The notion that people need to be taught how to learn is ridiculous, because we are born learners. We arrive in this world with inquiring minds. We have learned a vast amount before we go to school. The speed at which we learn as infants is truly inspirational. Then educators interfere with the natural process by putting these highly talented, extraordinary, adaptable learning machines – or children, as we prefer to call them – into an environment where we teach them to be controlled. (..) Society no longer wants our kids to bunk over the garden fence and be free to roam the woods all day. (..) We are taught that there are fixed routes; boundaries that must not be crossed.

Because the future has become so uncertain on so many levels, we have to move away from an industrial mindset, one obsessed with targets, productivity and conformity, to one that is far more organic in nature. We need to be able to move beyond coping with change as something that only happens every few years. Change is no longer an option, or something you can review periodically; it has gone from being an oscillating wave to a full-blown tsunami that threatens to sweep away so many before it. Targets should be used as a tool within a system – but the system itself must encompass more. (..) We are living in the first age when we no longer determine the rate of change. My concern is that unless we accept this, and transform the way we think, behave, manage and prepare the next generation, we are going to find it harder and harder to keep up.

//Richard Gerver, Change: Learn to Love It, Learn to Lead It