Being a student in the 21st century - an autoethnographic narrative

Abstract

We are currently experiencing one of the most significant transformations in human history of which the tumultuous scope compels us to reconstruct our perceptions of almost everything – not the least of which is education. One of the most obvious reasons for this is that technology and the internet is providing instant access to an unimaginable abundance of knowledge and skills to which anyone can contribute without validation. Although this technology places extensive freedom and power in the hands of every individual, it creates a multitude of incompatible differences of interpretations of the world. This supercomplexity renders the future not only much less predictable than ever before, but also fundamentally unknowable. Despite the consequent disparate human condition of uncertainty it generates, our current dominating education practices insist that our refuge remains in acquiring existing knowledge and skills of past worlds rather than accessing a much more reliable source from which possible prosperous future worlds can be created. This study is a qualitative autoethnographic exploration of my life experiences from which I constructed my living theory of being a student in the 21st century. Since being a student is always future directed, my autoethnography could not escape the inevitability of contemplating how I am being prepared for what the future holds. The impetus came primarily from the increasing futility of existing knowledge and skills being the focus of education in the 21st century which can be transmitted, accessed and manipulated by sophisticated artificial intelligence technologies. The fundamental question to answer within this context where students learn what technology can already do is: How will being a student in the 21st century add value to what technology can already achieve? The answer to this question cannot be found in the difference in what humans can do and computers cannot because, ultimately, we simply do not know. This study reveals a radically different and qualitatively efficient shift in what it means to be a student in the 21st century: it is found not in what we know (epistemology) or can do (skills) but fundamentally in who we are (ontologically) through pursuing our human authenticity.