Over the past year, I’ve been on an epic world tour, sitting in rooms with education and workforce leaders, thinkers, and practitioners who are all wrestling with the same question: What is the future of education?

Among teachers and prospective employers, there’s a growing urgency to rethink what it means to prepare young people for the future, largely driven by the proliferation of genAI and its impact on the future of work. In 2024, 77% of employers globally struggled to find talent with the right skills, while 72% of high school graduates report feeling unprepared to make decisions about their next steps. With millions of U.S workers expected to shift careers in the coming decade as skill demands evolve, the labor market is shifting faster than people can keep up with.

These trends around youth workforce readiness coalesce with another problem: mental health. In 2023, 40% of high school students reported feeling so sad or hopeless for at least two weeks in a row that they stopped engaging in their usual activities. ​​Technology and a changing social fabric are deepening isolation, reshaping not only how we work but how we relate. It has left young people with fewer chances to practice the messy but essential work of being in community. Unsurprisingly, teens are now turning to AI for companionship, a concerning signal that makes teaching relational skills more urgent than ever.

The narrowing of education

In a race to prepare for the future, education seems to be reduced to a single goal: preparing students for work.

It’s not a new phenomenon. Market-driven thinking has fueled pushes toward an increased emphasis on STEM and coding over the past two, three decades. Now, as the disruption from AI becomes more visible and visceral, the response feels familiar. At a recent education conference, I saw schools branding themselves as “AI schools”… whatever that means. But in this rush to ready young people for the future economy, I worry we risk losing sight of what they need to grow into whole, healthy humans.

When I was a teacher in 2018, I watched school become an increasingly isolating experience.

Students were spending more time completing assignments independently on Chromebooks rather than collaborating with each other on group projects. As educators, we were encouraged to tailor instruction to each student’s needs, but in practice, that often meant driving students apart.

Over those years, I rarely saw the most meaningful learning happen in isolation. More often, it unfolded during band concerts, football games, and messy group projects—moments when young people came together and came alive. In working with others, navigating frustration, leaning into collaboration, and ultimately feeling pride in what they accomplished together, I saw the real growth happen. As a teacher, I came to understand that learning isn’t just about mastering a skill. It’s about building interdependence and discovering what it means to contribute to something bigger than yourself. And that makes sense—our purpose as humans isn’t just to work. It’s to care, connect, love, imagine, and live meaningfully with one another.

Schools can’t lose sight of that.

How we get it right

Last year, we partnered with a Dallas-based education nonprofit and the Garland Independent School District to co-design interventions aimed at reducing behavioral issues in classrooms. As we spent time in the hallways and classrooms listening to teachers and students, we quickly saw that the kids weren’t ok and neither were the adults. Teachers were exhausted, stretched thin by the demands of the job and the lack of resources. Students were carrying their own burdens, feeling unseen, misunderstood, and treated like problems instead of people.

Students and teachers told us the real problem wasn’t “bad behavior.” It was burnout and disconnection. Together, we mapped the everyday moments when tensions ran high, surfaced what support would actually be useful in those moments, and tested quick, low-lift ideas. Teachers became invaluable co-designers, shaping a toolkit of simple, scalable tools to rebuild trust and strengthen relationships. In the rush to get through curriculum, schools had unintentionally designed out moments for connection. The mood meter—a quick check-in tool teachers could use after moments of tension or disruption to help the whole classroom reground—was one small way we designed it back in.

Because the people living the problem shaped the solution, the tools actually worked: in the first year, exclusionary discipline dropped 36%, and teachers reported that classrooms felt more supportive and engaged. More importantly, in a system where those closest to the problem rarely have the power to shape the solutions, teachers—who most intimately understand the challenges students face— felt seen and trusted with the agency to create change.

If we want schools to prepare young people for both work and life, we can’t design the future of education for them. We have to design it with them. That means working alongside young people, their teachers, their families, and others who know their lives best. These are the communities that yes—want young people to leave school ready for good jobs— but also ready to build healthy relationships, care for their communities, and navigate an ever-changing, complex world.

Schools are the foundation of our communities. We can’t lose the plot on that.