Education must teach students to determine who they are and how they belong to the world that surrounds them. As such, education must teach the students what the world is like today and give students the tools they need to shape themselves to fit the world or shape the world to fit themselves. Education is not meant to make every student the same and ensure that each student has the same exact set of skills and proficiency at those skills as their peers. Instead, education must be tailored to students' needs, abilities, and interests. It should be designed to push students to become their best and support them in areas where they need it. Every student should be provided with the opportunity to thrive as a student and as a future citizen of the world.

 

The world is becoming increasingly globalized, and as such it has become essential that education become more multicultural. Students must be given the chance to interact with people and ideas that come from cultures dissimilar to their own. These opportunities should not only be presented at a curriculum level (i.e. giving students a chance to read texts written by authors from different backgrounds or analyzing how music trends change around the world) but at the pedagogical level. Teachers should be looking at best practices from around the world and applying them to their classroom. It is also vital that education be used to validate a multitude of voices and creating a community of people who teach each other, not funneling everyone towards one destiny. Education is not the process of assimilation, but of transformation. It provides students and faculty with the skills to interact with people who are different from them, and it teaches everyone within a school to be graceful learners and understand that current states of knowledge can always be expanded.

 

As education provides students with knowledge and power to act on their knowledge, education must also provide students with wisdom and responsibility. Students should be taught how to bear the weight of responsibility and how to balance obligations with activities. Accordingly, students should be given agency within the classroom and feel as if they are owners of their education. This could manifest itself in students setting educational goals for themselves or by teachers giving students the opportunity to design portions of their education by incorporating student choice at the curriculum and activity level. Each goal and desire of a student must be promoted and validated and not held as more or less valued than anyone else's.