219: The skills your child will need in the age of AI

What your child is learning in school isn’t enough The things your child is learning in school are not the things that are most likely to lead to their success in the future. Who could have predicted the shifts we’ve seen since Chat GPT-3 was released to the public in November 2022? While AI still has its bugs, it won’t be long before these bugs are squashed. We’re going to be using more and more technology in our lives - and our children are going to need different skills to navigate it than we’ve used in our careers. The 56 foundational skills for future success A report from consulting firm McKinsey’s research arm described 56 foundational skills that will help people thrive in the future of work. Eleven of these skills are related to digital fluency and citizenship, software use and development, and understanding digital systems. The other 44 skills have nothing to do with digital knowledge or capabilities. These skills (and how to help your child learn them) are the topic of this episode. There's a key topic that's missing from these skills: content knowledge. The McKinsey researchers are assuming that we can quickly learn what we need to know - or that we actually don’t need to learn very much content, because our new AI tools will do that for us (as soon as they stop making up legal cases). But children spend 90+% of their time in school…learning content. How are they going to get the rest of the skills they’ll need? Well, they’re going to get them from you…or not at all. Not sure how you’re going to make this happen? Need help? My FREE You Are Your Child’s Best Teacher workshop is coming up for the first time in two years in just three days, starting on Wednesday August 7! You’ll learn how to use your child’s own interests as a jumping off point for deep, self-driven learning that will help them to develop all of the skills they’ll need for the future.