Foresight and Education II
This supplement is the result of additional reflection by a learning enthusiast on our “ foresight and education” newsletter (Jan 2012). We are happy to rerelease this issue to share these insights and perspective on foresight related to education and learning.
Learning, Memes and Foresight
In considering the issues of Foresight and the education system I am least interested in education of Foresight as a subject within the formal education system. I am very much in favour of many more people learning the benefits of the practice of Foresight. I suspect however, that if Foresight were to be included in the formal education curricula, few people would learn much about it. In my opinion, Foresight is best learned in a “learning by doing” mode, in the company of small groups of co-learners and co-practitioners and in stimulating, interactive environments that differ dramatically from those entrenched in the formal education system.
When considering both Foresight and education, two areas that interest me greatly are:
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The relationship between the way humans learn and the many Foresight processes and tools, which takes us into a multi-disciplinary area including cognitive science, psychology, anthropology and others.
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The use of Foresight to consider a range of possible futures involving transformed education systems that would be much more productive and suited to the needs of each individual learner, rather than perpetuating processes much better suited to the needs of the administrators of these huge nationwide systems, as opposed to the needs of the learners.
Clearly, the above two areas are linked, with the former being more fundamental than the latter. It is some aspects of the former that I will briefly discuss...
Read Bob Day's full article here
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Dr Bob Day
Founder and Co-Director at Non-Zero-Sum Development.
Read more about the author and his view on being a futurist.
SA Node Vacancy
The SA Node of the Millennium Project intends to appoint a Programme Manager on a contract position.
Read the full job description
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Education II Bibliozone
Categories of “foresight and education” by Dr Bob Day
Categorisation is a useful tool when confronted with the flood of information available via web resources, particularly for such a broad subject area as education. The lists below are a first attempt at creating useful categories and sub-categories for education through the lens of the future. If they prove to be of any use, hopefully they will be improved by all that use them on an ongoing basis.
The initial idea was simply to make it easier for FFD users to quickly locate the information resources most relevant to their interests. However, in compiling these lists, it has become clear that there is some valuable meta-information here. For example, there appears to be much greater effort to gain insights into the future of some areas of the education system, whilst other areas appear to be somewhat neglected, particularly in developing countries.
At the highest level, I suggest that there are two fundamental categories regarding the future of the global education system(s):
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Improve the system(s) we have inherited: based on the assumption that although it is not perfect, the basic model is working - it has got the developed world to where it is today. However, many argue that a range of reforms (some fairly radical) need to be implemented across the various levels. Most people hold this conservative position, often by default.
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Start again:based on the assumption that the system is irreparably broken, and any good it appears to do is outweighed by the ongoing damage it does to future generations via its inherent elitism and irrelevance. We need to start again. A disparate group (some intellectuals, many “discarded” youngsters, some entrepreneurs and innovators, etc.) hold this radical position (or cloud of positions).
Under each of these categories, I suggest a range of sub-categories. Of course, these sub-categories are not water-tight “silos”. There are many grey areas, and sometimes significant overlap. The various web resources have been placed (via a subjective process) under the sub-category to which they appear to be most relevant.
To see the full categorisation, read the Complete Education II Bibliozone online.
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