Timeless Learning: Driving a Paradigm Shift in Education

Our homes, communities, indeed the world, need the natural assets our children bring with them as learners, and which they often lose over time on the assembly line that pervades most of the public education system today. We see no actions as more important in school than developing, supporting, and reinforcing children's sense of agency, the value of their voices, and their potential to influence their own communities. Learning becomes timeless when we trust in childhood and give power and control to children, when we let them lead and encourage them to explore widely and wildly as learners whose curiosities take them places that most of us as adults no longer can envision. We want our young people to use technologies of all sorts to learn how they can manipulate the world. That can be through traditional tools such as saws and drills and hammers or more contemporary tools such as mobile devices. We also think of space and environment as something that children can control. How do they choose to locate themselves in space to work?  Do they want to sit or stand or lounge on the floor or ground? Do they want to work around a table illuminated by natural light or go under the table or outside under a tree?  We see learning today as extending beyond the walls of schools and boundaries of districts, offering teachers and learners connectivity with expertise, experts, and audiences around the globe. We support taking risks to try out new paths to engage learners in work that helps them makes sense of their learning. We believe our voices and those of other educators must bring laser focus to equity and access, the elephant in the room of every challenge we face to ensure that all children are afforded agency, voice, and influence, not as an option or privilege but as a right. We believe this cannot happen without significant transformation of every dimension of school, as we have known it in our own childhoods, professions, and as parents.