The Role of Education In An AI World

What is the purpose of education?

Presumably, it’s to learn things. But how do we determine whether or not that is occurring?

My education was geared toward providing answers. Students with excellent memories held a significant advantage. I’m not sure that works anymore.

I remember challenging my teachers with questions like “Why do I need to learn this?” When will I ever use this information in real life? Their answers emphasized the importance of general education, which is hard to deny, but students now hold the world’s knowledge in the palm of their hands. Is a “general education” worth taking on mortgage-level debt? 

I’m dating myself, but Mizzou cost $300/semester when I attended. That’s about $ 1,800 inflation-adjusted. In those days, a degree was the gateway to a good job. Fast forward to the present: In-state tuition at public universities has increased 5-fold. Out-of-state tuition has increased 15-fold. And a college degree no longer guarantees a good job. I recently spoke with a young man who had perfect SAT scores and completed his college degree in three years. He’s still trying to find a job!

I’m disappointed when I read about education professionals complaining about rampant cheating in an AI-enabled world. Cheating wouldn’t be an issue if the curriculum focused on teaching students how to think. If I were teaching a course, I would invite students to use AI. Isn’t that what we do in real life? AI answers don’t exempt us from needing to figure out the right questions to ask, or how to sleuth out answers that are wrong.

Questions are the font of lifelong learning. Well-constructed questions point us in the right direction. When I was responsible for hiring senior business leaders, I paid more attention to the questions they asked than the answers they provided.  

A modern education should teach students to navigate the challenges of a rapidly changing world rather than parrot memorized answers. I graduated with a B.S. and an M.S. degree in economics. Yet no courses were offered in personal finance, savings and investment, risk management, or retirement planning. Neither degree required a single history course. No wonder we fail to learn from the past. 

After landing a job as a research economist for an agri-business company, one of my first assignments was to evaluate whether our company should pursue an acquisition in the rice milling industry. I was given 30 days to present my findings to Executive Management. College coursework hadn’t prepared me for such an open-ended challenge. 

I will always remember a quote taken from the book Blue Highways, written by William Least Heat Moon, an English professor at Mizzou:

“Learning is useful, but it isn’t education. Education is looking for yourself and seeing what is there, not what you are told. There is only one place to get a true education: in the school of thought.”

Shortly before I retired, my alma mater invited me to return as a guest lecturer in economics. I structured those lectures around issues I wrestled with every day on the job. At the end of one of my classes, a soon-to-graduate senior asked: “Mr. Coats, is this going to be on the exam?”

The only answer I could muster was: “That will depend on whether you ever land a job in this area.”

So, what’s my takeaway from all this?

A good education should teach students how to think, which includes asking the right questions, whether in a focused field of study or in life more generally. Recently, my pre-kindergarten Granddaughter asked, “What is reality?” Later, she followed that question with another, “What is God?” Both are excellent questions. AI might provide clues to such questions, but not definitive answers.

The way to stay forever young is to keep asking questions. Questions, not answers, drive progress.  I hope our educational system picks up on this!

Our future depends on it!

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