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David Brooks’ article, “Everyone a Changemaker” struck a chord with some of the goals I feel education should strive for. Brooks refers to Bill Drayton, a “legend in the nonprofit world” to describe the need for “changemakers”:

“Drayton believes we’re in the middle of a necessary but painful historical transition. For millenniums most people’s lives had a certain pattern. You went to school to learn a trade or a skill — baking, farming or accounting. Then you could go into the work force and make a good living repeating the same skill over the course of your career.

But these days machines can do pretty much anything that’s repetitive. The new world requires a different sort of person. Drayton calls this new sort of person a changemaker.

Changemakers are people who can see the patterns around them, identify the problems in any situation, figure out ways to solve the problem, organize fluid teams, lead collective action and then continually adapt as situations change.”

If this automated world is the changed reality of the future workforce, clearly our approach to education should also be changing. Why continue with the same patterns of education if these patterns no longer apply to the reality of our world? Part of why I love teaching AP Capstone so much is because both Seminar and Research require students to identify problems and figure out ways to the solve them, often working in teams (in Seminar) or with professional mentors (in Research); and, to adapt their arguments and solutions as they come across new research and findings.

But all of this is much easier said than done. How exactly do we teach students to be “changemakers”?  In AP Capstone Seminar, a solution is a required element in Task 2: in the Individual Written Argument (IWA) and even more explicitly so in the Individual Media Presentation (IMP). Specifically, the criteria for Row 4 is: “The presentation offers detailed, plausible resolutions, conclusions and/or solutions, and considers the limitations and implications of any suggested solutions.” The differences between “resolutions, conclusions and/or solutions” stumped both me and my students and so I reached out to my “fluid team”: the AP Capstone Teachers group on Facebook, which is an inspiring community of educators who are always willing to help fellow teachers out. Joshua M. Smalley offered a great example for the conundrum:

Furthermore, I was reminded of my training with Compass Education where we considered the dangers of solutions that didn’t consider systems thinking, like the true story of Operation Cat Drop in Borneo, where unintended consequence resulted because of limited thinking. The “Iceberg” was also a great visual for getting students to consider the unseen elements that affect what actually happens in the world: such as patterns of behavior in a society; the systemic structures that have influenced the patterns in the society; and finally, the mental models, the assumptions, beliefs and values that people hold about the system. The Iceberg model can really help students start to question how we got where we are and where there are possible leverages points for change and of course, for solutions.

Finally, the “Gilman Equation” which I also learned from Compass Education argues that “for change to occur, the new way has to be so much better than the old way that it overcomes the perceived cost of making the switch.” The three potential avenues for change are: 1. Promote the new 2. Demote the old  and 3. Facilitate the Switch.

All these tools for change can be overwhelming but I am a very firm believer in planting seeds. Something that might seems incomprehensible to a student one day may be the root of a fundamental, positive change in the future. It is with that mentality that I share these tools for AP Capstone and for every educator teaching the future changemakers.