What Should Schools Prepare Children For When the World Is Changing Faster Than Education Itself?

Twelve years ago, Keystone’s founding team came to China from around the world with an ambitious idea: to build a new kind of “World School” – one grounded in academic excellence, open to the world, and deeply committed to the growth of every child.

Twelve years later, that founding vision has grown into a community of more than 1,700 students, 500 faculty and staff, and hundreds of graduates now studying and working across the globe. Yet throughout that journey, one thing has remained constant: the belief that education cannot stand still. It must continually look outward at a changing world, and inward at the question that matters most – what is best for children?

Today, that question has become more urgent than ever.

For generations, schools have been expected to transmit knowledge, develop young people, and prepare students for the next stage of their education and lives. Academic achievement, examinations, and university admissions have consequently played a central role in defining educational success. But artificial intelligence is now challenging some of the assumptions beneath that model.

When a machine can retrieve information in seconds, generate sophisticated writing, produce code, analyze data and perform tasks that once required years of training, what should students spend their time learning? What knowledge remains essential? What capabilities cannot simply be automated? And, ultimately, what is the true value of school?

The emergence of AI is challenging two of education’s most familiar functions, transmitting knowledge and assessing learning – while simultaneously making the distinctly human dimensions of education more important. Creativity, empathy, judgment, collaboration, curiosity and resilience cannot simply be downloaded or handed over to a machine. They develop slowly, through relationships, experiences, uncertainty, failure, and real-world challenges.

For Keystone, this does not mean moving away from excellence. It means expanding our understanding of what excellence means.

Every child has their own pace of growth, their own strengths and their own direction. There is no single educational model that suits every learner, nor a single standard path that defines success. The responsibility of a school is to create the conditions in which each child can flourish – where curiosity is met with possibility, uniqueness is recognized, strengths are nurtured, and weaknesses are understood rather than harshly judged.

But schools cannot answer these questions alone. Meaningful education happens through dialogue: between teachers and students, schools and families, and educational communities across cultures and systems. Trust, shared values and honest conversation are essential to navigating a period of such profound change.

That belief was at the heart of the sixth and final Keystone Dialogues held recently. We invited Dr. Oliver Kraemer, the former Head of School at IFS Academy in Hong Kong, Iain Kilpatrick, the former Executive Headmaster of YK Pao School in Shanghai and Dr. Ted Faunce, the Head of School at Shenzhen Mingwan School and a former Head of School from Chinese International School of Hong Kong to Keystone to discuss our shared challenges, practices, and beliefs. 

The conversation explored how schools can remain rooted in their values while responding courageously to technological change – and how educators can prepare young people not simply to succeed in the world that exists today, but to shape the world that comes next.

The discussion was not intended to offer a single answer. Instead, it returned to a more fundamental invitation: to keep asking what education is for, what is worth protecting, and what children will need from the adults and institutions entrusted with their future.

As Keystone reflects on the past six dialogues and twelve years of learning, growth and exploration, those questions remain open. Perhaps that is exactly where meaningful education begins.

This interview transcript has been edited for style and brevity.

Dr. Emily McCarren: What drew you to China? What are your personal motivations for dedicating your time and talent to students and schools that cultivate Chinese identity and language?

Dr. Oliver Kraemer: My story probably has the longest arc. I studied mathematics and computer science in the 1980s, but I soon realized it wasn’t what I wanted to do. I also trained as a radio journalist and later chose to become a teacher.

My first move to teaching was triggered by the memory of a wonderful teacher I met at 16 years old. He gave us a separate course outside the school schedule called World Literature, where we read a book I loved – The Dream of the Red Chamber. For a 16-year-old student, it was a very impressive novel, and it left a deep impression on me. At 20 or 21, I decided that one day I wanted to read this book in Chinese, so I enrolled in the language.

I was fortunate to receive a scholarship from the German government, which enabled me to study at Heidelberg University. I later pursued my PhD in Chinese at the University of Edinburgh. So Chinese was a core part of my career throughout. At some point, I told myself: It’s time to move to the Chinese mainland. That was in 2008. This year marks 18 years since then.

Dr. Ted Faunce: My introduction to China and Chinese came much later in life than Oliver’s. I became essentially bilingual in French and English because I had great teachers and fell in love with the rhythm of the French language.

After many years of teaching French, I became the Head of a bilingual school outside Paris. I did my PhD in Old French literature, and from there, my career took an unexpected turn. I like to tell people that, somehow, it led me to Hong Kong. Through a search firm, I had the opportunity to work at Chinese International School, and I never looked back. I spent 11 wonderful years there. 

It is certainly a lesson for young people that careers are not linear. 

Iain Kilpatrick: Listening to Ted and Oliver, I’m the new kid on the block when it comes to time spent in China. This is my first job outside the UK, so I’m a real novice compared with their experience.

My career, like Oliver’s, didn’t start in teaching. I started in finance and banking in Scotland, then decided I wanted to find a greater sense of value in my work, so I moved into education. I trained as an English teacher and later became a housemaster and headmaster in the UK.

One thing that has always struck me is the curiosity that learning a language creates about the culture behind it. My experience at an international IB school in the southwest of England, with around 25 nationalities represented, gave me a strong sense of international education.

Later, through work with the UK government, I spent time in southwest China, working with schools and Chinese investors in Sichuan, Chengdu, and Chongqing. Eventually, I had the opportunity to come to YK Pao School in Shanghai, and it was absolutely fantastic – not just career-defining, but life-defining experience.

Looking back at my experience with Chinese students in the UK, they brought a real sense of rigor and took their studies seriously, but they also brought a strong sense of pride in who they were and where they came from.

Now, working in a bilingual and international environment, I see this as being as much about identity as it is about education. That is what makes it such an exciting space to be in.

Dr. Emily McCarren: As our schools confront the rapidly shifting landscape, are there aspects of education we need to let go of? 

Dr. Oliver Kraemer: We must be wary of educational trends because they can sometimes feel like dieting fads: one year, something is good for you, next year, it is bad. Education has its own fads. But some concepts are proven and continue to work.

At the same time, we are living through an exciting period of change. The internet gave teaching a massive boost, even before AI. Sharing resources and best practices has become much easier, and teachers are increasingly collaborative. Over the last 20 years, education as a whole has made huge leaps. 

Dr. Ted Faunce: I think with the development of brain science, we have learned a lot about “learning” 

We understand much more about student engagement and the conditions in which students learn best. Part of this comes from the changing role of schools. Historically, schools have essentially done two things: transmitted information and knowledge, and developed people.

The internet led a major shift. We started talking about critical thinking, not just knowledge, and, to a certain extent, about doing through project-based learning. AI has now taken that to another level.

One of my key moments of illumination came when I created summer programs in France focused on language and culture. Some of my C-minus students became the best participants and grew in leaps and bounds. So, this is the proof of experiential learning (“learning by doing” rather than passively memorizing facts) which renowned education philosopher John Dewey and others have been telling us about for over a century.

Dr. Emily McCarren: If AI is changing so rapidly, how should schools respond?

Iain Kilpatrick: Education has never been static. Schools hold a mirror to the societies they serve – local, national and global – and those societies are constantly evolving. What AI is doing now is bringing that reality into sharp focus.

Technology has always changed how we learn. I remember when word processors and spell-checkers first entered classrooms. There was a genuine fear that if students were allowed to use spell-check, they would no longer learn to spell. That concern did not come to pass. AI is different in scale and speed, but it belongs to that same continuum of technological change.

The challenge for schools is to hold the line between what we can do with technology and what we should do. We cannot simply embrace every new capability because it exists. Schools must remain places where the human condition is recognized, embraced and celebrated. If we lose that, we are failing in our responsibility to young people.

I see it all as a continuum. Am I as far down the AI curve as I should be? Absolutely not. I’m as scared about it as anybody else is, but that doesn’t mean to say that we just need to embrace everything that comes with it. I think it’s got to be a proportional approach that we take, and that’s not new in schools.

Dr. Emily McCarren: I believe we need to start with evaluating what the research in mind, brain and education, as well as cognitive neuroscience tells us about how children learn best. We can’t charge ahead with AI without having more answers about that. And, of course, the research on children’s experiences in AI-rich environments is very thin at this point. So, in the context of schools, I think it makes sense to be cautious.

Dr. Oliver Kraemer: We also need to look at what we call durable skills. These are skills that will endure beyond the AI age.

We’re not looking at what our students need to bring to university. We’re looking at what our kids need to bring into society. I believe the workplace is a good starting point.

There are skills that are still vital and we take them into consideration in our AI strategy. I don’t think that there is a teaching and learning AI solution at the moment anywhere. But we’re thinking about these skills and how to cultivate them, and that’s how we are moving forward.

Dr. Emily McCarren: If students can use AI to produce increasingly sophisticated work, how should schools rethink assessments?

Dr. Ted Faunce: One of the great challenges for schools is figuring out what authentic assessments look like.

It has to do with student voice, which AI cannot truly reproduce. It can imitate a voice, but it cannot reproduce the experience of a student standing on stage, responding to questions, and engaging with other people in real time.

More broadly, all learning is experiential. It requires students not only to have experience, but also to reflect on that experience afterwards. That connects directly to the question of AI. I’m actually excited about what AI might help us discover, although I also think schools need to be cautious.

In many ways, the AI conversation is helping us define what is uniquely human.

The great schools of the future will be those that have a clear understanding of what it means to be human and of how people learn and develop. Schools need to engage students in ways that make them work their “brain muscle” harder, while also teaching them how to use AI thoughtfully and appropriately.

We do this at our school through a carefully scaffolded approach. First, the school decides when AI is appropriate; then, the teacher decides; and finally, the student learns to make those decisions for themselves.

Preparing students for life beyond university

Dr. Emily McCarren: Should schools be thinking less about what students need to get into university and more about what they need after it? That’s an important question for us to consider: the distinctive advantage of schools like ours is that we can cultivate enduring skills in students – not simply so they can compete for university places, because that is no longer enough. We often think about how we prepare students for life beyond university.

Universities themselves are going through significant upheaval. There are ongoing discussions about what is worth learning, how it should be taught, and how learning should be assessed.

So what is our responsibility to students in this environment? We know what durable skills they need, and we know how those skills can be developed. At the same time, we still feel the pressure to make sure students can reach the next level of education.

Is there a tension there that we need to navigate? Are there brave moves that we should be taking?

Dr. Oliver Kraemer: To some extent, I think branding will actually become more important in the future. That is not necessarily a good thing, although we are certainly beneficiaries of it.

If universities have fewer ways to determine what a student will bring to their future studies or career, they may rely more heavily on signals such as rankings and school reputation.

That is the danger I see. We are well-financed and well-resourced, and our students benefit from that. Therefore, we need to make sure that we “don’t pull the drawbridge up behind us” – that we do not allow our advantages to become barriers that make opportunities less accessible to others.

Dr. Emily McCarren: So how are we preparing our young people to take on  challenges? It has to be about giving them a really strong sense of who they are. What are they about? What are their values? What matters to them in the world?

And it comes back to this idea of shaping young people and instilling values of kindness and empathy. These are really important skills for young people to develop intentionally.

I think we’re seeing a paradigm shift in how we think about skills development. We’re moving away from the idea that you develop these skills alongside Physics, Maths, English, Chinese and other academic subjects, towards recognizing that they are an essential part of what a school should offer.

I think it’s also about doing what you say you’re going to do, and doing it with integrity.

Dr. Emily McCarren: Where does the tension emerge between values and academic outcomes?

Iain Kilpatrick: I think part of the challenge we face – and I don’t think this is unique to YK Pao School, because I certainly remember it from my time in the UK – is the transition points in a young person’s educational journey.

When a student joins in Primary Year One, Year Two, or whatever year it may be, it’s very easy to put values front and center, arguably right through the end of primary and into middle school. Then, suddenly, the focus shifts to the IB examinations or A Levels, and eventually to university

That’s where tension inevitably creeps in for students and parents. We all want the best for our children. We want them to fulfil their potential and have choices about what they do beyond school.

That’s where I think school communities need to come together and really embrace the idea that values don’t suddenly become less important because an IB score becomes more important.

It’s about holding these things in equilibrium and recognizing that a strong values proposition supports academic outcomes.

Ultimately, we want to make sure that our young people – our children have a sense of fulfilment, both in their lives at school and in the lives they lead beyond it.

Dr. Emily McCarren: What is the biggest advantage that we are providing to our students in our schools? We’ve talked about that in different ways, but is it that we provide a standard rigorous curriculum, while instilling values that are non-negotiable? You can’t get through one of our schools without demonstrating your commitment to those values. That is what distinguishes us, right?

Dr. Ted Faunce: Our four values are deeply human. One of the four values is kindness, which sounds very soft, but it’s profound. It’s kindness and strength and creativity and inclusion.

Dr. Oliver Kraemer: Education without values is not worth having. Since we are here in a pretty well-resourced environment, we can anticipate that many of our students will become leaders of the future. Our graduates hopefully will make the world a better place. That’s what we’re here for.

Dr. Emily McCarren: If the future is uncertain, what should schools remain anchored to?

Iain Kilpatrick: I think we have to focus on getting back to basics.

In any school, it must be about its founding mission and vision. I think we all come from schools where that is very clearly understood and clearly communicated. And that’s important for parents.

As parents, you need to make sure that the school that you are sending your child to is going to deliver on that fundamental mission and vision.

What is their commitment? What is the values proposition? And how is the school developing that?

Because what we can say, with some degree of certainty, is the world is going to continue to be complex and changing. And the pace of that is not going to get slower. It’s only going to get faster.

What will the future of education look like?

There may be no definitive answer to what schools should prepare children for when the world is changing faster than education itself. And perhaps that is the point.

The task of a school is not to predict every technology, profession or challenge that a child will encounter in the future. It is to give young people the knowledge, capabilities, character and confidence to meet a future that none of us can fully predict.

That means maintaining high academic standards while looking beyond examination results. It means giving students opportunities to apply knowledge, to question, create, collaborate and reflect. It means helping them understand not only what they can do, but who they are, what they value and how they want to contribute to the world.

And it means recognizing that technological progress does not diminish the importance of human connection. If anything, it makes it more important.

As Keystone looks back on six Education Thought Dialogues and twelve years of learning, growth and exploration, the questions raised by this conversation remain open. What should we preserve? What should we rethink? What should we ask more of our schools – and of ourselves?

Perhaps meaningful education begins not with having all the answers, but with having the courage to keep asking the right questions.

At Keystone, that is part of what it means to be a World School: to remain rooted in what matters while staying open to what comes next.

ENDS.