What would I teach in school today?

Peter Diamandis

I have twin 13-year-old boys, and I’m often asked what I’m doing to educate them for the future.

Several of you recently submitted questions asking me how I might change our education system…

My thoughts on what (and how) we should teach in middle and high school:

Our Schools are Stuck in the Past

This is obvious, but it’s worth stating that our schools were built for life 50 years ago. Our children are about to enter a very different world that they are not prepared for. Do not accept incremental changes.

Helping a Child Find Their Passion

IMHO, the single most important job of a parent and a school, is to expose kids to a wide range of experiences and opportunities and to help them discover their passion and purpose. Once a child finds their passion and becomes intrinsically motivated, they have a wide range of self-teaching tools ranging from YouTube to LLMs. As Mark Twain said, “There are two important days in your life, the day you were born, and the day you find out why.”

Teaching Leadership, Empathy, Ethics/Morals & Philosophy

When I think about the curriculum I want my two boys to be learning and discussing in school, they include subjects like those listed above. These are topics that will be important throughout life, and even more important during the exponential years ahead.

AI is Here to Stay and We Need to Embrace It

AI isn’t going away, and it’s going to dominate our lives in the very near future. It is a “jetpack” to give us wings, to enable boundless creativity and productivity. Rather than fear and avoid it, our schools need to teach kids about AI, how to use AI to amplify their dreams, and also how to defend themselves from its ill-use.

Amplifying Curiosity, Creativity & Entrepreneurship

In an AI-enabled world, teaching our kids to how to “ask great questions” and run “what if” experiments will be increasingly valuable. Curiosity drives creativity and entrepreneurship – the art of finding and solving problems. Gone are the days of memorizing facts, replaced by the need for “first principles thinking” and passion-driven creativity. In our age of AI and abundant data, the quality of the questions we ask will be far more important than what we think we know.

AI Faculty and VR Classrooms

The greatest teachers in the world will be AIs. AIs that know your child’s abilities and deficits. AIs will teach a hyper-personalized curriculum in a gamified fashion, utilizing your kid’s favorite sports stars, film stars, and teaching modalities. Imagine learning directly from an AI version of Aristotle or Einstein? An AI educator that is infinitely patient and knowledgeable. This is now possible. Next, rather than just reading or listening to a lesson, imagine “experiencing a lesson.” Imagine entering a photo-realistic virtual world where you engage with AI agents (NPCs) that are indistinguishable from humans. You are now learning through experience.

Interested in learning more about my views on education?

Here are two more detailed blogs I’ve written on this topic:

• Back-to-School Thoughts: Future of Education

• The Future of Learning: Personalized AI Tutors for Every Student