THE URGENT NEED TO REIMAGINE SCHOOLS

What AI and teenage suicide rates tell us about the need to reimagine education asap

Author

Scott Martin
June 19, 2024

Two pieces of news struck me this week as an educator who desires to see schooling reimagined.

One dealt with the coming onslaught of Artificial Intelligence and the myriad of ways AI may very well upend everything we think we know about life as human beings on planet Earth

The other unpacked research related to teenage suicide rates correlating with the school year

What do these two articles have to say to us about the desperate need to reimagine education?

That’s what I want to dive into

Let’s first take a look at the research related to the coming explosion of artificial intelligence

This article, “SITUATIONAL AWARENESS: From AGI to Superintelligence,” highlights some of the coming waves many predict may come true should AI actually reach superintelligence (perhaps in as little as five years).

Here are a few quotes from the article:

“The AGI race has begun. We are building machines that can think and reason. By 2025/26, these machines will outpace many college graduates.

By the end of the decade, they will be smarter than you or I; we will have superintelligence, in the true sense of the word”

Leopold Aschenbrenner

“AI progress won’t stop at human-level. Hundreds of millions of AGIs could automate AI research, compressing a decade of algorithmic progress (5+ OOMs) into ≤1 year. We would rapidly go from human-level to vastly superhuman AI systems. The power—and the peril—of superintelligence would be dramatic.”

Once we get AGI, we’ll turn the crank one more time—or two or three more times—and AI systems will become superhuman—vastly superhuman. They will become qualitatively smarter than you or I, much smarter, perhaps similar to how you or I are qualitatively smarter than an elementary schooler. 

To put it simply:

Artificial intelligence is already beating human intelligence in many categories…and it is just getting started.

Soon, if the predictions hold, AI may very well outpace human thinking in ways we cannot wrap our heads around, outpacing us at every turn.

I’ll stop here but I highly encourage you to read the article for yourself

Now, let’s turn to the other article, “Children’s Risk of Suicide Increases on School Days,” that highlights the incredibly tragic the statistical correlation between school days and teenage suicide rates

To pull just a few statistics from the article:

"On weekdays and during school months, there is a significant elevation of suicide deaths in children”

Tyler Black

“By using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Wonder database to find information on pediatric (17 years of age or younger) deaths by suicide, a “heat map” of youth suicide and a school-day association is plain to see.

On weekdays and during school months, there is a significant elevation of suicide deaths in children”

“Looking at the monthly data, we can see that this elevation is not trivial: during school months, the increase in pediatric suicides ranges between 30 and 43 percent. This is in sharp contrast with adults, where we see suicide rates typically peak in summer months”

“Compared with summer weekends, school-month weekdays from 2016 to 2019 show a pediatric suicide rate increase of 62 percent. The increase was 42% from 1999 to 2015.

If we look at far more common events, such as emergency room visits for mental health conditions, we see a strikingly similar pattern. These data come from participating hospitals in a collection done by the CDC”

"Every year emergency departments brace for the coming mid-September wave, as every year our mental health crisis volumes double and our days become much busier Likely not coincidentally, in my jurisdiction, school starts in the second week of September"

In a 2013 American Psychological Association survey, 83 percent of adolescents stated that school was a cause or significant source of stress. In a 2017 survey of school leaders in the U.K., 82 percent reported increased mental health issues among primary school children during the time of national examinations.

HERE’S THE POINT:

The research is pretty clear: something is happening during the school months that is literally killing our children

Sitting students in desks and rows to fill out multiple choice worksheets is literally killing kids AND not preparing them for the 21st century

Traditional schooling is mired not only in an antiquated system that is not preparing students for life in the Innovation Era…it is also doing significant harm to them

What traditional schooling is not doing is preparing them to be healthy, flourishing, creative, innovative healthy persons ready, willing, and able. to tackle the problems, challenges, and opportunities of the 21st century

This is why we MUST reimagine the very fabric of education.

What does that look like?

Well, I’m glad you asked that question!

Here are a few previous newsletters that seek to tackle both problems head on:

These articles, and the full archive of Insightful Educator posts, are designed to help transform schools to be places where students flourish and thrive as they are prepared for life in the 21st century

No matter where we start, the key is TO START.

To start taking the research seriously. To start looking the problem in the eye. To start now, today, to make a dent in the way we educate so that we not only shape flourishing, healthy, robust students…but we do it for the world they stand to inherit

READY TO START?

→ For those genuinely interested and truly ready to make caring for kids and preparing them for the 21st century the primary reason for being in education, I invite you to check out the work we are doing at Odyssey Leadership Academy.

→ If you would like to take the next step towards seeing that vision come to fruition at your learning site, feel free to reach out!

From one-on-one dream sessions, to consulting with your team, to sharing at your site, I am passionate about helping you reimagine learning in your educational community.

My work exists to help schools tell a better story for students, educators and the world. If I can help in any way—from workshops, consulting calls, professional development, keynotes, or year long cohorts—let me know!

Want a tangible resource for doing something bold and imaginative in education?

→ Grab a copy of The Edupreneur’s Field Guide. In this book, I bring to you all the wisdom, struggle, insight, hardships, challenges, obstacles, and opportunities I have learned from starting Odyssey Leadership Academy to help you tell a better story in education!