What Young People Are Showing Us About the Future of Learning
What happens when you spend a summer asking young people to imagine what learning could be, and then send them back into what learning is?
This summer, 30 young people, ages 14–18, joined CFL for Future Studios, a four-week fellowship where they explored their interests, built new skills, created alongside peers and adults, and helped us imagine the future of learning.
Future Studios was intentionally designed to give young people more ownership. Fellows could pursue ideas that mattered to them, make decisions about their work, build relationships, and create something they could share with others. By the end of the summer, when we asked what they would create for other young people in Las Vegas if resources weren't a barrier, nearly half of Week 4 respondents essentially told us the same thing, “build a place like this.”
So when school started, we kept listening.
Two weeks into the new school year, we invited our fellows back to reflect on what they were experiencing in their classrooms. We also sat down with parents to hear what they had noticed in their children.
Together, those conversations are giving us a clearer picture of what young people and families want from learning, and what we might consider as we build its future.
1. Young People Want Ownership, Not Just Choice
They aren't asking adults to disappear from learning. They're asking adults to trust them with more of it.
Throughout Future Studios, we saw what can happen when young people have an active role in shaping their learning.
One fellow, Akilah Bello, created a two-minute documentary, The Story of Me, using her own voiceover and editing to tell a meaningful story. She built technical skills, but she also decided what she wanted to say, how she wanted to say it, and what she wanted others to take from it.
That distinction between choice and ownership matters. Choice can mean selecting from options someone else created, while ownership gives young people a meaningful role in determining where their learning goes.
When fellows returned to school, we asked them to reflect through the four attributes of the Portrait of a Nevada Learner: Empowering, Connecting, Impacting, and Thriving. Some pointed to teachers who trusted them, classes where they had flexibility, or clubs where they found community. Others struggled to identify those opportunities.
But when asked to imagine what learning could look like, they talked about pursuing their interests, exploring careers, participating in internships, learning beyond school, and having more say in their education.
They weren't rejecting teachers, structure, or expectations. They just wanted guidance and support, but with more room to explore.
2. Relationships Change How Young People Engage With Learning
Belonging isn't something that happens after learning. It helps create the conditions that make deeper learning possible.
Again and again, fellows talked about relationships.
Within the first week, 75% of fellows rated their connection to peers in their studio a 3 or 4 out of 5. By Week 4, making friends and connecting with others remained one of the most meaningful parts of the experience.
Fellows also described Future Studios as different because it didn't feel "top down." Rather than adults holding all the answers, fellows felt like they were working alongside mentors. They could ask questions, make decisions, bring their experiences into the work, and contribute ideas.
That relationship can change how young people engage with learning. When they know their ideas will be taken seriously, they have more reason to contribute them. When they feel known by the people around them, taking a creative risk or asking for help becomes easier.
Parents noticed the difference, too. They described their children as more socially connected and excited to participate. What they valued closely mirrored what we heard from fellows: autonomy within a framework, authentic work, collaboration, and relationships.
But parents also raised another possibility. As young people get older, families often have fewer natural opportunities to connect with their children's learning. They wondered what it could look like to remain part of that experience while still giving young people independence, whether by contributing their own skills, learning alongside them, or building relationships with other families.
It expanded our thinking about belonging. Perhaps it's not simply about creating a space where a young person feels welcome. It's about creating a community where they feel known, valued, and able to contribute.
3. Learning Feels Different When It Matters Beyond a Grade
What if the question at the end of more learning experiences shifted from "What grade did I get?" to "What did I do with what I learned?"
There was something different about the energy at Future Studios' Demonstration Day.
Young people shared documentaries, performances, designs, and projects with families, community members, partners, and one another. Their work wasn't simply being turned in. It was being seen, heard, questioned, and celebrated.
The audience changed the purpose of the work.
That became particularly interesting when fellows returned to school. We asked whether they had created something that mattered to someone beyond the teacher grading it. Many struggled to identify an example.
Yet when young people imagined the future, those were exactly the experiences they described: creating, solving problems, exploring careers, collaborating, and contributing to something larger than themselves.
An authentic audience doesn't have to mean a major public presentation. It could be a class sharing research with a neighborhood organization, a student designing something another person will use, or a young person applying what they're learning to a problem they care about.
What matters is that the learning has somewhere to go.
What We're Still Learning
None of these ideas are entirely new. Educators across Nevada are already creating experiences where young people have ownership and opportunities to apply their learning. The question is how those experiences become less dependent on finding the right teacher, joining the right program, or encountering the right opportunity.
Our conversations also reminded us that designing the future of learning can't happen through a single survey, fellowship, or listening session. Listening has to be an ongoing relationship.
Young people aren't asking for less learning. They're asking for learning they can help shape. They want choice without losing support, challenge without losing joy, relationships built on trust, and opportunities to use what they know in ways that matter.
And none of this belongs exclusively to some distant future. We saw pieces of it during Future Studios, and our fellows are seeing pieces of it in their schools right now.
Our opportunity is to make those experiences less exceptional.
At CFL, we believe young people shouldn't simply inherit a future of learning designed for them. Young people, families, educators, and communities can help create it together.
So perhaps the question isn't only what should the future of learning look like?
It’s: what could learning become if we built it around the people who experience it?
And are we willing to keep listening to what they're already telling us?
