In 1892, the Committee of Ten recommended, among other things, twelve years of education — 8 years of elementary and 4 years of high school.
What was the life expectancy in 1892?
According to this site, about 45 years. According to the same site, life expectancy today is around 79 years.
The world and the function of education was very different 130 years ago.
More and more scientists are changing their paradigm of aging. What if aging weren’t inevitable, but a curable disease?
Since ancient times, aging has been viewed as simply inevitable, unstoppable, nature’s way. “Natural causes” have long been blamed for deaths among the old, even if they died of a recognized pathological condition. The medical writer Galen argued back in the second century AD that aging is a natural process.
His view, the acceptance that one can die simply of old age, has dominated ever since. We think of aging as the accumulation of all the other conditions that get more common as we get older—cancer, dementia, physical frailty. All that tells us, though, is that we’re going to sicken and die; it doesn’t give us a way to change it. We don’t have much more control over our destiny than a Cyclops.
But a growing number of scientists are questioning our basic conception of aging. What if you could challenge your death—or even prevent it altogether? What if the panoply of diseases that strike us in old age are symptoms, not causes? What would change if we classified aging itself as the disease?
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❓ Provocations:
Is longevity/vitality another leverage point in the pursuit of school transformation, moving away from a set number of years of education toward something different? With the potential to live a healthy life upwards of 150 years, how might we transform both our mental model of primary and secondary schooling along with the supporting structures?
💎 Resources:
Lifespan: Why We Age and Why We Don’t Have To – David Sinclair
Ageless: The New Science of Getting Older WIthout Getting Old – Andrew Steele
The New Long Life: A Framework for Flourishing in a Changing World – Andrew Scott & Linda Gratton
🧠 Mindsets:
Paradigm shifts on learning and aging
💡 Areas:
Longevity
📣 Drop your thoughts in the comments, or in the Facebook group, and feel free to share resources. 🔥🔥🔥
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