We need to teach to the world we live in, or at least teach in a way that reflects the pace that the world moves, and the world moves fast. Our students know this, often questioning the relevance of what they are being taught. The time has come for a profound change in how we educate them. 

When our current education model was designed 150 years ago, knowledge was doubling every 100 years. Today, it's estimated to be doubling every 12 hours and continuing to increase at exponentially faster rates. Simply focusing on transferring a fixed body of knowledge doesn’t cut it anymore. 

Instead, humans need to feel empowered to create regenerative solutions to big problems: the climate crisis and the rapid loss of ecosystems and fertile land, the severing of a shared vision for an inclusive society and the ambivalence to civil discourse, unprecedented mental health challenges, and the blurring lines between facts and fake news. 

The world needs creative learners who have been equipped to ask the important questions, explore and generate scalable solutions, and communicate and collaborate across borders, languages, and cultures to implement those solutions. 

When students realize that we truly believe in them and their potential to change the world, we become authentic co-learners with them. Through contributions that tap into their own interests and curiosities, their learner identity improves, engagement increases and, inevitably, so does their academic achievement. They quickly build confidence and courage when we open up the possibility that their natural curiosities will lead them to empowerment.