By Barbara Diamond

VUCA is an acronym coined by the Army War College.  It stands for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous.  Its original point was to help the Army think about the strategic environment for decisions about training, leading and stationing forces. Do you feel that you are living in a VUCA world?

Nowadays, it applies to the settings for work, philanthropy, global business, leadership, and, most recently, public education. The KnowledgeWorks Foundation / Institute for the Future 2006-2016 Map of Future Forces Affecting Education is a provocative picture of the forces that will play out in the urban United States over a decade. “VUCA Communities” is a “hot spot” on the map.  That means that VUCA presents both challenges and opportunities for big improvements both in public education and in our community life together.

Does Cincinnati experience this VUCA environment?  In my view, the answer is yes.

What is volatile? The job market.  And it goes both ways.  The city is losing manufacturing and finance jobs, but it is gaining global jobs, through “in-sourcing” and our global companies.  And in fact the whole world feels volatile: change is accelerating.

What is uncertain?  We may feel that we are “beyond” September 11, but loud noises, network breakdowns and power outages still scare us, and make us wonder what the future holds.

What is complex?  We don’t like to talk about race in many parts of Cincinnati, but it is hard to deny that our race relations remain complex.

What is ambiguous?   We seem to be moving toward a consensus that global warming is a real phenomenon, with human causes, but we have a whole new set of questions.  Can we address this problem without ruining our economic well-being?  What matters most?  How much time do we have?

You can add your own examples – they might include your reactions to crime, drugs, gangs, economic inequality, a lack of shared norms, a weakening infrastructure, or whatever else keeps you up at night.

What we have learned about handling the challenge of the VUCA world is two-fold:  First, to cope in this kind of world we need the skills of readiness and resilience. It is impossible to plan for every eventuality, so we need to be ready.  Even when we aren’t ready, we need the capacity to bounce back. 

Second, there are qualities of leadership that work best in a VUCA world, and they add up to a different kind of VUCA: Vision, Understanding, Clarity, and Agility.

My fondest hope is that we in Cincinnati can cultivate these skills and this kind of leadership, so that we can create the future we want. 

By Matt Williams

There is no argument that technology has changed the way we absorb information and interact with others. As a father of three, technology has also changed the way my wife and I provide opportunities for our children. We are always looking for ways to expand their horizons and to expose them to a wealth of experiences.

As transplanted Texans to Cincinnati, our children keep in touch with their grandparents through e-mail, a webcam, and soon I am going to encourage our seven-year-old to blog about his baseball season.  Even our one-year old e-mails. It looks a little like this: 34ndf weru80 ehjdjp but it is the thought that counts, right? Technology has helped to bring our family closer to our loved ones as well as teach our children that the world is a mere mouse click away. Some might grumble that it is not the same as face-to-face communication, and no, maybe it isn’t, but it can deepen relationships, provide a platform for frequent and varied contact, and help our children cultivate technical, communication, and written skills, which are all foundations for success in the 21st Century.

Our family computer (and sometimes my laptop) has become a hotbed of exploration. Often our seven-year old will come home from school wanting to research further something he learned that day in school. Recently it was killer whales and polar bears. It was a wonderful opportunity to research online what the two animals eat, their migratory patterns, etc. Our daughter became fascinated with Groundhog Day, so we used it as an opportunity to dive deeper into the world of Punxsutawney Phil. Together, we’ve constructed PowerPoints (we use the open source office suite, Open Office,) made movies, and of course played games. We have used Lego Designer, which allows for a kid (or adult) to design a Lego creation online, print it out, and construct it in real life using real Legos. These are the fundamentals of engineering and architecture being played out in my house. It really is a whole new world.

Our family’s plunge into a more technology rich world has also allowed us to gain greater insight as parents into our children’s likes and dislikes, communication styles, willingness to experiment, ability to logically tackle tasks, and solve problems.

By Jeff Edmonson

Imagine two students sitting next to each other in the same classroom: one has recently finished writing her first dramatic play and the other cannot read the word “toe”. Unfortunately, it’s a pretty standard experience for many teachers, including my wife, who has taught 9th grade English in school systems across the country.

The problem can be blamed on a host of reasons.  Barbara Diamond outlined the realities of students growing up in Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous (VUCA) communities. The experiences of these students and their history inside and outside the classroom can lead to divergent outcomes.

But let’s put aside for a second why this happens, and focus on the challenge this presents to teachers.  The two students highlighted above just represent the extremes, not the range of abilities students have in the classroom.  How would you meet their unique individual needs so they could all make the improvements standardized testing demands?

My wife’s response is to spend 80 hours per week developing unique individualized learning plans for each student. When she taught in Washington, D.C. she would tap into the rich cultural and non-profit resources in the community, most if not all of which are available right here in Cincinnati, such as the Museum Center and Playhouse in the Park.  In the end, she would derive a curriculum for each learner.

This is the response required not only to meet the needs of individual students, but to meet their expectations.  The 21st Century is defined in part by the increased ability we have to tailor our lives to our unique individual tastes and interests.  This is due in great part to the explosion of technology.  We can customize everything from our entertainment to our social networks.  Students are beginning to expect the same from their education.

And this expectation presents a whole new challenge. It requires a whole new system.  We have to break down the artificial walls of the schoolhouse and realize that learning happens everywhere.  We need to think differently about not only teaching, but how we incorporate all the resources in our community more purposefully into the learning process.  We need to use these diverse resources to meet students where they are, both in their skill sets and their learning styles that are shaped by their interests.

The bottom line is that while our society has embraced for years the belief that each and every person is unique, we have not created the education system that embraces this ever-increasing reality.  The manufacturing model of education, “Velveeta High,” as one of my mentors put it, simply cannot work in the information age. 

We all must see ourselves as educators and we all must be part of the solution, regardless what sector we come from – education, business, non-profit, civic, faith, or philanthropic.  How do we work together reimagine schooling so it has no walls?  How to we tailor learning so it is personalized to truly meet the unique, individual needs of every student?  What role do you play?