Pillar 1

Set Human Flourishing in the Age of AI as our north star

As artificial intelligence reshapes the landscape of work and society, we are faced with a profound opportunity to redefine the purpose of our learning systems. For too long, our collective “North Star”  has been fixed on narrow academic outputs – grades, test scores, and efficiency. But in an era where machines can increasingly handle the routine and the computational, the unique value of the human experience comes into sharp focus. This section of the anthology challenges us to pivot our orientation toward a more vital, enduring goal: human flourishing.

To navigate this shift, we must first ground ourselves in the youth perspective. We cannot design for the future without listening to and building alongside those who will inhabit it. We ask: What are young people telling us they actually need? Their answers often reveal a hunger for connection, purpose, and mental well-being that our current structures fail to nourish. We must align this with the parent perspective, bridging the gap between what families intuitively want for their children – happiness, stability, resilience – and readiness for the future.

Changing our destination requires a new map, which leads us to the school leader perspective. Here, we grapple with the practicalities of transformation: How does a school move beyond rhetoric to organize its entire culture and curriculum around flourishing? Finally, we turn to the evidence, taking the researcher’s perspective to understand the science of thriving. We explore what it means to fundamentally shift our lens from “education,” often reduced to the transaction of knowledge, to “development,” and ultimately to “thriving.”

These questions urge us to look beyond the mechanics of schooling to the heart of our humanity. They remind us that in the Age of AI, our success will not be measured by what we know, but by how well we live, grow, and contribute to a flourishing world.