Do you remember what school was like?

I remember someone once told me that university would be the best years of my life and that I should take full advantage of these years, as I would not experience anything like it again.

Hmm, in hindsight, I agree to an extent. The truth is that I have fonder memories of my time at school, not because I did particularly well academically or at sports, but because I experienced purpose and meaning throughout school. I was part of something bigger. I was able to exercise certain liberties and rights and I knew what they meant.

We were able to serve underserved communities which meant knitting blankets during our arts and crafts class in primary school, and once completed would be distributed to local communities just before winter. I was able to touch lives and my life was touched too although I didn't understand it like that then. All I knew is that it was good and it felt heavenly. What a great inheritance I received. I often have wondered if I would be a totally different person had I not gone through this.

I schooled in Johannesburg, South Africa in the 1980s. It was a wonderful time for me. Strong social values: work with the community, service-orientation, solidarity and patriotic values and pride in our school and nation were instilled in us. Dignity and honour were heralded and we cherished them. Values that continue to shape my world at work and at home to this day. I agree with the statement "train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it."

School was then, as it continues to this day, meant to prepare us for university, further studies and work. Luckily for me and most of my peers who attended schools like mine, we were also being shaped into more attentive and active human beings and to an extent more engaged citizens. The high school I attended, the oldest school in Johannesburg was a little bit of an exception compared to other schools at the time. We had teachers who were very politicised and who went to great lengths to teach us to think and to question our environment, especially the political environment in South Africa at the time. I am a very proud contributor of the new education dispensation that kicked in the year after I finished high school. All schools were opened up to children of other races and ethnic groups. We fought for it and eventually won.

University was a continuum in terms of its focus on the academic preparation of young people for the market-for the economy, nothing less than exciting! We bought the dream or perhaps the illusion, that doing well academically at school and university would be the guarantee to a good, stable and happy life, free of financial woes and other stresses. After I landed my first job, second and then third, I realised I had not been prepared for real life and real work.

The Rector at one of the most acclaimed universities here in Portugal, recently admitted, that the vast majority of young people entering university today are very well prepared academically, but lack everything else: metacognitive and cognitive skills (learning, attention, memory and reasoning) social skills, communication skills, critical and creative skills as well as motivation, resilience and so on.

I speak to young people all the time and many have mentioned how our education systems should be more systemic, inclusive and intune with the contemporary needs of our societies. I believe that young people should be learning about matters that matter, such as: about our constitutions and those around the world; why we vote and the necessity to vote; about self-love and mental health-care (and what that feels and looks like); about social security, what support is out there and which forms to fill out and where; how to apply for a job (how many really know how to do this and how to prepare for an interview with success); how to overcome the pain of long-term unemployment and still remain "sane" and what about respect and accountability, the list goes on and on.

A degree, two or three is not a quick-fix. It may have been the solution to secure a job before, but today that is a bygone. The privileged few who have had long-term secure jobs and excellent paid jobs are unhappy, unmotivated and distressed. Rutger Bregman says most jobs are simply "useless." Does this make sense to anyone?

According to a 2013 Harvard Business Review survey of 12000 so-called accomplished professionals, half said their job had no "meaning and significance." What's the point of education then? 

"Rutger Bregman says the point of education is for a life well lived. Well, if that is the case, education didn't give me this."

In my over twenty years work experience, working in many adverse and diverse environments, from post-war transitions to primary school and high school teaching and inter-government agencies working with Institutions of Higher Education, I have came to the sad realisation that what I most wanted (purpose, meaning etc) and needed (purpose, significance and a meaningful life) from a career, I didn´t get. What I didn't want, I had in full measure.

Topping this, let me ask, how many of you remember what you learnt at school, university or college? I can tell you, I forgot most of it and what I didn't forget, I didn't need or use later, except for writing skills, public speaking and social skills, is what I got out of the whole schooling experience, except for something I never forgot from a biology class, that a virus couldn't be cured with an antibiotic. Somehow that stuck with me.

Twenty years down the line, there is another added issue, I happened to stumble on through lived experience. This is one of the bigger boo boo in our current systems of education, including higher education. The jobs we are being prepared for or were prepared for, are either in decline or likely to be non-existent in a few years from now. The jobs of the future don't exist yet.

"All of this got me thinking."

How does one counteract this? Is this important? If so, why aren't all our systems of education yielding, working these realities into the curriculum and into young minds? Why does there seem to be a tendency to sustain an outdated model of education-linked to work and life, without considering a, b, c, d, like purpose; fulfillment; life-work balance; the importance of family in society and to our well-being; intellectual growth and meaningful life? How about the problematic (over)use-dependency on digital platforms (for everything including reading books) and how the brain's ability to interpret information more abstractly is affected, including reading, comprehension and problem solving? What about what makes knowledge significant, how it is attained and for what purpose?

I have consistently noticed that we do not question enough, and when we do, are we really asking the best questions (like why instead of what). Are we not too forthcoming? Too accepting of what we are being told by "experts", the media, government etc?

I read something recently from a very highly respected neuroscientist who questioned why it is that the first thing we ask someone when we have just met them is "what do you do? And not something a little more enticing/fun/disconcerting (for some??) like "why do you do it?" Try it. I am sure you will be surprised at the response you get.

"We're pretty well formatted and our education has done a pretty good job there."

Our world is changing so rapidly. Our educational systems are struggling to stay the course and to adapt to new realities. This includes an ever increasing need humans have for purpose, significance and meaning, in the midst of a growing and demanding informed public.

I created DragonFLY during the height of the confinement in Portugal this year because I felt that something had to be done to better equip young people for life, for their futures, for the pitfalls and downfalls and for meaningful living. 

"Destines are calling."

Young people have dreams they do not even know they carry which require a safe haven and the right type of incubation to be birthed and partnerships with universities, colleges and business that must be facilitated. Young people need to be prepared for a different world;different to the one we have; the world as we know it, a world that may not exist yet. There is a movement of young people rising up in Africa, from many or all 54 countries, who have joined efforts to discuss and find ways to bring about the "AFRICA THEY WANT." This tells me, it's not the Africa they have. They aspire to something else. 

"The world of the future will require a totally different kind of prep."

One that doesn't replace formal traditional education but that adds to it, complements it, that nurtures, catalyses, promotes, enables young people to acquire different types of skills and competencies also aligned to their unique way of learning (neuroscience has proven that there is not just one way of learning. Learning is unique to each individual person) and to finding out who they are and what makes them.

"DragonFLY was birthed out of the combination and culmination of my own personal academic and professional experiences."

It arises as an option to address the different needs and challenges young people have and will inevitably face in the future if they are not adequately prepared to overcome them, so they may have hope and a future. Not worse than ours, as many millennials are experiencing compared with their parents and grandparents, especially in Europe but BETTER than ours. We at DragonFLY are fully committed to this.