Balloon factory workers have an easy life. With time, they have learned how to minimise risks, and have grown weary of pins, nails, knives and the like. It’s safe and comfortable to work in balloon factory. You get trained to do your job well, and you can perform your duty in a protected environment, where every day looks pretty much like the previous one. Once you’ve covered your bases, there is not much to worry about.
That is, until a unicorn decides to pay you a visit. In a blink of an eye, everything changes; people become protective of their work, start fearing the changes that the animal may cause, and start turning their backs to each other.
The unicorn does not see it that way. It just wants to explore the factory because it looks like fun, and it is not aware of the awe it brings to the place.
If the world of education is the balloon factory that Seth Godin mentions in “Tribes”, then what is this unicorn that threatens our model of teaching?
There has been much talk about how AI is going to revolutionise the whole world around us, and this will undoubtedly happen to education as well. Imagine a change on the scale of the introduction of electricity. No sector will be left untouched.
Yet I don’t think that the next education revolution will be a technical one. It could be – and should be – much deeper than this. As educators, we need to think deep and hard about what our job is all about, about the responsibility that we have been entrusted with.

The balloon factory is about the status quo and leadership disrupts this status quo.

Are you ready to become a unicorn ?

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