Our teaching and learning habits are useful but they can also be deadly. They are useful when the conditions in which they work are predictable and stable. But what happens if and when the bottom falls out of the stable social world in and for which we learn? Is it possible that learning itself - learning as we have come to enact it habitually - may no longer be particularly useful? Could it be that the very habits that have served us so well in stable times might actually become impediments to social success, even to social survival? This paper explores reasons why we may need to give up on some of our deeply held beliefs about teaching and learning in order to better prepare young people for their social futures.