Education for a New World: BIG IDEAS at CIIS with Liz Beaven

This event is part of our BIG IDEAS at CIIS: Fall/Winter 2017/18 Series. Purchase series tickets here.

Schools play an important role in preparing students for success in life and in the workplace. Although change is constant in all things including education, our current school model was established in the industrial age and the basic model has largely remained the same. Many children entering grade school today will find employment doing jobs that have not yet been invented. How does the traditional structure of schooling need to change to best prepare our future generations?

The characteristics today’s tech employers look for in employees gives some indication of what will be needed in our future workforce. They look for employees who are flexible and creative thinkers comfortable with ambiguity and working on teams, who have strong analytical skills, and the grit needed to take on difficult projects. These sought-after characteristics are gained and honed through a general and diverse education as opposed to the single-focused skills taught in traditional schooling.

All of this points to the necessity for changes in education that lead to more all-inclusive learning including social-emotional context, hands-on learning, and a wide range of arts to develop creativity. In this talk, integral teaching expert Liz Beaven shares ideas for changes to traditional education that can better prepare our children for the future.

Liz Beaven, EdD, has been actively engaged in questions of education for most of her life, and has spent over 30 years in Waldorf education. Her work as a classroom teacher, school administrator, adult educator and researcher developed a conviction in the need for fundamental change in how we typically educate our children. This led her to CIIS, where she is working to develop a new graduate program in integral teacher education, contextualizing core principles and practices of the Waldorf approach within a contemporary landscape of equity, access, social justice, and the essential question of true preparation for the rapidly changing, unknown future that will belong to today's school children.