FORWARD
Revolutions tend to pass through three phases . it will never work , it might work but it’s not worth doing and finally I told you this was a good idea 🙂 .
For the rest of this course these lessons are designed to be brief . This forward is the exception.
If I had to summarise in one sentence . Our visual first approach is simple, foundational , transformative and radical.
Big picture education and training. The system itself is no longer fit for purpose .It appears to be explicity designed to screen out all our original thinkers . Sweep oversights and mistakes under the carpet. Engage in the blame game rather than address core failings .As a key driver of productivity and growth we have to expect more . While this position seems antagnostic . As teachers, instructors , content designers and the ultimate consumer you and I . We have to be willing to evolve . To embrace change . If we do not. AI will simply roll over and replace us .
Our expectation and hope is to address not just issues common to clinical populations but to improve outcomes and long term productivity in the wider population .
For reference purposes when it comes to clinical populations we can highly recommend accessible texts by Thomas G West .Award winning author of In The Mind’s Eye and Thinking Like Einstein [dyslexia ] . Temple Grandin Thinking In Pictures [ high functioning autism / aspergers ]. Linda B Silverman author of Upside Down Brilliance [Adhd] and Doctor Helen Taylor
Dr Taylor out of Cambridge University is an acadmic researcher who has been advocating learning specialisation rather than a deficit centric explantion .Written langauge is an invention and has only existed for 5000 years so how can it be baked in . How can it be a deficit or a genetic failing .
For general interest we can highly recommend . Carmin Gallo author of Talk Like Ted and the Presentation secrets of Steve Jobs . David Eaglamn presenter and author of The Brain and Livewired .Superforecasting By Phillip Tetlock and Dan Gardner . Misbehaving By Richard Thaler Thinking. Fast and slow by Dany Kahneman and the coming wave by Mustafa Suleyman .
In many quantifiable ways . A visual first approach is better than listen and learn . In that respect we are a threat to a way of doing things and a perceived threat to systems and institutions . Nobody likes change . It’s a threat to livelihoods .In the last 18 months AI’s . LLM [Large language models] has moved the goalposts . The need for detail orientated clerks had been falling . While reading is still important for deep learning creating foundational knowledge.The widespread online availability of Audible books and video courses on every subject under the sun has removing the need for rapid shallow processing . Defined here as knowledge you need to be aware of or need to parrot back . Ai is only going to accelerate this megatrend .
In the coming century spelling and number competence are going to be less and less important .We need more visionaries , more big picture thinkers .We need a workforce who are wired to discover , innovate and explore . We need to screen for imagination, connection, communication and exploration . We need to screen for a population who are comfortable with complexity and uncertainty .
After years on the outside our heretical views can now be framed as what they are . Practical necessary adaptions to a modern world with a huge upside . Innovation takes many forms it can be a machine or it can be a new process or approach designed to multiply inputs . increasing long term productivity and improving sustainable long term outcomes.
While a system designed to screen out all our original thinkers never made economic sense . The stakes have been raised . Assigning square pegs to round holes is’nt just couter productive it’s wastefull and growth destroying .We are not advocating a free pass. WE advocate adaptation . Where strengths are used to bypass weakness .To quote Einstein the defintion of insanity is doing the same thing over and expecting a different result .
It’s time for change .