Vital Syllabus

Education fit for the new future

The most important skills and principles

Accessible, engaging, clear, focused, trustworthy

In our age of multiple pressures, dizzying opportunities, daunting risks, and accelerating disruption, what are the most important skills and principles to cherish and uphold?

The Vital Syllabus project aims to answer these questions. What you’ll find here are resources that can best assist students of all ages:

To acquire and deepen these skills
To understand and embody the associated principles.

The top-level contents page is here.

The uniqueness of this project

The call to transform education is hardly novel. Indeed, in almost every discussion about the threats and opportunities faced by humanity at the present time, the topic tends to revolve to the need to improve education.

What’s different about the Vital Syllabus project, compared to other aspirations to improve education, are the special insights of the course designers about:

The unprecedented transformational potential of emerging technologies
The particular complications of the interaction of changes in technology with changes in human expectations, human culture, human social structures, and human narratives
The threats and opportunities faced by humanity that deserve the most attention
The profound relevance of the worldview known as transhumanism.

For more information about what’s unique about the Vital Syllabus project, and about the history of the project, see the Disruption page.

Supporting Vital Syllabus

The development of Vital Syllabus is being supported by:

Members and friends of the Millennium Project, with a particular focus on improving education in the skills and principles of foresight
Members and friends of Future Surge, as a key part of the Future Surge mission to revitalise the social and political landscape
Other individuals and organisations who have special interests in particular topics in the syllabus, or (more generally) in the reform of education.

To assist the development of Vital Syllabus, or just to find out what other people are saying about this project, visit the Connect page, where you can find:

An invitation to join the Vital Syllabus Discord server
A link to a Vital Syllabus group on Facebook
An option to make a donation to support Vital Syllabus financially.

How you can help

Assistance will be welcome:

Provide feedback on the material that has already been gathered
- Which material is particularly strong?
- Which material is comparatively weak?
Suggest new material that should be included as well
- Links to material that already exists
- Ideas for brand new material to be created
Ideas for how the project can have bigger impact
- Ways in which it can scale more quickly, without lowering quality standards

Vital Syllabus criteria

Please bear in mind the attributes that are expected in all material gathered into the Vital Syllabus:

Vital: covering the skills and principles that matter most
Accessible: available without any payment or other obstacle
Engaging: inspires and keeps the attention of viewers
Clear: easy to understand
Focused: addresses the topic in the syllabus, rather than lots of other questions
Trustworthy: has good reason to be trusted.

In case of doubt, consider the material from the standpoint of an averagely intelligent sixteen year old.

(Subsequently, other material will be added and highlighted that is more suited to younger students.)

News

Click here to read news about the Vital Syllabus project.

Top Level syllabus areas

Click here for more information about the content of these areas, and for resources for each area.