What Does the Future of Learning Tell Us About the Future of Work? 

0:00At ThinkLab, we believe that research should do more than just spark ideas. It should create meaningful change. So for every survey completed, we plant a tree. That means that your insights don't just shape the future of the built environment, they help reforest it. It's quick, it's meaningful, and it starts with your voice. Simply click the link in the show notes to get involved in our latest research and grow something bigger than data. Let's design a better future together.

0:37What if the biggest clue to solving the future of work is sitting inside today's classrooms? And what if agency, not just intelligence, is the thing that will matter most? Welcome to Design Nerds Anonymous, the podcast that sparks curiosity at the intersection of business and design. I'm your host, Amanda Schneider, founder and president at ThinkLab and speaker now featured on TED.com. Today is going to be a real treat. We're talking with Tom VanderArk, a true pathfinder in the world of learning innovation. Tom's the CEO of Getting Smart, a prolific author, speaker, and former public school superintendent who went on to become the first executive director of Education for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

1:28He's personally visited over 2 ,500 schools, advised hundreds of organizations, and sits on multiple national education boards. Tom doesn't just study the future, he helps shape it. In this episode, Tom unpacks how AI, agency, and authenticity are rewriting the rules of learning and likely shaping expectations around the future of work. From outdoor schools in Michigan to biotech labs in California, he shares inspiring real-world examples that challenge how we design for engagement, community, and contribution. So in keeping with the theme of this podcast, we ask him to begin by introducing himself and sharing one word that captures the future he sees coming.

2:20Meet Tom.

2:22Tom Vander Ark:I'm Tom Van Der Eck. I'm the CEO of Getting Smart. We're an advocacy and advisory firm. We work in education, mostly K-12, but some higher education. We help people design new schools and transform existing systems. We do a little bit of public policy work, but our team cares a lot about the the built environment, the learning environment, and we're excited to talk with you about that today. My one word, how I think about the future, is a word I'd borrow from Reid Hoffman, and that's possibility. I think we're on the cusp of a brand new age, one powered by AI that just opens up really extraordinary opportunities for work and learning and living and sharing a broader sense of prosperity with a lot more people around the world.

3:20I love the optimism. Some would share in your optimism for AI and creating possibility. Others would not.

3:28Tom Vander Ark:The other, if I had to choose another word, Amanda, would be paradox because I'm also terrified of the downside. There are a growing number of catastrophic, even existential risks. We're bound to have a dramatic increase in wealth and income inequality. There's lots of scary safety implications, personal and collective, about AI. I'm extremely excited about the potential, and I'm also trying to be mindful of the downside. I think one of the implications of this paradox is that education is going to be more important than ever. we're just getting started a quick pause for the short break and we'll be right back we challenged the status quo we went looking for new and inspiring ideas beyond our pinterest feeds connecting the dots between how a future was unfolding and how we should be designing for it i'm kaylin reid applying to inside strategist certified futurist and host of alternative Design podcast.

4:36We started Alternative Design as a beacon of hope for our industry at a time when the world was no longer business as usual. At Kimball International, the future isn't something that we wait for. We search for it, spotting the signals that reveal where the human experience is headed, both inside and far beyond the design industry. Alternative Design is where those signals turn into ideas, where we connect what's happening in the world to what it means for the way that we design spaces and the furniture that shapes them. Because when we design with intention, we're not just making furniture, we're making a better future.

5:14If you're a fan of Design Nerds Anonymous, you will love alternative design. You can find us wherever you listen to podcasts, and make sure to subscribe to help us design what's next.

5:29now back to the conversation i like that you're coupling possibility with paradox so let's focus on the optimistic side of that what does ai offer that makes you optimistic about the future

5:42Tom Vander Ark:let me mention three data points that might help make this case the first interesting tweet that I'll mention, as Sam Altman said in February, that AI can do a single-digit percentage of all economically valuable tasks in the world. That's a wild milestone. Tyler Cowen on April 16 said, the new version of O3 is basically AGI, artificial general intelligence. So what Sam and Tyler are suggesting is that we've reached a threshold of having broad access to incredibly powerful technology. In other words, smart machines are now better than most people at most things, particularly economically valuable things.

6:26Tom Vander Ark:That's one important threshold. The second one's a study that Ethan Mullick did. He's an entrepreneurship prof, which makes me a really big fan. And he's quickly turned into one of the most important interpreters of the future. He did a study with P &G, and he showed that teams working with AI outperformed individuals and teams working without AI. So in short, Ethan says that the future is working together with AI. He calls it a co-intelligence. So that idea of most professional work will be done in teams. And one of those team members is going to be AI and AI agents. So that, I think, is an optimistic view about how we as humans will partner with this co-intelligence.

7:16Tom Vander Ark:The third one I'll mention is Andre Karpathy said about six weeks ago on X that agency is more important than intelligence, agency greater than intelligence. I think that's a really profound thought that now that we've reached this general threshold where artificial intelligence has made knowledge ubiquitous, expertise ubiquitous, that its agency, the self-knowledge and ability to take initiative on our behalf, on behalf of our community, is now the more important human characteristic. And Karpathy was arguing that for centuries we've thought that getting smarter is the goal of education, And he's really arguing that now the goal is not getting smarter, it's getting more agentic.

8:06Tom Vander Ark:It's better understanding your gifts and interest and having a stronger sense of personal management, a commitment to contributing to your community, that these are the differentiating factors that are going to be most important. So those are the events of the first quarter that really shaped my sense of possibility that life with AI, work is going to be done in teams with AI, and that developing our own agency and developing the agency of young people is now critically important to succeeding in this new age. That's fascinating. And where we often get stuck is how does that translate? We understand this idea of agency being more important than intelligence, but how does that translate to how we think of how students are learning today and how that might translate to work?

9:00Tom Vander Ark:That's a great question. The answer is it's complicated. Always. I just met with a local community last night to have this conversation. They, like most communities in America, are shrinking. Their school community is shrinking. So we have a declining birth rate in most parts of the country. We have increasing forms of competition in education. We have more charter schools and more private schools and post-pandemic, a lot more homeschooling. And as a result, most communities across America have shrinking enrollment. And so they have a lot of excess capacity in their schools. And it's frustrating because communities like this, they have about a third of their space open, but it's spread all over the community.

9:49Tom Vander Ark:So it makes it hard to close schools, but you just have a lot of extra space. The other thing that's happened is post-pandemic, kids aren't coming to school as often. Parents decided that school was more optional when they got kind of a closer look at what happened. And kids are less engaged. And that's post-pandemic, but I think it's also a function of life with these digital machines that we carry around, right? So fewer kids attending less often and less engaged, that's a really complicated problem. And so some of the solutions that we talked about was one, just being a lot more aggressive about marketing the benefits of public education of the schools that we operate.

10:37Tom Vander Ark:Schools are typically terrible at marketing. They think about what they do as a service and they try to be efficient, but we're terrible at marketing. and the built environment link is that schools just have to be a lot more attractive and welcoming. My very first lesson, I was thinking about this while we were getting ready, Amanda. So 30 years ago, I was superintendent in this community and I had a really tough school and I put my best principal in that school and I went over to visit him the day before school. He's out front with his wife planting flowers. And I'm like, what the hell are you doing, dude?

11:09Tom Vander Ark:Do we got school tomorrow? He said, Tom, we painted the lobby and we put rocking chairs in and we took down that there was a big stand that kept the public away from the central office. And I most want this place to feel welcoming to my new community. So that attention to just the entryway and the feel to create a sense of belonging and welcome, that's the lesson that's made new by these pandemic shortfalls in enrollment. And then the third thing is, in addition to being more aggressive about marketing, being much more welcoming and attractive, we have to be a lot more community responsive at the programs and the schools that we run.

11:56Tom Vander Ark:And that means we have to actually close or sunset some dated programs. We need to launch new schools and new programs that are really responsive to the community and to the workforce opportunities. So I want to acknowledge that this is ironic because this is also in a community that has all this extra space, right? And it's talking about closing schools. and I show up and say, no, you actually have to start some new schools because you have to be responsive to the opportunity set that your community is facing. And so I think those are some of the implications for the built environment. The last one that I'll add that is unfortunate is that we also have to think more about safety.

12:37Tom Vander Ark:And this is really tricky. A bunch of parents reminded me of this last night. They're saying, Tom, I get the big open spaces, lots of entrances. modular, flexible learning spaces that make it easy for multiple programs to work effectively in a building. And we also need an environment that is safe for our kids. I think that's kind of a new design paradox of how to add what Larry Rosenstock would call light, height, light, and an exposed structure, that big, open, flexible spaces, but also have a mind for keeping kids safe under multiple situations. I think those are some of the new design implications.

13:21I think it's super interesting. We hear Gen Z wants to be back in the office, but we have the Gallup polls for workplace say similar things to what you're saying about these parents not requiring students to come in. It feels like space is more important than ever, But back to your word paradox, we have this paradox that absenteeism is higher, not only in the workplace, it sounds, but in your research with students. So how do we get them to show up? Where in your work do you see data pointing to opportunities?

13:50Tom Vander Ark:It's a great and difficult question. I actually, but I actually think the answer is the same for employers as it is for educators. Do you know Josh Burson? He's a leading HRIS expert in the world. And Josh runs a conference called Irresistible. And he had a book out by the same name. And he argues we have to create employment opportunities that are irresistible. We actually have to attract employees. We have to retain employees with positive work environments, work experiences, culture, conditions, compensation, that we are competing for global talent and that we need to offer for a really exceptional experience.

14:37Tom Vander Ark:And Reid Hoffman often talks about a tour of duty, that this generation is very likely to sign up for a tour of duty. And that may be two to five years, but plan on it because it's inevitable that you're not going to have a lifetime employee, but create conditions under which somebody can join you and contribute during a tour of duty and then help them move on to the next thing where they can make their contribution. That's part of the new bargain. In the education field, we have the same need, that we just have to make school suck less. For most kids, it's just, it's awful. It's painful socially, and it's boring academically.

15:21Tom Vander Ark:And we just need environments that are much more pleasant and experiences that are much more motivating. Amanda, this morning I was writing about Design 39 in Poway, California. It's my favorite K-8 school in the country. There's a lot that I love about it. It's a spectacular building. Almost every classroom on the campus opens to the mountains in North San Diego County. So every room has a vista. There's big, flexible rooms, so there's a lot of team teaching that happens. Their motto is preparing future leaders for the benefit of humanity. So they really lean into that idea of purposeful, joyful, engaging learning in a beautiful, attractive facility.

16:09Tom Vander Ark:That's, I think, some version of that has to be the new bargain. We'll be right back after this short break.

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17:43Tom Vander Ark:Now, let's return to the ideas shaping the future. I want to go back to something that you said. You talked about a tour of duty. This is super interesting to me because there's a lot of accusations of younger generations being less loyal. A recent career builder survey said that the average Gen Z-er is expected to only be in their jobs two years, three months. But that same survey said even baby boomers are only, I want to say it was an average of just over eight years tenure. So tenure is down across the board. I feel like education, you guys are built for this, right? You're at a school for a certain period of time.

18:17you move on. So is there anything we can learn from the way that schools do things that might extend to the workforce, especially as we're thinking about this engagement epidemic, this absenteeism epidemic? Because as much as work can suck sometimes, like junior high, let me tell you, is way worse.

18:35Tom Vander Ark:That's a great question. I actually don't think we're very good in education at enabling a tour of duty. We have terrible signaling devices. We share this with the workplace, right? Education lies on a transcript that's a list of the courses you took and the grades you got. And then we shift to a resume, which is a list of stuff that you did, probably. It's not verifiable. So I think in both settings, we need a new signaling system. I think it will be based on credentials, verifiable digital credentials that are a demonstration of expertise and probably capturing the experience that you had and the metadata around the experience so that you actually have some evidence about what you did and how it contributed to the skills that you develop.

19:23Tom Vander Ark:Those are going to be transported via a digital wallet and learners and workers will have the opportunity to shape that digital wallet and permission it out for talent transactions. In other words, they'll be able to present themselves and the credentials and the work most applicable to a particular opportunity, whether it's full-time or part-time. And so I'm optimistic that we're heading in that direction, but it has proven more difficult and slower than I had anticipated. So the big priority for our team is to help schools and communities build better signaling systems so that we can better capture the learning wherever it happens, in or out of school, and then be able to have that talent passport with you for life.

20:07It's also interesting to think about signaling and what's happening with our youth that is going to transition to the workforce. There's a book called The Comfort Crisis that is really talking about how we're coddling our youth. I think that some people feel like that short tenure in these workplaces is because we are raising a generation of kids that don't have grit in the same way that their grandfathers that had to walk to school uphill both ways had. Is there anything to that in your research? And how do we address that either in the education system or in the workplace post-education to help with this depression epidemic, frankly?

20:47Tom Vander Ark:I haven't really connected the helicopter parenting that you described with shortened tenures. That might be the case. It clearly contributes to my opening comments about the importance of agency. it unquestionably quenches agency when your mom is doing everything for you all the way up through college. If your mom is doing your laundry and fixing your latest fashion crisis and solving your car insurance problem all the way through college, you are not learning agency. So we do advocate for starting in elementary school for something that looks a lot more like a Montessori environment that's much more student-directed, at least partially interest-directed.

21:35Tom Vander Ark:We think students all the way through high school should have some opportunity to co-author experiences and co-author their learning journey, and that we have to get more comfortable with risk of letting kids do fun and interesting and even dangerous stuff. We're a big fan of place-based learning. So really taking advantage of the local assets in your community. That means learning outside the school building. That includes travel and research and work-based learning, but it means that kids often transporting themselves by themselves or on public transit, being unsupervised in a lot more settings.

22:16Tom Vander Ark:So I think those are super important things to develop agency. more agency is going to reduce turnover. It might just increase it, but it's on us to continue to create a series of experiences where young people and employees feel that they can grow in a place that has really contributed to their growth. If you can do that, you have a chance keeping people around for a long time. As you think about developing that agency, as you think about schools that are really successfully preparing students for the future, aside from a school with great views. Any other stories of some really inspirational things that you've seen in your work?

22:59Tom Vander Ark:Our team gets out to about 100 schools a year, so there's a lot of fun war stories. This fall, I was in a forest school in Michigan, and you know what the weather's like in Michigan. The kids in an elementary school outside every day, regardless of the weather, doing crazy stuff, building forts. And the Outdoor Discovery Center in Holland, Michigan has just lit up Western Michigan. They work with 30 school districts and a number of private schools. They run these very cool preschools that are at least partially outdoors. They help districts create programs in schools so that kids are having outdoor experiences either a few times a year or maybe every day.

23:40Tom Vander Ark:They're a big hero of ours. We talk about them a lot. As a mother of boys, I have three boys. I can tell you why that's so important. It's very cool. But I tell you, it made me nervous when these kids were standing on top of these forts that they had built. And I'm like, dude, does your insurance broker know what's going on here? Because kids are okay. That's breaking the comfort crisis right there. Yeah, that's right. Let's see. Right next door to me here in Tacoma, Washington, we have an art school that's right downtown that partners with an art museum, a natural history museum, with theaters, and with the University of Washington.

24:15Tom Vander Ark:So it's a very cool example. A couple miles away, we have a very cool school in the zoo at the Point Defiant Zoo called the Science and Math Institute. Beautiful example of taking advantage of that natural setting. It also happens to be right on a marina. And so kids are also doing a lot of work in the Puget Sound. So that is for us, it's architecturally a spectacular building, but also the place is really special and the community partnerships that it represents. And I've talked a lot about fancy buildings. There's a third one of these specialty schools in Tacoma called IDEA, and it's an industrial design school.

24:50Tom Vander Ark:And it's in a really run-down old elementary school that they've partially renovated. But the cool thing is, even in these kind of crappy conditions, the students have extraordinary design opportunities. And they have a lot of different kinds of shops, a metal shop and a wood shop and And they're always building stuff that's part of a community-connected project. There's only a couple schools in the country, high schools that start high school out with a design class. One is Lead Innovation Studios in North Kansas City. Kids learn design and leadership together. So I love that. So it's how to design stuff and how to lead.