayor Martin J Walsh's cabinet from September 2014 to November 2018. He delivered a talk on the future of education Thursday at SITE Santa Fe for the museum's Innovative Thinker series.

Dorsey also will be on a panel discussion on art and education at 2 pm, Saturday, Oct. 26 at form & concept (435 S. Guadalupe) co-sponsored by New Mexico School for the Arts, along with NMSA President Cindy Montoya, SITE Santa Fe Director of Education and Curator of Public Practice Joanne LeFrak, NMSA Visual Arts Chair Karina Hean and NMSA alum Diego Suarez.

Dorsey grounded his talk on the need for innovation in the education sector on the issue of equity.

"The future of learning, however you name it, is still about people," Dorsey said, opening the lecture by sharing an image of young diverse learners interacting in a science lesson. That interaction, he said, is central, regardless of technology. "The second part of this image is it calls for us to take special care to make sure there is an intentional equity agenda framing the future of learning," he added. "Diverse communities have to be at the center of the narrative of the future … If we are dedicated to … closing racial, gender and socioeconomic gaps, we first have to put young people in a position to succeed."

Schools, he noted, can't compensate for the disadvantages of poverty.

Dorsey discussed efforts in which he's been involved toward this goal, such as a pilot project in which schools and community organizations worked in concert in seven schools to identify 200 homeless students and provide support both to the students and their families. The Family Independence Initiative, he said, invests in low-income families in ways to try to break the intergenerational cycles of poverty.

"We think the combination of access to capital, autonomy, the systematic expansion of the life opportunities for dispossessed people is the formula to set a different foundation for learning and life's success. It's the prerequisite, not the afterthought," he said.

Dorsey also discussed the future of work and preparing students for emergent professions he described as "hybrid jobs," combining interdisciplinary skills, such as biostatisticians. He noted that in speaking with companies in the innovation sector, hiring managers were increasingly asking candidates to describe their "side hustles," which he he called an "interesting and provocative" question designed to uncover individuals' interests and passions beyond what is found in school transcripts and resumes.

"If these are among the things employers are looking for and arguing what's needed for life and civil society," he said, "the question that arises for us is: How and where do we teach in-demand future-ready capability?"

Much of the answer involves re-visioning and re-designing education, Dorsey said, noting that the current school system was essentially designed in 1893 and "pays obeisance to a manufacturing past and a very different social contract."

Schools, Dorsey added, need to be rethought in terms of design, interdisciplinary study and "anywhere, anytime learning." He pointed to a Boston project in its 10^th year, Summer for All, that has grown to serve more than 14,000 kids in the area with experiential learning programs, which was predicated on asking "Can we use the summer to take a different approach to learning by getting learning out of the classroom?"

Dorsey acknowledged the challenges that redesigning education will face, and the potential for failure, given the current system and what he characterized as resistance to the "threat to testing-based accountability structures."

Nonetheless, he maintained "I not only hold out hope for, but believe we can do this."