The K-12 district schools I went to while growing up in a Boston suburb look nearly the same today as they did when I attended them in the 1980s and 90s, when they also looked quite similar to how they did when my father attended those same schools in the 1950s and 60s. Sure, there are some new technologies and updated curriculum—and more testing—but for the most part, traditional schools haven't changed much over the past few generations.

The world around those schools has, of course, changed beyond measure. The disconnect between the outdated structure of standard schooling and the economic and cultural realities of the innovation era is growing harder to ignore. 

At a time when top jobs didn't even exist a decade ago, and many jobs of the next decade haven't yet been invented, most young people today continue to learn in conventional classrooms that train them to be passive bystanders, rather than active, agile pathmakers in a complex, constantly changing culture.