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Reimagining the future of education with web3
I saw this cartoon on the internet the other day.
It got me thinking about the role of education in our societies and the promise of learning real-world skills designed to make students successful in our ever-changing world (obviously, that’s the first thought I had 😅).
The most interesting part of this isn’t the cartoon — but the teacher in the Charlie Brown comics who’s represented as a sort of faceless, emotionless, monotone monster who’s out to make the kids suffer. School is seen as some kind of prison where students are forced to learn and do work against their will and still…. never get the answers they’re looking for.
Recently, I came across some very interesting ideas in the future of education enabled by web3 and blockchain (owing to Wes Kao and Vriti Saraf on Twitter).
Contributing to the integration of web3 in education, I created a web app to store verifiable credentials like diplomas and degrees on the blockchain with NFTs. But, before I get into that, why does this even matter? What’s wrong with education and what can the opportunities provided by the promise of web3 do?
Of the nearly 1 BILLION kids who go to school every day, more than 600 million are unable to reach minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics. This learning crisis is identified by the United Nations as the greatest global challenge to preparing children for life, work, and active citizenship.
Long story short — as Paul D. Spears puts it, “Education is a key element for human flourishing.”
Even in the most educated countries, the majority of citizens do not have a college degree (only about 37% of Americans above 25 in 2020 were college graduates).
One of the simplest ways to improve living standards and promote equity is through education and thankfully, new models of education built on the decentralized nature of Web3 are fast emerging.
