Why Do We Go to School?
To say that school is for learning is to miss huge amounts of what school and education are really doing. Learning can happen in all kinds of places and in all kinds of ways - lots of modern technologies, from YouTube to AI, can be really valuable tools for learning. But that is different from education.
Learning is a part of education, but it's never the whole picture. The goal of learning is that we have some new knowledge or new skills, but the goal of education is connected with the kinds of lives we wish to live and the kind of world we wish to live in.
Speaking at the Teach the Future Festival
Back at the start of September, I was invited to give the opening keynote at the Festivalul Digital Predau Viitor - the Teach the Future Festival in Romania. The festival has been running since 2022, and in its 2025 edition, saw over 5000 participants join talks, workshops, and events for the biggest education conference in the region. It’s a powerhouse event and is both a really impressive feat of logistical engineering and an expression of enormous commitment to education and educators in Romania.
Slow Learning
Like so much in our lives today, learning has been accelerated and commodified to try and offer instant results at low costs. We can take short-form classes on YouTube, SkillShare, Udemy, and dozens of other platforms. We can sign up for real-life classes and workshops. We can self-teach or join online communities. All of them offer quick skills at low prices. Inevitably some of that will be snake oil, people on the grift looking to extract money from those who want, or need, to learn new skills, improve their education, or expand their knowledge. Some of it, though, is high-quality, thoughtful, and impactful learning content. Telling which is which may be the trick, there.
Generative AI is the new Kalashnikov
In the discussion around generative AI a lot of the debate has focused around this same binary - truth and falsehood. Many are worried that the ability of generative AI tools to produce images, audio, video, and text may be used, or is already being used, to produce lies. Fake images, fake video, fake audio. That these powerful AI systems are a means of obscuring the truth or outright lying. We need, then, to clarify just what a lie might be, and why there is something more worrying hiding in plain sight.
The Spice Must Flow
Quite early on in Dune, we’re given this encapsulation of the power dynamics at play in the universe. There’s the Imperial Household, headed by the Padishah Emperor, the Great Houses of the Landsraad, the major political body, and the Spacing Guild, the entity that controls all interstellar travel. The Emperor’s power is grounded in status and the strength of his feared Sardaukar army, the Landsraad holds power through the political structures it wields and the treaties and conventions it defends, and the Spacing Guild maintains its power by exerting a monopoly on space travel. Three simple pillars of power.
Now is Now - Wim Wenders 'Perfect Days'
There is a scene about 90 minutes into Wim Wenders' enchanting film Perfect Days where our protagonist, Hirayama, is cycling over a bridge in Tokyo with his niece Niko. As the two of them cycle back and forth, weaving across the bridge in the sunset they call out, back and forth to each other, “Next time is next time, and now is now.” In a film that says very little explicitly, this seems like a pretty clear mission statement.