ISTE 2010 Opening Keynote Address

In his 2002 book High Noon, former World Bank Vice President Jean-François Rischard argues that the most urgent global problems of the 21st century can't be solved using 20th century approaches. Rischard applies that same logic to the modern classroom, noting both on the lecture circuit and in his work with a half dozen organizations comprising 10,000 schools around the world that a new methodology for global problem-solving and a new mindset for global citizenship must be adopted to ensure our collective future.

This philosophy resonated throughout Rischard's remarks before a packed auditorium of educators and IT decision-makers attending the International Society for Technology in Education's 31st annual conference and exposition in Denver. In delivering the event's opening keynote address, “Global Problem-Solving and the Critical Role of Educators and Technology for Education,” Rischard insisted that technology and student action can be harnessed to help society develop a better problem-solving methodology.

“We have entered the age of fast-forward globalization – one we could also call the age of hyper-change and hyper-complexity,” said Rischard, who ended his 30-year career at the World Bank in 2005 to advocate out-of-the-box approaches to solving the 20 global crises he explores in High Noon. “These problems are unresolved because our current international system is paralyzed” by inertia, which he attributes to the territorial attitudes of the world's 200 largest nation-states and by politicians' short-term electoral cycles.

Rischard believes ideas already exist that could end this paralysis. “But for these ideas to work well, we will also need a new global citizen mindset in future generations – and that's where education and educators have a system-critical role to play,” he suggested.

Where Education and Technology Can Help

According to Rischard, a Luxembourg native now living in Paris, the world's most pressing problems involve “the sharing of our planet, our humanity and our rulebook.” They include such threats as climate change, deforestation, water shortages, poverty, global access to education and illegal drug trafficking.

“There are four things to note about these problems,” Rischard continued. “They all have technically and politically feasible solutions; the solutions aren't that costly; we have less than 20 years to act on them; and none of them is being solved.”

As he sees it, “We need a better and faster method for solving global problems – while there is still time – and we need for the next generations to leave school with a mindset, knowledge and skills combination that will give wings to any new method we create,” he said. “The first has to come from a critical mass of heads of state, but the second must be facilitated by educators and education systems.”

More specifically, educators must:

• teach students about how the world is changing and why; what the major global issues are; and what can be done to solve them;
• help students understand why it's the business of each one of us to tackle these challenges; what it means to be a global citizen; and why multidisciplinary and multicultural thinking are key;
• help students acquire and develop the skills promoted in ISTE's National Educational Technology Standards and Performance Indicators for Students. “Having students equipped with these skills would raise the odds of solving these global issues,” Rischard argued. He identified creativity and innovation, communication and collaboration, digital citizenship, and technology operations and concepts.

Rischard concluded his remarks by describing several ongoing “pericurricular” experiments taking place in schools around the world to help establish this new mindset: the Global Issues Network, the National Association of Independent Schools' Challenge 20/20 program, the Student News Action Network and TakingITGlobal.

“The current system is going to run us into a brick wall,” he warned. “So concentrate on being visionary educators” dedicated to “developing new curricula and education standards; potent pericurricular initiatives; and smart technologies for education.”