 Again, let me welcome everyone, welcome to the Future Trends Forum. I'm delighted to see you all here today. We have a couple of great guests for a really, really interesting proposal to talk about. We have, for the past nearly seven years, been exploring quite a few ways to reform higher education, everything from performing finances to pedagogy to hiring to curricula. What's interesting here today is two gentlemen have proposed a really new framework that manages to reform both higher education and high school and the job market at the same time. They call it the Big Blur, and this comes from an outfit called Jobs for the Future, which I think we'll hear about a little bit. So let me just take turns bringing up each of the authors right now. And let me start with Joel, who's very kindly joining us from a busy airport. We really appreciate him making the time. And let's see if he comes through. Hello, Joel Vargas. Hey, Brian. Thanks for having me here. Good to see you. Very, very good to see you. Joel, besides being trapped in an airport, let me ask, what are you going to be working on for the next year? What are the big projects and the big services or the big ideas for you? Well, you mentioned one of them. It's a big one of ours. And it's really Kyle, who you're going to bring up momentarily, I know. And I, along with the team at JFF, are really going to be focused on doing everything we can to see if we can blur the lines between what we know traditionally as a traditional high school, the transition into and through college and the relationship, the integration of those two things with career and work. We're proposing an idea called the big blur. It's inspired by a lot of innovative practitioners and policymakers out in the field, who I think have tried to blur the boundaries between those systems on their own in spite of the systems that they confront. And they're very constrained. But we think that if you take stock of them and maybe coalesce them, which is one of the things we'll be doing this year, we think there may be more than meets the eye. They may constitute actually a growing movement that we think could tip the systems eventually. And I don't know, I would just want to have people here imagine when we talk about the big blur, what the kind of radical change we're seeking and calling for. They would manifest it in some ways if the systems were built this way, these little programs wouldn't be needed anymore. So what we, Kyle and I propose along with co-authors is what if you imagined the systems to spend your disbelief about the current high school and college systems. What if we design learning environments that are really tailored to the needs of older adolescents, roughly 16 to 20 year olds. And let me say, why don't we create institutions, for example, that encompass grades 11 through 14. And given the economic demands that we have, if you want a good job, you need some kind of post-secondary credential now. So these, going through these institutions, you would graduate with a post-secondary credential that has labor market value. That would be the new high school diploma. That would be the default. And we know would have value because they would be co-designed with regional employers who would help educators make sure that what they were doing was aligned with the needs of industry. They would actually also require that every student would have some kind of internship or other work-based learning experience as a part of that education. And they would also prepare students, frankly, probably even better than our systems do now for further education. Should they want to do that? There would be no dead end here. It opens doors, not closes them is how we've envisioned it. Last thing I'll say is, if you can imagine that, then imagine the systems that would be needed, financing, accountability, governance, staff credentialing regimes, even the way we think of a teacher or a professor, like suspend that and sort of think, like, what would it take to be an instructor in such an environment focused on older adolescents? And those are the kinds of policy changes that we're going to be working with national advocacy organizations in key states to try to advance this vision. So I hope I've laid out an interesting provocation here for discussion, but I know Kyle may have some things to add here too. Well, he will. And so I love that you answered my question by saying that you're going to be working on this really intensely for the next year, it sounds like. We are. We have to probably, we have to show some progress here in the next year to ourselves to see if we can make some step changes. I think it's a key moment. I understand. Excellent. Excellent. Well, hang on a second. Let me bring up your colleague so he can join us as well. And we have Kyle. Hello. Hey, Brian. Good to see you, sir. Good to see you. You heard the question. What are you going to be working on for the next year? Are you going to be the same thing with Joel? Well, you know, we're kind of tight at the hip on this thing and we have a really awesome team at JFF that is really helping to support this. And so I could talk a little bit about some of the tactical work that's in front of us in the coming year. And it's really centered on building out some of these ideas as we think about what would it really look like to integrate work in learning at a fundamental level and establish systems so that they're really oriented to create a career navigation approach that supports not just lifelong learning, but what I would call life-wide learning by design. And just to be really sharp and clear on this, like we're not talking about another high school reform initiative. Like this is really trying to fundamentally dismantle and reimagine the way systems could really work at a truly in a truly different way. We haven't created a new type of educational institution in what 100 years, maybe more. So how are we going to get to some of these things that Joel's talking about? So one of the things that we're going to be starting to put in motion pretty soon, Brian, is starting to figure out how do we effectively network innovative leaders and practitioners who are undertaking some of these approaches, creating pilots, creating signaling systems about things that might work to really share and cultivate a base of knowledge and experience and who can collectively advocate for and support systems change along the lines that we articulate in the Big Blur. We'd like to be putting forward what we're calling the Big Blur Employer Summit. So how do we also discreetly convene employers in this space? Large Fortune 1500 companies, but also small and medium sized employers who are really interested in collaborating across their industries and sectors to reimagine what building a talent pipeline looks like. This can't just be, quote unquote, a talent grab. This can't be asking education to become a job training vision for our country. Like what is the collaboration of this really look like? Tactically, there's three things I can name. We're going to be trying to do this through some partnerships that we have on the ground right now. One of them is through an existing school-based model. Some people may have heard of PTEC. And so we're going to be working with a number of IBM-partnered PTEC schools to really help these school models reimagine how they're operating in the context of systems and how that might be able to leverage new conversations about systems level change and scale because of the work that they're doing. We're going to be working with in existing state systems, for example, in the state of Delaware. We're going to be helping them think through and implement a model that's embedding apprenticeship at a fundamental level in their vocational high school system so that all students are earning their first year of college credit before graduating high school in an earn and learn model. And we're also going to be doing this through a new national initiative that will be announced soon with a number of partner organizations to JFF. We're going to be convening five really innovative forward-thinking cross-sector teams to stand back a little bit from the problems in front of them today and lift their gaze and engage in some problem finding rather than problem solving and really work with them to redefine the nature of the problems we think we're trying to solve and then partner with them and have them partner with each other to define really innovative next generation solutions that we feel can start to tackle some of these large intractable structures and policies that have created really durable inequities over generations. And all of this for me adds up to a narrative change component. How do we compel current practitioners, folks on this call, but also my neighbors who are not engaged in this work actively in a real conversation about what is our public responsibility to young people, to our economies and our communities as we think about educational attainment and real readiness for launching a career in a high-quality job that has a career ladder and people can see themselves in relation to their future working self over a lifetime. Oh, wow, wow, wow. Well, thank you both. And here, I promised you I would show you some cool effects. So here's one cool effect right now. This is quite a vision. And I'm really glad to hear about your upcoming announcement of a partnership at a national level. Friends, I'm going to turn the mic over to all of you in just a minute. But I want to ask a couple of quick, quick, clarifying questions just to get the ball rolling even further. One is you've discovered, I think, very well the role of secondary education. But what are some of the ways that you would imagine colleges and universities changing to fit into the big blur? Yeah, I think they would, I think they would absolutely have to change as a part of this vision. Brian, if we suggested it's only secondary schools, we probably haven't done our job. And, you know, I say this, like getting out on a limb here, I think they would have to connect much more systematically to the labor market needs than they do now. And that's just one big change. And then I also think that they have to think of their the intake of their their talent pipelines, if you will, like starting much sooner. So reaching back and providing sort of integrated support with secondary school educators as well. But again, this change like sort of in blurvana, if you will, we're really talking about neither a high school nor a college, but a new kind of institution, an institutional form. Just as a way in some ways to provoke kind of like just different kinds of thinking from the archetype that we've had for so long of high school, then you have college, then you go to a career. This would all be much more integrated because we think, in part, one learns best when you're doing actually having some work experience as well and applying that learning. Anyway, so those are just a few answers. I don't know, Kyle has some other perspectives, usually does. I mean, it goes a little bit back to the provocation I put forward I think a cultural and societal level conversation around public responsibility is right now post-secondary education is very much a private good. And in our community, in our country, where most working adults do not have a post-secondary credential. Most high school kids actually don't attain one. And so when we talk about post-secondary, it becomes a very isolated conversation and a very narrow conversation about who we're talking about when we talk about the young adults or adults in those systems. And so I think we have a moment where we can engage in a very public discourse about how do we transition from a private good when we think about post-secondary credential into that being part of the public commitment that we have to supporting young people attaining the careers that will allow them to take care of themselves and their families and contribute in meaningful ways. And so I don't know if that speaks to your question about how does post-secondary need to transform, but I think that all of these isolated institutions and systems need to transform concurrently so that we don't just create better band-aids across them or stronger bridges but how do we really merge them in a way that feels seamless to a young person moving through them? Where they see that what they are doing is something that they're a part of and it's not something that is being done to them. Well, thank you. Thank you. That's a really good start to the question. I have more questions but people have already come out of the gate and there's an observation from chat and I may mispronounce this. Charles Finley says that there's the Hulu Institute at Northeastern which I don't know so he put a link to it in the chat and I'll put a link right there right now and I'll also tweet a link out and I'll CC your jobs for the future too. But Charles if you want to say a bit more about the connections you see there you just either type in the chat or type in the Q&A box or you can join us on stage we'd be delighted to hear from you. Is that a familiar institution for you gentlemen to respond to? No, I hope he says more because I would like to learn about it. Okay, I'll give him a chance. Now he's saying he's been regretting that I've asked him to do this stuff but we'll see what he says. We have a couple other questions and again the forum we have we're all about this kind of conversation. This is from John Hollenbeck and John says isn't the problem that they are three systems that they should be replaced by individualized learning opportunities focused on the professions that they're interested in. I'll put that back up on the screen because that's a deep question. John, I mean I could just say yes. I mean in some ways we're proposing I mean it's hard like even for us right we're trying to push the thinking of the field but then you get back to like I thought I saw someone chat in you know oh you're talking about great progression again you know and like yes I know you know we should actually have a more seamless learning system if we did it right and we had that kind of infrastructure you wouldn't need that kind of great you know hard great Carnegie unit you know whatever whatever the units right the silos those are things that just need to be busted but so I'll admit that there's you know sometimes a little talking out of the both sides of our mouths here because we're kind of constrained by what we know as well even as we're trying to just suggest something really different but I would just that's a long way of saying emphatically agreeing that we need to really merge those systems thank you thank you if you're new to a forum by the way that's that's an example of a text question so you can so you can of Charles Finley answers very very kindly says the Rue Institute Northeastern's Rue Institute is designed to spur innovation build talent drive economic growth in Portland the state of Maine and the Northeast partnerships with industry academia and government so Charles thank you that sounds very very interesting thank you yeah thank you and I would just love to encourage folks like when you when ideas are sparked you're like oh I've heard of the Rue Institute and you should take a look at that we we need this kind of input because we want to we want to be able to size and catalog the field of innovation and who is making strong momentum and even at local regional levels because I don't want to leave good learning on the table or or not harvest the right insights here you know but when I hear even what I just heard about that in the brief remark it's my question would be and I haven't looked at it yet is how do we help support efforts like that better reaching back and building a system that begins possibly as early as middle grade helping young people have this conversation with themselves about their career but create a system that is fluid enough to account for the fact that young people they develop at different rates and they change their minds I'm almost 15 I'm kind of a hot mess and I don't know what I want to be when I grow up you know let alone my 13 year old son right but so how do we design for that reality but all along the way make sure that the opportunities transition to things like expectations so that those opportunities don't get not taken advantage of or not put in front of particular students for whatever reason good point good point you have a fan by the way in the chat Lisa Durf says we have to grow up so you have a fan or a fellow tribe member and Don Lubach says he's almost 50 and he's a hot mess you know this is this is scared you know lots of lots of fans here when you were speaking Kyle I was thinking this might connect to the paradigm project and before I could finish that thought there's the paradigm projects director and founder put in a question so let me put that up for everyone to say this is the wonderful David Scoby he says I love the focus in education is something that empowers students instead of subjecting that a lot's locked at ed this seems intention with focusing on the immediate labor market I agree with that I think that some of the best work that we've seen historically in the pathways field and I don't remember if Joel mentioned this that some of these ideas and this provocation was born out of a bit of our collective impatience about the slowness of the reforms that we've seen and so people across the country and states regions have done really good strong work building these more coherent systems and not in traditional just trades but really reimagining a whole variety of career clusters into different professions and I lost sight of the question I'm so sorry can you oh no problem no problem that oh there there's a stuck to the intention of focusing on the immediate labor market there it is thanks David is I think that our experience to date has been partly about convening around what are the current unique needs but also pushing industry and employers to be thinking about and they are frankly thinking about the future needs of the workforce and that even includes trying to imagine what is around the corner and the types of jobs and careers that don't even exist yet so there's the immediate needs and pressure points that industries across the country are facing as a result of the pandemic the current economy skills and competencies but also I see this as a very future facing and fluid proposition so that how does a school or an institution or design like this allow for evolution over time and not become fixed and that is a little bit about my bias around focusing on the strategies and systems as opposed to the models or programs which can become really stuck in time as opposed to outline what is the vision and what might it take to allow that to become true and then allow that to change as needs emerge and look forward about the future labor market well there's a quick question that comes up from the chat from our awesome friend Vanessa Vale who just asks what if the jobs have disappeared by the time students graduate it's happened before all the time I mean it's happening all the time in this dynamic economy and you know I think I'm building on a point that Kyle was making I would put it in my own words however inarticulately but it's you know we have to prepare young people for that future definitely we're not talking about just preparing for a job right we're preparing preparing young people for lifelong learning including being able to learning on the job learning how to like you look you interview employers they want problem solvers they want critical thinkers and when people who can learn how to learn that meta cognition they don't always put it that way like they say oh we need soft skills I actually think there's an organization called America succeeds give them a shout out they then they've done a great job categorizing the durable skills that are needed that across the economy for for highly skilled work including you know if you really look at those I like the word durable because no matter what you know jobs disappear or get created you can see the value and the transferability of that learning and and and how it can set young people up for success in there in a career and a career is going to be looks it already looks so much different than it did you know 30 years ago I'm a rarity I've been a JFF for 20 years I mean that you you just don't see that anymore you know you see people changing jobs every couple of years as well so we do have to I think it's a terrific comment and we're not suggesting here to just preparing for a job but on the other hand I don't think our institutions do a great job preparing young people for at all for a career much especially one that's like sort of grounded in some kind of experience which is the best kind of learning in the in the chat by the way my my multitasking maven friend here Michael Crawford shares a link to the durable skills page on America succeeds so you can find that in the chat thank you Michael Michael who is also tweeting live tweeting at top speed so I'm I think he might not be a single person but a collective you know something like the Borg you know right on our side we have we have more questions coming in and I'm trying to arrange them so that they fit nicely our good friend and hardworking writer Tom Haynes asks simply how do we get away from a linear model of educational progress? By that Tom do you mean how do we move away from the current structures that seem to suggest that you just move lock step through going with a series of grades based on age levels is that sort of the spirit of your question? I'm just going to bring him up on stage I'm not even going to ask him I'm just going to pull up on stage right now cold call cold call that's right well it's always good with a with a very warm mind and a warm heart like Tom's hello Tom hey so I mean what I was trying to point out there is that you know we've we've we've had a lot of these models for a while now and it's in terms of you know early college and dual credit and things like that but they you know and I understand not attacking the system directly but one of the problems with the current system is this conveyor belt mentality when it comes to students and that you lot you know Kyle has also said in the in the chat you know we and and John as well talking about age segregation when it comes to learning and things like that it's really hard to generate learners who are critical thinkers who feel like they have agency in the world if they only have one linear path laid out in front of them now that linear path may lead to different careers but it's still a path you choose a path and then you go that way so these are all legacies of industrial education and in a lot of ways this doesn't make sense in a world where we have scattered digital information all over the place we're going to be pulling it stuff you don't have a career path right as you just said you have career experiences you jump around you do a lot of different things it's very unusual for people to be somewhere for 20 years or something like that so how do we break that mold? I know what you're doing is trying to erase some of the fissures in that mold but it's still accepting that general you start at grade nine and end up at grade 14 or whatever 11 or 14 or whatever arbitrary cutoff you want to make so that's what I was trying to ask I mean I love the spirit of the question and I don't claim to be an expert in in maybe the the most satisfying response here but here's what it gets me thinking about which is the balancing act of well I'm just going to be I'm just going to put it on the table like here's what's coming to my mind that the system is designed to move people forward in a very lockstep way and while it's also true is people quite literally move through their lives from where they are to where they are not and so for me the crux of this are one of the questions I have as we think about redesigning some of these systems or where we maybe missed the mark even in great models like early college and some of these career pathway things is do we have enough folks in those systems who are really thinking intentionally about how do we not just ask young people to have a series of experiences and ideally in the workplace ideally getting paid for that work as they get older but what are the structures and intentionality that we bring to helping them make meaning of those experiences so that they can start to activate different types of decision making and why I'm saying that as I feel like that is one of the ways that I think that we can break that linear lockstepness and that if you have an active mind sort of engaging in a conversation with themselves about what they are learning and what this says about what their best possible future might be in the ideal sense of that if they have the right adult supports around them and conditions they can be asking the types of questions that can then shepherd them in different directions because they're learning how to quite fundamentally be curious and I feel like it's an undervalued skill that is not one I believe that we can quite teach but through conditions over time I think we can nurture people's ability to be curious and to really value curiosity as one way to figure out how I move from where I am to where I am not. Right. Well my argument is that the structural system the structure of the system tends to undermine curiosity as a concept because if you are an independent thinker if you go far afield the system punishes you and you don't make progress and you may be accumulating a lot of useful artifacts and of learning and of you know I when in my class I very intentionally have my students create a tangible artifact of the semester that they get to keep and very few other you know very few others do that and there's nothing in the system that encourages that if anything there's things to discourage you but that's another conversation entirely but the point I'm trying to make here though is that if you go to explore the system punishes you you graduate late if you change majors you know doesn't this just extend that down into the high school environment even more so because none of my kids well one of my kids kind of knows what he wants to do with his life the other three not so much they're exploring but they're in a situation where they're you know they're burning money exploring which is a scary prospect right because they're all at college at this point and I fully expect and I want them to explore but at the same time the system doesn't reward that well Tom thank you and and thank you for for being a good sport about letting me be me up on stage by surprise I kind of expected almost no I know it's not quite you might back pocket there again friends if you're new to the form that's an example of video call and believe me I you can volunteer I won't just ambush you I just save that for Tom but and of course we have more text questions coming up also in the chat by the way people who have shared a few more links and so I've just reposted them a couple of times so if you want to find follow up with some of these a little further but we have more clarifying questions or questions of imagination where people are trying to see how this new institution this new model could work this is one from Betsy Kells who says how does the square with a physical infrastructure of schooling as in how many kids is it a place to meet their basic needs I would say kids by the way I would say that's not just 11 what is today left the 12th grade but also some college students as well Joel yeah I mean I think that I think it's I think it's all on the table I think it's a terrific question Betsy these can I don't know I mean one thing it makes me think of is there are some colleges I think Tom are the previous person who joined us on the stage mentioned early college schools now they're few and far between at the end of the day they're very successful some of them which got me into this work because I said that's a different kind of vision a lot of them are based on high schools that are based on college campuses and it's interesting like sort of that sort of proximity or if you know the word is not coming to me but the co-location alone alone it changed the way that young people identified themselves with higher education they just they saw people around them were just near Pierce right they're like I'm here I belong here they're getting some support from the high school granted but it just changed their outlook and then you add you know all the Carnegie units where I like part of it is to kind of harken back to an earlier part of the conversation as well I think part of what this demonstrates is you can you can move students through faster I know that's not totally the goal here but when you say you know in part what I point to that's powerful about that is okay fine we march them to the system more quickly right but that they really and but and but what it demonstrates the people sort of like why do we have it set up where you have to wait wait wait wait you know when young people can like accomplish much more sooner more quickly with the support systems they do need basic you know a lot of those successful schools have really good support systems if they don't they probably don't serve underserved populations very well anyway so you know I think of you if you kind of blow out those sort of examples and sort of say what's really going on here you can replicate it even if it's not an early college high school per se but you can begin the sort of play with permutations of physical plant you know basic need and support where that is provided so I think it's a terrific question and it is a line of questioning that we mean to open up with this big blur concept so thank you thank you Betsy for the really great question and and again I haven't said this enough Kyle Joel thank you for for answering these questions so so richly I know you both wanted a lot of feedback and I think you I think you're getting some of that we have more questions are just bubbling up and again friends if you want to join us on stage voluntarily just click the raise hand button and I'll be happy to bring you up we have one coming from John Pelman and we just get this up for you all this is concerning are you suggesting that this new paradigm should have to make the goal of education to place people in jobs John I think I want to angle that but but you get the idea yeah it's a goal to place people in jobs no I don't believe that that is what we're saying and I actually appreciate appreciate the clarifier on there and I think Joel focused on this a little bit ago is I think that there's a big difference between thinking about career preparation and career navigation as opposed to job training and job placement I think that that is the unfortunate and frankly tragic legacy of our vocational system in this country that it was a tract system I don't know the last time anybody played the game of life and my daughter got a Christmas a year or two ago and I sat down to play with her and the first question that that game asks you is do you want to have a career or do you want to go to college I was incredulous and she got so frustrated with me she's like dad can you just play the game and I was like no I refuse to play this game and so but I do think that there are some few who go through their education and they pursue higher education increasing levels of education in terms of like the curiosities right like how do we study the mysteries of the universe and I'm a fan of that as a novice but most people go to college to have a career in some shape or form even if it's not well formed a colleague of mine John Furr in Illinois he said one time he's like college is a very expensive career exploration activity and I feel like it really landed some of the complexity of this as if young people are arriving in a post-secondary space without having spent any time exploring things that they might be interested in doing on the other side of their their college experience a lot of and when I look at the student debt crisis right now and how many young people do not finish those credentials so I don't think it's about education the purpose of education becoming about working on behalf of employers to put people in jobs but people need work and I feel like how do we have an attention that serves the unique needs and accelerates and transforms inequitable outcomes at the individual level but as we also think about the health of communities and ultimately regional economies people live and work in economies so we need employment in those places and so I think that all of these things are really wrapped up into a singular conversation and I think that our educational systems and our workforce system can do much better at having a real conversation about how they can work better on behalf of people and how do we design those systems so they protect people and not protect themselves and in saying that I also I don't believe that this is a proposal around a silver bullet but I do think that there's silver buckshot here another colleague of mine Amy Lloyd used to say that right that like every idea is not necessarily a good one but usually when we think we have one singular approach that will work for everybody that's usually often not awesome either well I love the idea of silver buckshot I'm gonna have to steal that right away but that's a great answer thank you thank you and again John thank you for the great question which matters to you I guess professionally it matters a great deal to you working in a charter we have another question from our redoubtable friend Keele Dunsch and Keele asks this question about credentials the education system structural flaws are baked in by hiring that mandates degrees with prestige degrees given preference this has to be addressed for the big blurs reforms to be possible that's not a question it was a recommendation what do you think Keele I really I appreciate that point Brian that Keele raised you know as kind of adjacent to the big blur work we actually you know as Kyle sort of mentioned we're not pressing this as the the silver bullet right so but it is it is a pretty it feels like a vision that resonates with folks precisely because it conjures the sort of things that I've seen people write in the chat on the side out of the side of my eye here early college dual enrollment they have some sort of experience with this already I think credentialing is a new space like short-term credentials that there's a big appetite right now for I think employer we've done surveys about this by the way if you look at us at a report called degrees degrees at risk we did a report recently with American student assistance ASA they go by and we interviewed and surveyed Gen Z young people and employers and there is a huge as Kyle sort of alluded to there's a huge appetite by youth right now so they're questioning the college the traditional route to like okay I got to get a BA that's what my guidance counselor tells me it's what my teachers and my parents are telling me is that the only way I can get a good career like and also like look at all that debt burden and what's going to be the return on investment I don't even know what I want to be yet so like there are definitely questions on that side and sort of an appetite for different for alternatives and employers are also saying I don't yeah I believe I don't necessarily need BAs for this job so I'm willing to look at different programs and credentials now the issue is like it's interesting because they said that but on the flip side they also said employers said but like I don't understand enough about those programs to like to like choose graduates of those versus those with the BA those would be that's safer you know at the end of the day because I don't know much about these other ones and students kind of said the same thing they were sort of like well I know employers will you know basically pick someone with a BA over you know someone who's gotten done a short-term credential so I probably even though I'm very interested in alternatives I know ultimately the BAs probably got the currency so it's a real like it's it's really like how do you change the systems and mindsets around that and so anyway again another long answer to sort of say we're gonna have to kind of crack that code as part of the big blur and also how do you make the short-term credentials kind of stack to make sure that it doesn't lead to something that is for one job you know which has been a theme of our conversation here we want to make sure that we create permeable paths with no dead ends and people can keep learning keep moving up this is to me all about you know economic security and advancement ultimately for individuals well thank you and by the way thank you Kyle for tossing in the link to to the study the two who are working just just fantastically and thank you for the great question by the way this is there's a lot going on and we have one Brian can I just I just wanted to build on something Joel said and maybe there's another current of this is I do think and Joe Fuller who's at the business school at Harvard has done a lot of work and research on this around degree inflation and you know Joel was talking about like like the BA is still trusted as sort of the proxy but when you really unpack and unravel the BA it is used as a proxy for skills and competencies that are not necessarily true just because you have a four-year degree regardless of what institution it's from and so there's to Joel's point I think there's a real public conversation we have to have not to suggest that higher degrees are not valuable I think that they bring tremendous value to individuals to intellectual discourse to contributing deeper expertise in fields but when we overvalue it because it has an institutional name or a certain number of letters after it and use that as a proxy for someone being able to know or do something we're sort of belying the fact that competency is demonstrated and that it is often context-specific and that some of those skills are not necessarily transferable as we look across sectors or across types of roles and so how do we build in these systems that really do focus on that life-wide learning this of opportunities whether in education or work to help people learn in these informal informal spaces and respect that people bring experience and competency from other contexts including higher education but not exclusive to that You all are calling for a massive massive redesign I think you said the start and it's just great to see that you fleshed this out because it's not a you don't have a solution in a box you're calling for something much more extensive and much more visionary excellent excellent We have a question that came up earlier in the chat and I wanted to just hoist it from the chat because it's an important question and it ties into a few of the things that people have been hinting at This is from Patricia of Suarez and I hope I have our name right How does your plan tackle the societal inequities across race and class so that all students benefit from your new system of learning? Also how do you think your system will align with professional careers examples medicine and law? So the first part is about social inequities and then the second is about certain professional careers Kyle, which part do you want to take? These are big These are big ones They're the right question Yeah, yeah I'm happy Oh, go ahead Go ahead I was just going to start a little bit on the first one I don't believe that any singular solution can tackle the size and scope of the challenge we have with equity and access or outcomes when we think about opportunities for economic advancement or career success However, I do believe that the beginning value proposition of this paper begins with calling that into question that this is not a proposition that should be for a select few but it's partly in response to the other efforts that we have been making continue to be slow you know when we think about the changes in degree attainment for instance across racial and ethnic groups they have overall increased you know let's say over the last decade but the gaps between those racial groups attainment levels have remained durable over time and so there's something that we're not doing or there's something we're doing that's working very well to keep those gaps from narrowing or there's something we're not doing that is that is in the way of those you know you know getting getting thinner there and so I think that this is about if we establish a vision for really sharp understanding about what is it that young people need to know and be able to do to enter the workforce successfully with a job that has a career ladder and an understanding of what it will take to advance more deeply into the labor market and economic advancement and then use that as a way to to quite literally backwards map into the post secondary credential space in the high school space or in our conversation at this blurry space and have a real conversation about well what are the credentials we're offering are these the types of credentials that signal competency that people will need in today's or the future labor market and if we can get really clear on those skills and competencies and knowledge sets then we can have a conversation about how do we make sure that young people are being prepared beginning way back in elementary school to be successful at those opportunities because yeah if we don't you know how do we deal with the upstream challenges as much as we're addressing the downstream ones and so if we want young people to be successful taking early college courses to get the leg up on their first credential that means we have a promise to keep in relation to making sure that they are prepared to access college level content sooner and they are capable of that that has been proven through data but the question is is have our systems align themselves to really ensure that again that's not an opportunity for some but it's an expectation for all and if we set it as an expectation we have a commitment on our side as leaders to make sure that we are preparing young people to access that level of content and thinking and activity at an equitable level I mean I can't help but think of the history of tracking and the history of vocational education in the U.S. which is often towards people poorer socioeconomically and if you're inviting a public discussion the public can be the public outcome can be biased by race by class as well as by other fields I mean I guess is there is there a mechanism that you would like to see in order to keep things honest or is there a would you like to cast this in a specifically say Abraham Kendi anti-racist way or is this something which you think you know say federal regulations will be able to balance I've asked Patricia to to join us to say more if she can I don't know if she's still with us but but why don't you give that away yeah I mean I think we really have to be attuned to this it's it's a really terrific question and it keeps it's it does keep me up at night a bit like I don't think this is the end of I'll be all single solution you know that that we that's going to solve all the equity problems in fact if we don't do it well it could exacerbate inequities just like anything we we do right without like really paying attention to the preparation support needs I mean like let's let's be real right like also the way employer biases you know all of our implicit biases racial segregation I mean so I think in some ways even though as radicals this sounds let me just heart come back though which is what saying why we focused on this kind of grade 11 through 14 sphere at space is is in some ways if you reduce it down I mean I also it's a lot of the most successful programs and schools that we've seen really figure out how to bridge these systems right now such as they are the separate system we're calling for blending right but right now we have programs that bridge them and they do really well by black and Latino students and students from low income backgrounds because in part what they're doing is they are really addressing the cracks in those systems through which so many of those students fall like say we just look at the stats of students who graduate high school and then they even they get accepted to college how many don't show up is there like any little bureaucratic barrier question that comes up you know piece of a form or whatever it just throws them off because they don't it's like it's it's huge their families don't know how to deal with that and you know I think it's something like 20 like only 20% of low income you know it's like it's some astounding number who don't do the summer melt phenomenon don't show up and then forget about it like when they go in like can they make it through their first year you know and so many of the students who are underserved by our systems fall through the cracks then and then let's talk about the dismal completion numbers right so I think what we're suggesting here is we know from these programs and these bridging programs and in some respects what we did is to say let's extrapolate from that and one of the key themes was why don't we just eliminate the need for those transitions let's just make it seamless and that it's a bet in a way that we can you know we probably will create other cracks you know maybe I don't know but this one feels like an obvious one to fix and we know how to fix it well thank you that's a that's a great answer Patricia that's a great question if you want to add more please please feel free oh and and she does she appreciates your candor developing non-bias systems is incredibly challenging I think this is a topic for a future discussion I completely agree Patricia it's one that we'll keep returning to we have another question that's come in from our friend Michael Meeks down at in Louisiana and Michael asks many of my students simply do not commit the time and bandwidth to learn EG too long didn't read do you see technology solving this problem of knowing how much true effort goes into learning can you say more that's not a head it's a genuine curiosity but when the question around technology solving the problem just wouldn't be curious what you mean by that yeah Michael if your if your camera might already be happy to bring you on stage or if you just want to add some more either as a new question or as a chat we'd be delighted to hear more and well well Michael's working on that we only have five minutes left and I want to make sure that everybody gets their chance to put in a question in our comment the chat is really rich people are going full tilt and and that's good and I would love for anyone in the chat if you've got a point that you want to press on that we maybe have an address to not please let me know so I can I can bring that up you know Brian I can share I know I don't know if we have the expansion it's not something that we've tackled directly but I can share some thoughts that we've I know that Joel and I have certainly talked about and that JFF is thinking about in this space is I again I don't think that technology is a silver bullet here and I think that sometimes we're overly bias it as a solution to a set of complex problems whereas I think often we need a constellation of technological and human solutions to fix the intractable ones that we see in front of us but I do think that there are technological solutions that can grease the wheels of some of this blurring for instance as we think about the evolution or potential promise of digital wallets or blockchain technology to give people ownership back over their credentials and their skills and the validation of those rather than having to pay a bursar's office to get a copy of their transcripts or if they could be employer validated so this can start to break down some of those silos that are pretty rigid I think that serious games and the advent of AR and VR technologies again should school just be kids at home with their AR goggles on probably not but can we use those to enhance their experiences in the world around them as we think about living and working in the world can we use them to enhance experiences in the school or workplace or to explore careers that are really not accessible to them where they live as an education and training an enhancement tool and so I think that how do we put together the constellation of technologies that will allow us to do that and in another context where we've talked about with folks about innovation and technology a lot of times we get similar questions about like what's the most innovative technology that will be really transformative one of my pushes to be transparent is it might not be technology it might be collaboration when I think about the most innovative thing that the field can really do right now it would be to collaborate I think what we get a lot is coordination but to really collaborate and de-center oneself or one's organization and put the mission or vision in the center of a conversation is real hard work really hard work if I was going to speak ironically correctly and I think that that's sort of a really innovative thing that we can do right now that's those are great answers both the specific examples but also the question of rethink in this in terms of technology Michael did have a couple of examples he mentioned eye movement so tracking eye movement tracking pupil dilation and also AI for a couple of quick examples thanks Michael for following up on that so there are specific technologies and then they have be embedded in practices I would love to learn more about that yeah yeah that's definitely worth thinking too but we we have our last minute left and I would if we had time I was going to ask you too to riff on what a community would look like if it embraced your big blur and did that for say five or 10 years I think in many ways this past hour you've been helping us get at that process but a key thing is you don't have that that formula you want us to develop that formula or multiple formulas and you want to start that conversation going and I think you've done a great job of that let me ask a more practical daily question which is how can we keep up with the big blur and with you too what's the best way to track all these upcoming projects and announcements well our website is www.jff.org but also Kyle don't we have the big blur website as well is that big blur.com we have secure big blur.com I don't know if it's live yet but it will be soon so that would be one way and pretty shortly actually we you can access the paper online now and see related bodies of work that undergird some of this thinking and that are active right now in the field and whether this is broader networks of folks who are tackling different components of this across the education and workforce space and we will have a new page going up pretty soon if you follow along and we'll get that up on the social channels which will have additional publications that will be coming out over time a draft policy framework that we've been working on to help really shape a conversation about how far are we really from these conditions an additional collateral that'll sort of shape a little bit of a conversation about what is when employers talk about this what are they what are they bringing up and what are the questions that they're asking but ultimately would love to keep folks engaged in this conversation well I'm really really grateful for the two of you for kicking off this conversation and I'm really grateful for everyone on the forum today for pressing on this and developing it and thinking all together that's what we best do like you said earlier Kyle I think in many ways the key is collaboration so thank you thank you very much and we'll come back Brian thanks everyone well we look forward to seeing where this goes next thanks everyone but don't go yet friends we have to just point you to where things where things are going next if you want to keep talking about this Michael Crawford and I have been tweeting but other people can join in on this just go to the hashtag ftte or follow me or or Shindig events or if you want to talk about this on my blogs just head to bryanalexenter.org if you'd like to go back into the past and we've touched on some of these topics before including gamification and technology just go to tinyurl.com slash ftfrchive if you'd like to continue looking at other topics that we have we have a whole bunch coming up in the next month just go to forum thatfutureeducation.us and you can see more and if you want to share some of your great thoughts and projects with me just hit me up send me a note so I can share it with the world and in the meantime thank you all for talking with us together today I think it's just a great way of thinking through collaboratively the ideas that our authors have proposed in the big blur I hope all of your fall semesters are going well above all I hope you're all safe and we'll see you next time online take care bye bye