Dear Montaigne,

Future of Learning
Death of Ignorance

We are living in times when the rise of ignorance is threatening our very existence. Sound hysterical? Well let’s sort through the evidence:

We see the leader of the free world denying climate science and threatening the use of nuclear weapons. Other demented leaders brandish their rockets and bombs like school yard bullies. Tribal chiefs slaughter each other’s people in the name of religion. And millions of girls and women are denied education while birth rates soar among those same poor nations.

As this type of dark, sick behavior moves around us in media storms ignorance prevails.  Reason, proper listening, even facts are denigrated and emotions like fear and anger dominate so-called dialogues. Learning gives way to yelling and name calling.

H.G. Wells wrote, “Humanity is in a footrace between education and catastrophe”. Well, education is losing rapidly and we must find new ways to combat ignorance. Fortuitously the tools are already in place or are being developed. What’s needed is a “Global Learning Network” that matches peoples’ needs to right information, methods, and content. Neuroscience is uncovering processes by which we take in information and promote its highest use. A few data points:

• We now know how by listening to the right number of words new born infants wire their brains to use their full potential.
   
• People everywhere are already using the world-wide web to learn everything from math and science to mechanics and food preparation. A young man from a small town in Mongolia is now enrolled at M.I.T. having gained his needed courses from MIT on-line material.
   
• Strangers meet across the world in social networks and plan and execute many types of activities from “meet ups” to social action. For example: people from various religious backgrounds in diverse communities around the globe come together to work on local problems and the coordination comes from United Religious Initiative in San Francisco, CA.

Arnold Toynbee in his classic book, Civilization on Trial, wrote of the common ailments that brought great civilizations to an end. Such things as the rise of cults, superstition, and corrupt leadership were deadly.

All of the worse toxins in those civilizations could have been eliminated if ignorance had been addressed and leaders, who became vain, corrupt, hubristic, had been vanquished. They had surrounded themselves with toadies, demanded adulation, and hadn’t allowed thoughtful discourse and collaborative problem solving.

Leaders, who sustain success and build great institutions, are learners suffused with curiosity and humility. As Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel, said, “all leaders must set a culture of creative problem solving, win-win confrontation, constant learning”.

A healthy culture is one where everyone is learning and teaching, where skills are upgraded and shared, where children join learning teams to follow their curiosities. Many companies have already placed learning as a high priority and hundreds of Chief Learning Officers (CLO’s) have joined the “C suite”.

A Global Learning Network is needed now to allow the free commerce of ideas and creativity starting with those excluded from education like girls and women and of course refugees everywhere. Only in this way can we beat down ignorance.

John O’Neil

December 4, 2017