Why is the news that BA has retired their remaining passenger fleet of Boeing’s iconic 747 ‘Jumbo’ jets worth a post on an education blog? Mainly because I have often used this plane as an example of technological change.

Children born in the era of the first powered flights made by aviation pioneers at the start of the last century retired from work at about the time when the 747 started flying. From canvas and wood planes held together by glue and cords to a passenger plane with two decks and a range unimaginable to those early pioneers, all in less than one lifetime.

Using this example has always prompted me to ask educationalists what changes succeeding generations will experience in their lifetimes. The generation born when the BBC was broadcasting the programme ‘The chips are down’, a TV documentary that brought the concept of semi-conductors to a mass audience and heralded the move of commuters from air-conditioned rooms into homes, and eventually our pockets as well, are now parents whose own children are often well advanced along their own path to adulthood. What changes will they experience in their lifetimes?

Today, there is a news story that the next generation of mobile devices we used to call phones will have inside them chips based upon 5nm technology. Nm refers to nanometres, each of which is one billionth of a metre. According to the BBC a nanometre is roughly the speed a human hair grows every second. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54510363

Education has not been known for the speed of its changes. However, this year, the response to the pandemic has seen more change than perhaps at any time since slates were replaced by paper.

Hopefully, think tanks and politicians are now thinking about the future shape of education and the extent to which change will continue to be driven both by the decisions of individual schools and even teachers to the level of thinking about decision-making that needs to be taken at a national level in order to ensure all children can participate in the same education journey through schooling. Access to technology has become a real issue again for the education sector.

Technology ought also to help everyone work to make a planet that continues to be habitable. If it doesn’t, then the future for those being educated today may be very different.

The 747 was a noisy, dirty and expensive plane to fly. Those issues weren’t a concern when it was designed. Today, they are very much an issue.

Let me finish by asking how much greener is your school than it was a generation ago?