In December 2011, I wrote a blog post asking whether British Columbia’s 1989 definition of the Educated Citizen still held up. The question felt almost rhetorical. Despite two decades of change, the document remained remarkably relevant.
Here we are, fourteen years later, and I find myself returning to that same question with fresh urgency. Not because the definition has failed, but because the world around it has transformed.
This is what BC said it wanted from graduates in 1989, in the Statement of Education Policy Order:
Citizens who are thoughtful, able to learn, and able to think critically. Creative, flexible, and self motivated. Capable of making independent decisions. Cooperative, principled, and respectful of others regardless of differences. Aware of their rights and prepared to exercise their responsibilities.
The document also named a lifelong appreciation of learning, a curiosity about the world around them, and a capacity for creative thought and expression.
Read that list again. There is not a single reference to specific content. No mention of any skill that would become obsolete. It is entirely about human capacities that endure.
The Question AI Forces Us to Answer
In 2011, I wrote that while so much had changed in our world, many of our values and goals had remained unchanged. The challenge, I suggested, was that the strategies employed would differ dramatically.
I did not know how dramatically.
Today, a student can generate a polished essay in seconds. Information is instantly accessible. Artificial intelligence can produce first drafts, solve complex problems, and simulate expertise in ways that would have been unimaginable even a few years ago.
This changes everything about strategy. But it changes nothing about what matters.
If anything, AI has made the 1989 vision more urgent, not less. As machines take care of the “what”, the distinctly human “how” and “why” move to centre stage. Critical thinking. Creativity. Ethical reasoning. The ability to collaborate, to persist, and to make meaning from complexity. The judgment to know when to stop, help someone else, or ask a better question instead of a faster one.
These were always the point. We did not abandon them. We simply allowed other pressures to crowd them out.
The Foreground, Not the Background
In the comments on my 2011 post, Bruce Beairsto, the former Superintendent of the Richmond School District, wrote something that has stayed with me. These attributes, he said, have been in the background, and now we are beginning to appreciate that they should be in the foreground. The subjects are the means, but it is the educated citizen that is the end we seek. We have said that before, but never really acted upon it.
He was right then. He is even more right now.
We built our systems around content and competencies that fit neatly into courses, units, and gradebooks. The human capacities described in the Educated Citizen do not fit neatly. They sprawl across subjects. They develop slowly and unevenly, often in moments that cannot be planned or scheduled. They resist easy measurement.
So we let them live in the in-between spaces. The hallway conversation. The coach’s feedback after a tough loss. The teacher who notices something is off and makes time to ask. This is deeply important work, but it is often invisible work. Dependent on individual educators rather than intentional system design.
From Background to Foreground
AI is not asking us to invent new priorities. It is revealing wisdom we already had and slowly drifted from.
In 2011, Tyler James shared a story in the comments about his daughter stopping mid race to help a fallen skater. His conclusion was simple and profound. We cannot teach educated citizenship. We must model citizenship. (Tyler’s comments and the rich discussion in the comments section of the 2011 post is a wonderful read.)
That insight matters more than ever. In an age of AI generated content, what students need most are adults who embody curiosity, solid judgment, presence, and integrity. Not because these things will be assessed, but because they matter. Because students notice who we are long before they remember what we cover.
The 1989 Educated Citizen is not a relic. It is a North Star worth returning to.
Perhaps the real question is not whether we have it right, but whether we are finally ready, systemically and intentionally, to act on what we have known all along.
The image at the top of this post was generated through AI. Various AI tools were used as feedback helpers (for our students this post would be a Yellow assignment – see link to explanation chart) as I edited and refined my thinking.
What an insightful and poignant perspective! Your carefully chosen and refined thoughts both sting and inspire. Last month I had the honour of presenting a keynote address focused on learning to over 2000 educators in Victoria. I loved preparing for the challenge, and I loved the exquisite format developed by a team of principals. Michael Fullan’s November 25th article, “While Canada was sleeping, public education died” had shaken me to the core. He said a focus on deep learning was a way to save public education. Our province’s vision since 2015 has been on ‘fostering deeper learning using concept-based and competency-driven approaches…”. I interviewed an AI expert who said learners need to highly develop the qualities you mentioned and deep, intelligent, and original expression. AI cannot do that! In BC we spent years developing, field-testing and refining practices that intentionally develop deeper learning and qualities needed to thrive in an ever-changing, complex world. I would love to talk further with you. Thank you.
Susan, thank you for this. Your work on deeper learning has been so important for many of us, and I’m grateful you took the time to connect these threads.
The Fullan piece hit hard, didn’t it? But what you’re describing, the decade of intentional work on concept-based and competency-driven approaches, that’s exactly the foundation we need. BC didn’t just talk about these things. We built structures, refined practices, field-tested with real students and real teachers. That matters enormously right now.
What strikes me about your AI expert’s insight is how it validates everything we’ve been working toward. Deep, intelligent, original expression. Those human capacities we’ve been trying to move from background to foreground. AI isn’t making that work obsolete. It’s making it urgent and unavoidable.
Thanks so much for continuing to be such a powerful voice in BC educaiton.
Chris, I so agree with what you’ve articulated here. The human capacities the current Canadian and world reality require are ones we have always known but have put on a back burner to the academics we thought were priorities. Now more than ever, we need citizens who know themselves, are comfortable in that knowledge, who understand at a visceral level that we are intimately connected to our fellow citizens and to this finite natural world.
The challenge is to imagine another way to educate. (Thank you Susan for the reference to Michael Fullan’s article.) A way to educate that puts our human capacities in the forefront. One that creates environments that mirror the complex world students will enter as adults. One that responds to students as the individuals they are. One that has adults who model citizenship, curiosity, compassion, connection, constancy, experimentation, and growth not as sages on a stage but as ‘learners among learners’ in a dynamic community, to quote Paolo Freire,. One that has new ways of determining success beyond testing, ways that will probably rely much more heavily on direct observation and human to human discussion and demonstration.
First we must imagine this new vision or visions, then we can plot a course to get there from where we are. To begin with the model we have is too likely to limit what we can imagine beyond it. There are other paradigms being used we can examine to help us along. As Michel Fullan concludes, Interest is growing in exploring new models and the time is now.
Pat, you’ve captured something essential here. Students don’t need adults who have all the answers. They need adults who model how to navigate uncertainty, who demonstrate curiosity alongside them, who show what it looks like to wrestle with complexity while maintaining connection and integrity.
Your call to examine other paradigms matters. There are schools and systems already doing this work, creating environments where human capacities aren’t afterthoughts but the organizing principle. We can learn from them (And I think we are actually one of them).
The time is now. You’re right about that. Thank you for adding this depth to the conversation.
As you know my current thinking and posture is highly influenced by the role I play as a grandparent. The idea of human flourishing is about understanding that for ourselves and as stated in your post, modelling it. As simple as that sounds, I think as adults we have to embrace our own struggles with citizenship and human flourishing. To me that means we work with our students to figure this out together. So modeling and leading with wonder, curiosity and humility are the values that we need to build on and amplify.
Embracing our own struggles rather than pretending we’ve figured it out is key. Students see through the performance. What they need is adults who are genuinely curious and humble enough to say “I’m still learning this too.”
Perfect timing for this commentary Chris. We were just talking about the educated citizen with the Year 1 Teacher Candidates at TRU. I will share this blog with them and get their responses especially about how AI impacts the idea of the Educated Citizen. Love the North Star metaphor. Thanks for keeping these conversations alive.
That is great! Thanks. I would love to know what they think without all the baggage that many of us bring to the conversation.