The Adaptability Imperative

Adaptability. It's a word that's been buzzing around education circles for years, but lately, it's taken on a whole new urgency. Whether we're talking about AI reshaping industries overnight or global crises upending our way of life, the need for adaptable thinking has never been more critical. And yet, our education systems often seem stuck in a time warp, churning out students equipped for a world that no longer exists.

I often start with the image above talking about Darwin. I recently found out that he likely never actually said his most ‘famous’ quotation, even though this sentiment was in Origin of the Species. Never trust what you read on the internet, eh?!

I've been mulling over this disconnect between what the world needs and what school is for a while now, not just because it's a hot topic in education, but because I've seen firsthand how a lack of adaptability can leave people floundering in the face of change. It's got me diving into the works of some of the sharpest minds in the field, from Carol Dweck's groundbreaking research on mindset (which isn’t perfect by any stretch and also seems to have become wallpaper in most schools) to the insightful explorations of curiosity by Ian Leslie, and even into Ancient Stoic philosophy again!

Let's start with Dweck. Her work on growth mindset has been a game-changer in how we think about learning and potential. In her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success she argues that our belief in our ability to change and grow is crucial to our success. She writes

"The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it's not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives."

This resonates with me on a deep level. I think about my early days in teaching, when I was so focused on getting everything "right" that I'd have a meltdown if a lesson didn't go exactly as planned. I remember one particular day when the projector decided to give up the ghost right before a meticulously prepared presentation. I was ready to call it quits and send the kids to the library, but my more experienced colleague, let's call her Sarah, stepped in with a grin.

"Perfect," she said, rubbing her hands together. "Now we get to be creative."

What followed was one of the most engaging lessons I've ever been part of. We used the windows as makeshift whiteboards, turned desks into impromptu stages for role-play, and even ventured outside to use the playground as a giant visual aid. The kids were buzzing, and I learned more about adaptability in those 60 minutes than I had in years of teacher training.

But here's the thing - adaptability isn't just about being able to think on your feet when tech fails or plans go awry. It's about fostering a mindset that's open to new ideas, new approaches, new ways of thinking. This is where curiosity comes into play.

Ian Leslie, in his fascinating book Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends on It, argues that curiosity is the key to thriving in our increasingly complex world. He writes,

"Curiosity is the engine of intellectual achievement — it's what drives us to keep learning, keep trying, keep pushing forward."

Leslie distinguishes between what he calls diversive curiosity - the attraction to everything novel - and epistemic curiosity, which is a deeper desire to understand how things work. He argues that while our modern world caters to diversive curiosity (hello, endless social media scrolling and shiny new toy syndrome), it's epistemic curiosity that we need to cultivate for long-term success and adaptability.

This got me thinking about how often we inadvertently squash curiosity in our classrooms. How many times have I heard (or, if I'm honest, said) things like "That's not on the test" or "We don't have time for that now"? Every time we do this, we're potentially closing off avenues for deeper understanding and adaptable thinking.

How we handle those unexpected moments in the classroom really does matter. I mentioned Jonny in my A-Level class in last week’s newsletter when I missed the opportunity to move the lesson in a direction that students were curious about. When a student asks a question that's way off topic but actually quite insightful - that type of ‘interruption’. Perhaps, the interruption is the lesson.

A lesson on the Industrial Revolution where a kid asked about the environmental impact of factories. It’s not part of the planned curriculum. But it’s a perfect opportunity to discuss how historical events connect to current issues. Kids are full of these questions. How come Shakespeare used so many made-up words? How do bees know how to make hexagonal honeycomb shapes? Why do we have daylight saving time? Why do we use base 10 for our number system? Why do we use the QWERTY keyboard layout? How do we know if this isn’t all a simulation?

It got me thinking about how often we might be missing these chances to foster real curiosity and critical thinking. Sure, it's easier to stick to the script, to cover exactly what's on the syllabus. But are we doing our students a disservice by not embracing these tangents? By not showing them how to adapt their thinking and make connections across different areas?

I'll be honest, I've been guilty of shutting down these kinds of questions - and often still do. "Let's focus on the topic at hand," I'd say, or "We can discuss that another time." But now I'm starting to see that these moments of curiosity are actually golden opportunities. They're chances to show students how to think flexibly, to adapt their knowledge to new contexts. And isn't that what we're really trying to teach them?

It isn’t just for students in school either. This disposition of discovery. A culture of curiosity. An atmosphere of adaptability.

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This brings us to the third piece of the puzzle: critical thinking. If adaptability is the goal and curiosity is the engine, then critical thinking is the fuel that drives it all forward.

Critical thinking isn't just about analysing information. It's about questioning assumptions, considering multiple perspectives, and making reasoned judgments. It's about being able to sift through the tsunami of information we're bombarded with every day and separate the wheat from the chaff.

One study suggests that almost 402.74 million terabytes of data are being created per day. To put those numbers into perspective:

• This is approximately 80,548,000,000,000,000,000 (80.5 quintillion) words, equivalent to about 134,246,666,666,666,666 (134 quadrillion) 600-page books.
• 80,548,000,000,000 (80.5 trillion) high-resolution images.
• 115,068,571,428,571 (115 trillion) songs.
• 134,246,666,666 (134 billion) hours of high-definition video.
• 15,324,961,949 (15 billion) full-length movies
• The full genomes of about 537,986,666,666 (537 billion) people.

Every. Freakin’. Day.

These numbers are so large they're hard to comprehend, but they give you an idea of the astronomical amount of data we're talking about. It's an amount of information that far exceeds what a single human could process in a lifetime, or even what our entire species has produced throughout history.

Daniel T. Willingham, in his book Why Don't Students Like School?, makes a compelling case for the importance of critical thinking. He argues that critical thinking is not a skill that can be taught in isolation, but rather a process that must be practised in the context of subject-specific knowledge. He writes,

"Critical thinking is not a set of skills that can be deployed at any time, in any context. It is a type of thought that even 3-year-olds can engage in—and even trained scientists can fail in."

This idea has profound implications for how we approach education. If we want to foster adaptability, we can't just teach "critical thinking skills" as if they're a separate subject. We need to integrate critical thinking into every aspect of learning, encouraging students to question, analyse, and evaluate as they engage with content across all subjects.

I tried to put this into practice in my own teaching. Instead of just presenting information, I constantly asked questions. "Why do you think that is?" "What evidence supports this idea?" "How might someone with a different perspective view this?" It's not always easy - it can be messy, time-consuming, and doesn't always fit neatly into our assessment frameworks. But the payoff in terms of student engagement and deeper understanding is enormous.

Speaking of adaptability and critical thinking, it's worth noting that these aren't entirely new concepts. In fact, they have deep roots in ancient philosophy, particularly in Stoicism (he goes there again, I hear you say!). The Stoics, those old Greek and Roman thinkers, were bang on about the importance of adapting to life's challenges and thinking critically about our perceptions.

In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius repeatedly talks about the importance of adapting to circumstances beyond our control. He writes,

"You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realise this, and you will find strength."

Sounds a bit like our modern talk about adaptability, doesn't it?

Then there's Epictetus, another Stoic heavyweight. He was all about critical thinking before it was cool. He argued that it's not events themselves that disturb us, but our judgments about them. In his Enchiridion, he says,

"It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters."

This idea is at the heart of cultivating adaptability. It's not about controlling external events (because let's face it, we can't), but about controlling our responses to them. It's about developing the mental flexibility to roll with the punches and keep moving forward. The Stoics also emphasised the importance of continuous learning and self-improvement - what we might call a growth mindset today. Seneca wrote, "As long as you live, keep learning how to live." If that's not a call for lifelong adaptability, I don't know what is.

Now, I'm not suggesting we all don togas and start speaking Latin (although that would make parents' evening a bit more interesting and Mr Wilson & Westworth would be proud of me for advocating it). But I reckon there's something powerful in realising that these ideas about adaptability and critical thinking aren't just modern fads. They're part of a long tradition of human wisdom about how to navigate an unpredictable world.

And let's be honest, if these ideas were useful for navigating the chaos of ancient Rome, they're probably not a bad shout for helping our students navigate the chaos of the modern world, are they?

Of course, fostering adaptability, curiosity, and critical thinking isn't just about what happens in the classroom. It's about creating a culture that values these qualities. And that's where things get really challenging.

Our education systems are often set up in ways that actively discourage adaptability. Standardised tests, rigid curricula, and a focus on "teaching to the test" can all work against the kind of flexible, curious, critical thinking we need to cultivate. It's a bit like trying to prepare gourmet meals in a fast-food kitchen - the setup just isn't designed for it. So what can we do? How can we create educational environments that nurture adaptable, curious, critical thinkers?

First, I think we need to rethink our approach to failure - I said it last week and the week before and probably every week I have written this newsletter. In a world that's changing as rapidly as ours, failure is inevitable. The question is, how do we respond to it? Do we see it as a setback, or as an opportunity for learning and growth?

Carol Dweck's research shows that how we frame failure can have a profound impact on learning and motivation. She writes, "In a growth mindset, challenges are exciting rather than threatening. So rather than thinking, oh, I'm going to reveal my weaknesses, you say, wow, here's a chance to grow."

Secondly, we need to create more space for curiosity and exploration in our world. This doesn't mean abandoning structure or curriculum in schools entirely, but it does mean being willing to follow the thread of a good question, even if it leads us off the beaten path.

Ian Leslie argues that curiosity thrives in an environment of "information gap" - where we know enough to be interested, but not so much that we think we've got it all figured out. He writes, "Curiosity is aroused when we're presented with an 'information gap.' It's the feeling of deprivation we experience when we identify a gap in our knowledge."

In practice, this might mean starting lessons with provocative questions rather than statements of fact. It might mean encouraging students to generate their own questions about a topic, and then guiding them in exploring those questions. It might mean being willing to say "I don't know, let's find out together" more often. And then let this spill over into the world beyond the classroom too.

We need to make critical thinking a central part of every space, not just an add-on or a separate skill to be taught. This means moving beyond simple recall of facts to deeper analysis and evaluation. It means encouraging everyone to question sources, consider alternative perspectives, and make reasoned arguments.

Willingham suggests that one way to do this is to focus on "authentic problems" - real-world issues that don't have clear-cut answers. He writes, "Problems that require critical thinking often have more than one possible solution, and they often have no solution that is unambiguously correct."

In my own teaching, I've found that tackling these kinds of open-ended problems not only encourages critical thinking but also naturally fosters adaptability and curiosity. When there's no single "right answer," students have to be willing to try different approaches, to question their assumptions, to adapt their thinking as they go.

Look, I'm not going to pretend this is easy. Shifting towards a more adaptable, curious, critically-engaged model of education and then using this as a measuring stick for the rest of society is a massive undertaking. It requires changes not just in how we teach, but in how we structure our schools, economy, healthcare, politics. It’s about how we assess learning, and how we think about the very purpose of education, but also how we ask questions about the meaning of life and our interactions with others.

But here's the thing - we don't really have a choice. The world our students are entering is one of rapid change and uncertainty. If we continue to educate them for a static, predictable world that no longer exists, we're doing them a massive disservice. I'm going to embrace the messiness of adaptive learning for my own betterment and preach about it everywhere I go. I'm going to nurture curiosity, even when it threatens to derail my carefully planned schedule. I'm going to prioritise critical thinking, even when it would be easier to just take the "right" or first answers.

It won't always be smooth sailing. There will be days when I long for the simplicity of a textbook and a worksheet. But I genuinely believe that by fostering adaptability, curiosity, and critical thinking, we're giving our students - our future citizens, of course - the best possible chance to thrive in whatever future awaits them.

At the end of the day, education isn't about preparing students for a world that exists. It's about equipping them with the tools they need to create the world that could be. And in that world, adaptability isn't just an advantage - it's an imperative.

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Here are five takeaways to consider:

1. Embrace the growth mindset.

Remember Dweck's words: "The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it's not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset." Encourage your students (and yourself) to see challenges as opportunities for growth, not threats to be avoided.

2. Foster epistemic curiosity.

As Leslie points out, it's not enough to be attracted to novelty. We need to cultivate a deeper desire to understand how things work. Create "information gaps" in your life that spark curiosity and drive deeper exploration.

3. Integrate critical thinking across all areas of life.

Take Willingham's advice and focus on authentic, open-ended problems that require people to analyse, evaluate, and think critically. Make questioning and reasoned argument a part of every space, not just a separate skill to be taught in one discrete subject in schools.

4. Reframe failure as feedback.

When things don't go as planned (and they often won't), treat it as valuable information rather than a setback. Model adaptability by adjusting your approach and encouraging everyone to do the same.

5. Create a culture of adaptability.

This goes beyond individual lessons or techniques. It's about fostering an environment where flexibility, curiosity, and critical thinking are valued and practised every day.

The future isn't some fixed point we're all hurtling towards. It's something we're actively shaping every day in our classrooms, our schools, and our communities. By fostering adaptability, curiosity, and critical thinking, we're not just preparing our students for an uncertain future - we're empowering them to create a better one. And that, I reckon, is what education is really all about.

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