Meeting the future by doing more of what worked in the past

Times of change have an interesting impact. When foundations of tradition are threatened, we see a common response of increased conservatism from certain sectors of society. The Roman Empire, for example, had numerous failed attempts at reform before finally sliding into obsolescence. Reformers walked a line between doing more of what worked in the past and trying to innovate to meet the reality of a changed world. Occasional glimmers can be seen - such as with Constantine - where change appears to bring back glory days. Such glimmers are fleeting. So what is an educator to do? Do we do more of what worked or do we change the system to embrace new realities? What do we keep? What do we discard? These are the foundational questions we are facing. And for each successful innovator or conservator in history, we can see many failures of reform. The design of our systems needs to match the reality of the condition. As Kaiser Maximilian’s opponents discovered, mismatching strategies for a particular age can have disastrous effects. Determining the reality of today’s system and extrapolating to future trends (while maintaining the essences of humanity - peace, dignity, equality, tolerance, etc.) is the vital starting point. Most reforms are a blend of drawing from the past and anticipating the future.
Ken Robinson recently delivered an interesting speech on models of how education can/should respond to changes (via Ewan McIntosh). I enjoyed the talk - a call to change based on the intuitive creativity of all humanity. Missing, however, was the acknowledgment of the current systemic elements that need to be preserved.