The document discusses how the world is changing in ways that require new skills from children, including the rise of Asia, abundance, and automation. It argues that to succeed in the "Conceptual Age," children will need "high concept" skills like creativity, pattern recognition, and storytelling as well as "high touch" skills like empathy, collaboration, and finding purpose and meaning.

1. Are we preparing children for their future?

2. The World is Changing (and has changed) in radical ways Asia Abundance Automation

3. Asia By 2010 India becomes the country with the most English speakers in the world Developing nations continue to graduate millions of extremely capable knowledge workers, the professional lives of people in the West will change dramatically. If number crunching, chart reading, and code writing can be done for a lot less overseas and delivered to clients instantly via fiber-optic cable, that's where the work will go.

5. Abundance Owning a car used to be a grand American aspiration. Today, there are more automobiles in the US than there are licensed drivers - which means that, on average, everybody who can drive has a car of their own. Self-storage - a business devoted to housing our extra crap - is now a $17 billion annual industry in the US, nearly double Hollywood's yearly box office take.

6. In an age of abundance, consumers demand something more. Abundance $546 for a Whitehaus toilet brush Check out your bathroom. Do you have a toilet brush designed by Michael Graves or a Karim Rashid trash can that you bought at Target?

7. Electric lighting was rare a century ago. Candles are a $2 billion a year business - for reasons that stretch beyond the logical need for light to a prosperous country's growing desire for pleasure and transcendence. Abundance Santuario di Bellezza Candle, $180

8. Abundance

9. Automation Last century, machines proved they could replace human muscle. This century, technologies are proving they can outperform human left brains - they can execute sequential, reductive, computational work better, faster, and more accurately than even those with the highest IQs.

10. Automation Industrial Age Information Age Conceptual Age Agrarian Age

11. Conceptual Age The Industrial Age was built on people's backs. The Information Age on people's left hemispheres. The Conceptual Age is being built on people's right hemispheres. We've progressed from a society of farmers to a society of factory workers to a society of knowledge workers. And now we're progressing yet again - to a society of creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers.

12. Questions to Ask Yes = Trouble No = Trouble Yes = Trouble

15. In the Conceptual Age we need to complement our L-Directed reasoning by mastering six essential R-Directed aptitudes. DESIGN – function is no longer enough STORY – with the glut of information a compelling story is still heard SYMPHONY – individuals can no longer specialize, they need cross domains EMPATHY – logic is important but we need to know what makes each other tick PLAY – health and professional benefits of laughter and humor have been shown MEANING – food and shelter is readily available (for most) so now people can pursue spiritual fulfillment Six Senses of the Conceptual Age

16. Design What we make has to be more than just functional we have to make products that are appealing. We don’t make automobiles. We make moving works of art that express the driver’s love of quality.” Chris Bangle, BMW

17. Design

18. Story Our brains are wired for stories, not text. “ Scratch the surface in a typical boardroom and we’re all just cavemen with briefcases, hungry for a wise person to tell us stories.” Alan Kay, Hewlett-Packard executive Learning to listening to their patient’s stories is become more important to the training of new doctors. Popularity of scrapbooking is combination interest in story and design.

19. Symphony The ability to look at the big picture The ability to synthesize , not just analyze The ability to put together the many varied pieces Seeing seemingly disjointed relationships Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

20. Seeing in Different Ways… Negative Space Symphony

21. Empathy Sympathy is feeling bad for someone, empathy is feeling with someone else. Empathy is the act of climbing into another’s mind to experience the world from that person’s perspective. Yawning is contagious….we are wired to imitate it. Facial expressions are universal not based on culture

22. Empathy Spot the Fake Smile http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/smiles/index.shtml Mind in the Eyes http://glennrowe.net/BaronCohen/Faces/EyesTest.aspx Overheard websites A Humorous look (sometimes inappropriate) Look at Empathy http://www.overheardeverywhere.com

23. Play People rarely succeed at anything unless they are having fun doing it. Southwest Airlines strategy The opposite of play isn’t work. It’s depression. Brian Sutton-Smith, University of Penn Play includes games, humor, and joyfulness. Games are the most elevated form of investigation. Albert Einstein

24. Play “ All work and no play makes Jack (or Ramses) a dull boy” is a proverb that dates back to ancient Egypt.

25. Computer games appeal to the right side of the game – via imaginative vicarious experiences. The gaming industry has grown bigger (more revenue) than the entire motion picture industry. The Mario Bros. series of games has made more than twice as much as all of the Star War movies combined. When USC started a film school 75 years ago, there were many skeptics. Games are the literature of the 21 st century. The pieces are in place for this to happen. Chris Swain, USC game design instructor Play

27. Play

28. Play

29. Meaning Abundance has given people more time to wonder about their purpose and meaning . People have enough to live, but nothing to live for; they have the means but no meaning. Ronald Inglehart, University of Michigan political scientist Inglehart confirms his findings among multiple industrialized countries that we are moving from “materialist” values to “postmaterialist” values that emphasize self-expression and quality of life . New Age warning… suspend doubt for a few minutes

30. Two practical ways to begin searching for meaning are to begin taking more seriously spirituality and happiness . Scientists have run MRI brain scans of monks as the meditate to see how different physical regions of the brain are used. Spirituality and religion are connected, but not the same. Spirituality is the more broadly defined concern for the meaning and purpose of life – it is a fundamental part of the human condition. Meaning

31. Attending religious services cuts people’s risk of death from heart disease, suicide, and some cancers. Johns Hopkins study Stress, heart disease, and other maladies – can be allayed by attending to the spirit. People who pray regularly have been shown to have lower blood pressure than those who don’t. Duke University study Meaning

32. http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu A pleasant life can be obtained by having experiences that bring you pleasure in your daily life. Attending to your needs and doing what you enjoy day in and day out can afford you a pleasant life – hanging out and having fun. A good life is attained by engaging in the pleasant life , but also continually stretching your skills, challenging your abilities, and gaining new knowledge . It comes from knowing your strengths, using them, and improving upon them, or being capable, competent, and continually striving . A meaningful life is one in which the person engages in the pleasant life and the good life , but also uses their life in to contribute to something beyond, and larger than, themselves . "There are three roads to happiness: the Pleasant Life, the Good Life and the Meaningful Life. People who enjoy all three have the most life satisfaction." Martin Seligman, author of Authentic Happiness and Learned Optimism Meaning