What Today's Kids Need For Tomorrow's World

Welcome to the Future of Education. My name is Michael Horne and I'm delighted with my guest today, Stephanie Kraus, who is the author of the new book Making It. She has a lot of really interesting roles in and around education, has for a long time jobs for the future being one that I'm most familiar with and love the work that they do. But first, Stephanie, welcome to the Future of Education. I'm excited to talk about your new book with you.

Thanks, Michael, so much. Really glad to be here. And I'm talking to you from very Snowy, extremely cold St. Louis today.

So I think you beat us in the cold in Boston, but we have a fair amount of snow. We've got a couple feet on the ground, I think. So I don't know how we compete with you on that front, but where I'd love to start the conversation for folks that tune in is how did you get into this path of education in the first place? And what really drives you, you know, to wake up every day and try to create a world where there's more opportunity for more kids.

So I think my education story is like a multi act play that has some real divergent paths in it. So thinking about my education story, I think Act 1 is as a kid I loved school. I wanted to be a teacher, I loved my teachers, I wanted to go to school. And then somewhere around middle school, I'm one of five and my older brother was not doing well and he was on a path that would eventually lead him to dropping out. I have three brothers who are younger and I grew up in a small town in the northeast and the folks in the community watched my brother and kind of turned to me and thought, she's next. She's smart kid, lots of potential. But isn't it a shame that she will probably drop out like her brother? And the truth is I did. So a part of my education story is I loved learning and I loved school originally. And I think I learned early on that an education or a school experience is not always the same as a learning experience. And so I think that my love of learning took leaving, which is such a strange thing thing to consider. But that was a major departure point for me. The last full year of K12 that I completed was actually 8th grade, which is a funny thing because, you know, Michael, we've known each other for some time and I show up in the reimagining high school space and I ran a high school but didn't actually complete high school. So you know, the other space that we show up Together is in higher ed. My education experience individually was dropping out, getting a GED and starting in community college. And then I went to a little college in the south starting at 16 and graduated at 18 because nobody told me how many credits you're supposed to take in college. So I was taking 23, 25 credits every semester. And my best friend pulled me to the side and said, you're going to graduate. And I looked at him and said, you know, Jake, 18 year olds cannot graduate from college. And he said, you took too many courses. So I went from community college to the small private college, then to a state university, got my master's in education and became a teacher. And after a couple of years of teaching, I really understood that there were so many impacts on these kids lives that had nothing to do with what I could create in the classroom. That quality of living and learning were so interlinked that I had to leave again. And so I left school again, this time as a teacher, even though I loved it and I'd wanted to be a teacher forever and took my GED and now my college degree and my graduate degree and I came to St. Louis and got a graduate degree in social work. And I walk through that story because I think it's so interesting, the diversity of experience there and how it undergirds a part of the book, the personal anchor in it around really this question of so if completing high school or completing college is sometimes a proxy for readiness, but not always, like what actually do we need to be ready, Ready for a job, ready for college, ready for what comes next. One other thing that I'll just bring up is that among the five siblings in my family, we went from my older brother, dropout, no ged, and he became extremely well known as a comedian and a slam poet and a writer all the way to the baby who went to Harvard on a full scholarship. And he had been a valedictorian or not a full scholarship. He'll get me on that one. On a scholarship, sure, sure.

Financial aid, yes, et cetera. I get the point. Yeah.

Last thing I'll say here is, I think what brings me to the work today, particularly working nationally, I ended up not only teaching, but running a school for youth who had also been pushed or pulled out. So overage, undercredited youth in St. Louis. And today I feel like I'm steward not only of my own story, but of theirs. And so, you know, throughout the years sort of became intimately aware of the things that make learning possible and then the school experience. And when Those things connect or when they actually aren't connected in the ways that they need to be.

So it's so interesting, by the way, because as you described, that I didn't know that pathway. Um, but as you said, it's a distinct pathway. Right. That we tend not to talk about or think about. I know one of your passions, and we'll get into the book in a moment, but I just have to go here first. Which is one of your passions I know, is thinking about how do we credential experience in very different ways and acknowledge the skills and knowledge and other skills that maybe we don't quantify today. Right. But that you clearly learned in navigating the path that you did. I imagine that passion for credentialing and certificates also comes out of that personal story.

I think. So there are a couple of things that stick out there. One is this fundamental belief that has to be born from personal experience that if you know it and you can show it, you should get credit for it. One of the biggest pieces of this for me was actually running the school school for overage and undercredited youth. So we had 17 to 21 year olds. They would come to us from every school across the region and they all had 3, 5, 7 credits out of 21 that were needed. And at the time, the law in Missouri was that I think it was like you needed 7,820 minutes of instruction to get one credit and then you needed 21 to graduate, but the state would stop paying for you on your 21st birthday unless you had a disability and then it was your 22nd birthday. So literally the math did not add up. And so there was this, this moment of intensity, I think, in my school with both seeing knowledge and skill deficits from some of the folks who would apply to teach, who had an education degree, but who weren't grounded in human development or really like deeply knowing how young people learn and how you might organize learning in a way that makes sense for an older youth population. So on the one side, there was this deep disconnect of college credentialed, often graduate level credentialed educators who had made it through these programs because of the career ladder. That's what you do in education. But they themselves recognize this deep gap in knowledge and skills. They needed upskilling and support to be effective. And then on the other side were these kids who were unable to like, just meet this basic time algorithm that actually had no basis in the science of, of learning. And so I think you're right. You know, one of the spaces that I have been in, in national work was leading this national credentialing campaign. So you and I have been tracking closely this proliferation of credentials. Right. And one of the things that I think is is crazy is that half of the credentials in the post secondary marketplace are now no longer university issued. And so you have the issues of what we were seeing with universities, but now you have all of these new vendors. Right. And I know you, we both have been thinking about, I'm thinking about our work around quality assurance, like what actually makes a credential a good one and who says it's good and when is it worth the investment? I think obviously you're very passionate about this question of like choosing college and I similarly like choosing credentials. This, this conflation of brand versus the knowledge and skills that you get. Right. Is this recognized? And then if it's recognized or not recognized, is it really equipping you in the ways that you need to be equipped? And that's a real challenge right now.

Yeah, I mean we could geek out as you know and we have on panels for a long time on this conversation. And I mean, I couldn't agree more with you in the minutes. Requirements, frankly are just so heartbreaking because of the opportunity it closes off. I mean obviously you were able to earn ged, but a lot of kids may not have that wherewithal or support to find those pathways and when there's a pathway in front of them. But let's segue into your book. I want to talk about it. I got to read it of course a few months ago and I highly recommend it. So making it is the name and it's about. I put it in the narrative frankly of like, you know, Diane Tavener wrote the book prepared. It's these set of books around what do students, kids, individuals really need to succeed in life. And that's from a school perspective, but beyond. Right. In a society that is rapidly changing and so forth. So before we get into the content of the book and some of the themes that you'd love to pull out of it, I'd love to get your why, like why this book right now? Why was it so important given everything going on in the macro education and changing of work landscape.

So thanks for asking the question because there is a really important why. I wrote this book as my love letter back to the education front lines. I left national work when my second born was a baby or sorry, I left local work now eight years ago. And so for eight years I have been able to participate in these conversations happening all across the country, across education and workforce and higher education, city level, state level. Conversations that when I was running a school and in a classroom, I didn't even know existed, honestly, like I would get resources and I would get some news digests, but these conversations around the future of work and what was happening in the economy and how the credentialing market, what we just talked about, how the credentialing marketplace was changing and wait, it's a marketplace, it's not a college. And over time I just built up this base of knowledge and I felt really morally obligated to get the word back out to parents, to teachers, to education leaders. Because I kept imagining being back in school and thinking about as an educator, education leader, this like college for all four year university. We've got to get them to graduation, get them into university, get them through the four year degree, get them to the job and get them to the next job, get them to save money and retire. And that whole social contract not only is deeply inequitable, but it's just like flawed and fully obsolete at this point. Totally. I think the tipping point for me, you know, your girls, my boys are around the same age. And one of the things that came out, which is really a theme through the book, but has changed me as a parent and really impassioned me as someone, as an advocate on the, the national sort of circuit, is that the way that science and society have evolved, our kids with the right resources and opportunities, should live to be 100. Which means that they're going to have like a 70 to 80 year working life. They're going to have a literal like our lifetime, a lifetime of work, a lifetime of learning. And that's if they're resour. And then you look at some of the poorest communities where there are the fewest opportunities and resources where there have been huge spikes of violence even in the last year, they can't get their kids, you know, the promise of getting through the first quarter is in question. And so we are moving, I think, and it again really sort of motivated me to write the book. We're moving, I think, think in education from a time where we've been talking about first achievement and skills gaps, more recently opportunity gaps. But I actually think we need to be talking about livability and longevity gaps. Who gets to live a long life? And then what do you need to make it livable? And what has to happen in the first quarter, the first 25 years, which includes K12 and for many people Those first years of work and post secondary education in order to enable that long and livable life. And then you think about the other piece of like a long and livable life in a time when there's volatility, there's disruption, there's rapid change, there's a changing climate, there's economic shifts. And so that's when my like, mama bear heart really connects to getting the word out. So what the book attempted to do, and we'll see what people think was actually like, could I write something in a way that felt like we were sitting down for coffee in a post pandemic world? And where this information about how the workforce is changing, how just our kids are being rewired by this current situation, what the new contract is could be talked about in a way that felt very conversational. And that's the love letter piece, right? Like you don't have time to read something that's not enjoyable if you're on the front lines and if you're parenting. So that was. That was the hope.

Very cool. And the book comes out, I think in the next week or two. Right. If I'm not mistaken, apparently it left.

The warehouse yesterday in the middle. That's exciting Storms. And it comes out for bookstores March 3, and then for folks who are audiobook listeners, it comes out on March 9th on audiobook. And my understanding is the Kindle version is already available.

Ah, very cool. Okay, that is good to know. And everyone listening, check it out. But because warehouse dates these days are very unpredictable, it turns out. So you're living through it right now. But so let's dig into some themes from the book. You just alluded to a bunch of them, obviously. And I grabbed onto the longevity and livability piece of it because it dovetails with a book that just came out. Also, long Life learning by our friend Michelle Wise, uh, who talks a lot about similar dynamics that you're talking about. She's obviously talking about it from once you're in the working adult world, you're earlier in that spectrum. But also I would argue, like a little bit more of the system and the interplay between all these different, you know, K12 and higher education and like that those interactions. So I'd love to hear, like, what are the couple takeaways you want someone to have from this conversation as they read the book?

So first off, great, like, what great timing to be able to work with Michelle and have both of these books come out. And I do think this 100 year life is a really key piece because we have to shift our understanding from this college and career readiness idea of what that means and what adulthood is going to look like in this warm handoff at 18, and really reconfigure what actually does life require. You know, we have historically in the youth serving space, spent time not only thinking about college and career readiness, but thinking about career pathways, career and technical education as being very specific. And the idea is, you know, historically that you're on this pathway and you might diverge a little bit and you might have two or three careers. But as Michelle would tell you in her book, if the potential is a 80 year, 90 year working life, and it's in this age of volatility, you can only imagine how many different types of careers that will require, what the financial realities would be. So to walk through a couple of the key themes, especially if there are folks who have kids who are listening to this, regardless of what your job is, if you are at home with children today, I think the first thing for us to know as parents is that our kids are being raised in recessions. So if we look at last year's graduating class and this group of seniors, they started kindergarten during the Great Recession and they are graduating and launching out.

In the middle of COVID yet another.

Yep, their entire experience has been bookended by the major crises of our lifetimes. And so they want security and stability and predictability so far as they are probably like among the most entrepreneurial in the way that they think. But also they have seen tough times. And so the thing that they want most, security, predictability, is probably the thing least promised to them. And so the number one lesson I would just share is that you've got these young people who are quite literally disruption in digital natives. This is the only life they know. Any kid born after 2007 was probably born with birth announced on Facebook or other tech platforms, right? Like the smartphone was out all of those pieces. The second is that not only is the way that kids are wired changing and their disruption in digital natives, but disruption, as you well know, particularly the word and a digital world, is also defining the world and the workplace. And so I think just understanding that we need to tune in not only to what is the work, but what is the working life and what are the things driving both. And so the book talks about just super quick, these three things. So I talk about machines, markets and momentum. And just the quick of it is like things are moving super fast. We feel it, right? We feel the overwhelm and the overload. But actually these kids that's all they have known. Not only have they been raised in recessions, they have only known the speed and the quick change. And that technology is playing in really intense ways where not only are we using it, but we are working alongside it or sometimes working for it. And so that navigating that whole new relationship with tech, I think is. It's taken a backseat as we've gone through the pandemic, but it's going to resurface strong. And then I think in terms of market changes, like we never think about that as educators and youth workers.

No, we don't. We don't talk about it a lot.

Money, all that stuff feels so far. And yet going back to the first question you asked me, like that link between quality of living and learning, I don't think we can come out of this past year and not really tend to the fact that what is happening in the economy and what is happening in our communities and the way that they function has a deep impact on kids. And what is happening in the financial life or in the work life of parents really deeply impacts. And we've known it, but we've seen it so much more intensely.

Yeah, I mean, I'd love to dig in there for a second because it's something you talk a lot about in the book from an equity lens, obviously, but in particular, the school system, the way it's set up right now assumes that you have certain background resources, background knowledge, background connections, background assets. And if you don't, it's just not well equipped to serve you. And in many ways, as I read the book, it felt like not necessarily a call just to undo that, but to be thoughtful about where those gaps are and what it means against this new context. Because it's not going to even be simplistic notions. Right. Of those resource gaps as you go in the future. And that's something I took away from it as well when I was reading is just those gaps have been there. We have an education system that hasn't been built for that. And because the world is changing, actually what you have to do to re architect the system is going to change quite a bit too.

I'm so grateful for you, like leading me down the road of things that feel really important because this is either going to be the thing that gets me in big trouble with friends and colleagues as they read the book, or potentially creates a reminder for all of us about the moment that we're in. So making it was a book written to help provide a roadmap for what young People need in a world that is still unfair and unjust. What I am trying to do is call us to take a posture of a dual call any of us in education, in youth work, where on the one hand, we have got to educate and equip young people on the truths of how the world works as it is now, even as we're co creating a new world with them. And so one of the things that's important there is I have friends who study youth flourishing and thriving. And I'm a little like, grittier. I'm interested in both surviving and thriving. And I think kind of in this moment in the world, like, we have to do both. I don't know how you feel about this as a working parent, but, like, I feel like I'm trying to survive in thrive at the same time. And that, like, that's just it, right? We can have this, like, wonderful moment in rich relationships. And it's tough right now. And so the book named some of the things that are important. So we were talking about credentialing earlier. There are things at play. So go back to this social contract. So the idea has always been communicated. Graduate high school, go to college, get a job, get better job, make money, retire, give something back to your kids. And yet the reality is that young people can be born. And not only are there disparities at birth, so we know everything is harder if you're a kid of color because of systemic racism and the way that structures are designed. And then it just gets harder from there if there's more marginalization underneath, if you're poor, if you're. If you've got a disability, if there are other pieces at play if you're not in the majority from a gender or sexuality perspective. But there are these other pieces that we have perpetuated in education that are dangerous. One of the key things is to say, if you are credentialed and skilled, you'll be okay. So the number of us who've made careers saying, we've got to get more, graduate and we've got to skill them up and then they'll be fine. But that's. It's false because actually another friend of ours, Julia, who talks about social capital, like who you know and what resources, money you have, drives intensely what you get in terms of opportunity. So the meat, the sort of meaty middle of the book is saying, actually, there's no social contract. Like, that's a farce. What actually happens is that kids transition and they become adults and they go into this marketplace and it's crazy and chaotic and they need these currencies, some of which are inherited and some kids just have an abundance of them, and then some are earned and it's, it's credentials and skills, competencies, but also connections and cash. And if I go up to you, Michael, and you, you're offering me an education opportunity or you're offering me a job, whether or not it's fair or right, there's likely some negotiating or bartering that happens. Where you want to know, do we know the same people? Let me tell you how much this is going to cost. And skills and credentials, unless the credential is well known and it comes with social capital, might actually be secondary to that. So I wanted to put out a better picture of like, if you want a decent life, you've got to understand kids actually need these four currencies. Now, the good news in this moment is that means that like, content knowledge is important, but as, as folks are grappling with intense learning loss from this last year, I would actually say content loss, content knowledge being missing out this past year or not completing courses is hard and tough and we've got to figure it out. But actually what young people really need are these competencies and connections and the financial resources to be able to navigate. And we've got to invest deeply there.

Yeah, it's a really important point and I think wrapping our hands around. Right. As you said, content knowledge, obviously deeply important, but it can be acquired in jagged ways. Right. So I might not have gotten it this year, but if we can build a system that is not time based and is more resilient to people learning at different rates and having different pathways through the material, there are ways to recover that. There might not be ways to recover certain foundations that are lost if we don't think thoughtfully about how to put those intentionally in the system, I guess is what I would say. And so I think it's an important call to action that for me, jumped out of the book as I was reading it. And I guess that's where, as we wrap things up, I would love to end there, which is, someone reads this book, what are the one or two things that you want them to do next? And you can do it for a few different audiences if that's easier.

So I think we just talked about those currencies. And so my call at the end is for us to become currency builders. And so what does that look like? I think the one part is to recognize what I mentioned a moment ago, that dual call that we actually have to be of two ways as we move forward. One is supporting young people as they navigate and get ready for a really tough world, a challenging one. And then the other is being builders and creators of things that are more equitable and just. But as a currency builder, I think for folks who are on the front lines, who are working with young people every single day, whether they're counselors or teachers or parents or whatever, like everyone's an educator this year, formal or informal. Right.

It's a really important point. Right. I mean, I think we haven't had that conversation, honestly, as a society that like, parents are not just parents, they always have been educators, but like, they are officially co educators. And if we're not acknowledging that we're, we're, we're like, we're missing huge pieces of the puzzle, I think, in the interactions that are happening right now.

I mean, listen, you know, friends who are listening, like it is our anniversary. A year ago, households became homeschools. That is a year of learning that has happened. And we know that some folks haven't been able to even stay in their homes. And so it's been relatives and friends who've had to pitch in. So community educators and parent educators are simply educators. And I should say the book is written for any educator, regardless of if they're formally trained or not, professional or not.

Yeah, right.

So the five qualities, and I would love for folks to buy the book and hear more about it that I sort of call out, one is to be thinking about a young person not only as a whole human and what we sometimes in education call whole child, but to be thinking about that whole life. So, you know, have that. What is, what are their needs right now? But how am I having a look out and imagining what do they need for 100 year life? So I'll tell you, there's a, a child who is extremely close to me. And we as a family have struggled with mental health issues through this pandemic year and made a deliberate choice to focus there. Because I want this child to live a healthy and vibrant 100 year life, which requires having those mental health tools and tips and tricks. And so that was as important to the education as like becoming a better reader or learning math, if not more. Because if he's not mentally healthy or emotionally healthy, his ability to show up and learn and work is greatly diminished. So whole child, whole life approach. I think the second thing, and this is households becoming homeschools is like, we've just got to recognize that learning happens wherever it happens. And it should always count. And so for folks who are designers of education in K12 or in higher education, I would just really encourage you. I think that all of this has lasted way longer than we imagined and we've got to shift out of crisis schooling and actually consider a version of learning that is adaptable whenever or wherever young people need it. And what would it look like if we actually like forevermore designed learning in ways that could work at home, at school, in community and at work so that anytime, anywhere, learning has taken on a really new idea? The third piece is really understanding or third and fourth is that we have a role to advocate and ally with young people and to support their journeys in ways that may go beyond where we're trained. There's this whole chapter that I wrote about cash and the need for folks just to have like money in the bank or money to spend and save. One of the provocative things in the book that I'm not sure if you caught, Michael, but like, I predict most kids will be poor at some point in a 100 year life. And like, and then there's poverty and the issues with that. But there's scarcity, no matter what income bracket you're at, financial crisis. And what do you do when that happens? How do you actually prepare kids for moments of financial struggle? And so being able to advocate though also for things like direct cash assistance or different resources becomes really key. So those are a couple of the pieces, but I just want to offer kind of one provocative question that I had while I was writing the book and that I've been thinking about a lot. You know, I'm thinking about your background also in thinking through disruption and big life changes. And that's like last February, this time last year I was sitting in a room with folks from all over the country and we were talking about child and youth well being. And it was less than two weeks before the entire country shut down. And we did not have the foresight to talk about a pandemic, to imagine mass unemployment or high profile racial violence and uprisings, or God knows we weren't thinking about a political insurgency, any of these pieces. And again, as educators, it's really easy. Or as parents to be like, I'm so overwhelmed. I just need to focus on what I'm being asked, asked to do. But I wonder, like this February, here we are again, what are the like missed March moments of last year where we could have spent that whole summit talking about how to prepare for this thing that was less than two weeks away? And I'm really thinking about at the time we're recording this. Texas, for instance, is having big strains on their power grid, and the infrastructure is not set up for that kind of intense, extreme weather. So whether it's extreme weather and climate and what can happen as a result of that, or a pandemic, heaven forbid that impacts children more than this one did. Like, what are those kind of gnarly things in tomorrow's world more generally that we actually need to have some foresight or imagining around so that we're ready. So that not only are we building these currencies in kids and getting them ready for the world, but that we've got a really tight idea of the possible, of the possible futures, you know, what the world could look like for them that were we're thinking through with them and with each other.

Yeah. It's a good way to wrap the conversation and to force us to start to think through the currencies that people will need in the future to make it and appreciate the provocative ideas that you've put forward for all of us, but also the questions that we all ought to ask right now in this moment. So congrats on the book coming out. It's very exciting. It's called Making It. I have it there below. Check it out. And we'll be back. Next time on the Future of Education.

Thanks for having me.