Intro

When I was first approached to write the foreword to STEAMING AHEAD: Fostering Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Creativity, I felt both honored and excited. This book brings together a rich collection of insights and practices aimed at one of the most urgent challenges in education today—helping students not just learn content, but develop the mindsets and skills to thrive in a rapidly changing world.

The authors tackle the intersection of STEAM education and the deeper goals of critical thinking, creativity, and problem solving with clarity and conviction. What makes this book so valuable is that it’s not just theoretical; it offers a vision grounded in practical approaches and a commitment to reimagining education for both equity and innovation.

I am proud to have contributed a few opening thoughts, and I encourage you to read the full work. The book is available as a free download here: STEAMING AHEAD: Fostering Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Creativity.

Below is the full text of my foreword.

It’s Tuesday, January 30, 2035.

Maria sub vocalized, “what time is it?” and for her ears only, the answer came, “It’s 13:30.”

“How am I doing?” she asked, and her wellness dashboard popped up into her vision. She was well rested, her heart rate and blood pressure were strong. Her connections with family and friends were active and robust, and her social was high. Her cognitive index indicated there was very little prefrontal cortex activity.

Maria heard, “things are looking good. Your mental stimulation has been a little low, so you  might want to activate your workstream. Shall I go ahead and show you the possibilities?”

She remembered when she was growing up and her parents went to a workplace for a set 40 hours a week in order to draw a paycheck. Now work could be done anywhere and any time. Work now was measured less in hours and more by the value of what you accomplished. Everyone was required to work, but they had more freedom to choose what they worked on, how long, where, and when. Just like entertainment, you now streamed your work when you want to.

She decided now was as good as any to stream her work.

Maria subvocalized “Show me the data about how we are doing in healthcare.” She waved through a few different indicators. No major issues, but a few of the trending numbers caught her eye. Her background as a video game e-sports competitor really helped here. One of her strengths was to be able to look over data and information which did not seem connected, and rapidly make connections, draw inferences, and simulate possible interventions to head off situations before they became problems. In this case, there seemed to be an increase in the time it took to treat gastrointestinal complaints, and a few infectious disease waste treatment numbers seemed to trend up. This could be the beginning of some contagion.

She switched into intervention simulation mode. What if we tweaked some of the inputs in food production, could the nutritional benefits help reduce incidences of gastrointestinal issues that seemed to be rising?

She simulated the results.

No, that was not going to work.

She heard the AI ask her, “you may want to bring some others in. There are four people available now with backgrounds that could complement your strengths. Do you want me to join you all up?”

She subvocalized, “OK” and their avatars all united in a virtual meeting room.

“Marco, what do you think we should try?” she asked.

Shaheen interjected, “Who put you in charge? Shouldn’t we be exploring what the issues are and define the problem first?”

Maria was glad that her education included a lot of practice and coaching in conflict resolution, team building, and collaboration. She knew how to turn this potentially destructive conflict into one that built a collaborative solution.

“Sure, Shaheen, thank you for raising that. Why don’t you start off and lead that discussion and then we can figure out what we work on next and who leads that section?” And they were off and running.

As they discussed the medical results analyzed by the health database, correlated it to weather, nutrition, travel, and social conditions, monitored for any manufacturing or possible transport changes, the issues started to converge. She loved these meetings with others who also had been educated as problem solvers.

Work was very different now than it was even 10 years ago. Artificial intelligence and robotics could handle most manufacturing, office work, healthcare, and analysis, but there were key synthesis, critical thinking, and creative skills that were unique to humans.

She thought back to her schooling years. Luckily, she had been educated in an integrated learning environment, one based on learning through problem-solving that combined science, technology, engineering, arts, and math, what her teachers called STEAM.

That’s the way all education was conducted now, in the year 2035, but back 10-15 years ago, most schools still operated based on didactic pedagogy that was focused on vertical academic disciplines. Technology integration was spotty. Most schools seemed to concentrate more on test results than on critical thinking, flexibility, creativity, and collaboration. As if real life or the human brain actually worked that way.

That’s why most of the people of her generation were struggling to adapt to the free form types of work that existed today; they could only work on well-defined problems based on explicit instructions or rules. AI and robots had taken over all of that work 5 or 6 years ago.

The AI whispered in her ear to nudge her back, “are you reminiscing or thinking?”

It seemed like in no time their ad-hoc group of five had successfully isolated the causes of the potential outbreak, and the simulations of one potential solution were showing real promise.

Engineering design was so much like game development!

It looked like the problem solving and design phases were over, and it was time to deploy and monitor. She loved these types of meetings and looked down to see the time: 17:30. What seemed like 15 minutes had actually been almost four hours. Maria took a look at her wellness dashboard again. Her cognitive index was soaring. And the intervention seemed to be working. Life was good.

Maria bid farewell to her teammates. Now it was time to connect to friends, family, and food.

She suddenly realized how hungry she was.

How do we prepare kids today for a world like this that might exist in 10-15 years? By STEAMing ahead.

How will technologies like robotics, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality affect tomorrow’s workplace?

What changes will sustainable or even regenerative cultures mean for human societies?

What will the political spectrum look like?

No one knows. Yet we still have to prepare this next generation with the cognitive and social skills to thrive during change and uncertainty.

We need to pull together flexible classroom environments, conduct learning activities that develop creative, cognitive, and metacognitive skills, integrate academic disciplines around problem solving, prepare educators with pedagogical techniques that combine technologies such as games, AI, Robots, digital storytelling, and Augmented Reality, and integrate the arts and design thinking skills across education, from Kindergarten through elementary schools, secondary, and university.

That’s exactly what Vera Lourenço, José Alberto Lencastre, and Marco Bento, and their team of talented educators and researchers have assembled in this seminal book.

We all know that the old ways aren’t working. We already know that teachers are the secret superpower of education. STEAMing ahead: Fostering critical thinking, problem-solving and creativity uses the latest practical research and proven techniques to provide a blueprint for teachers and schools to prepare the Marias of the world with the foundation to be successful for the rest of their lives.

You’re going to love this book!

Closing note

I hope my words help set the stage for the inspiring work you’ll find in this book. I’d love to hear your reflections as you explore it—whether you’re an educator, a parent, or simply someone interested in how we prepare the next generation to succeed. Feel free to share your thoughts with me directly or in the comments. And don’t forget, you can download the complete book for free at the link above.