10. Futures Education

Lesson Objectives

At the end of this section, the participants will:

 

• Be able to define Futures Education
• Understand the role of Futures Education in Peace Education
• Understand ways to integrate Futures Education into classroom practice 

Guiding Questions

Before you read this section, consider the following questions:

• Once we have learned about issues and problems relating to the culture of war, what can we do about it?
• How can we create a peaceful future?
• What do you imagine the future to be like in twenty years? Fifty years? One hundred years? One thousand years?
• Develop specific lesson plans to bring key aspects of Futures Education into their classroom practice.

 

 

For tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.

- African proverb

 

Thinking about how the world might be and envisioning a society characterized by justice are the essence of conceptualizing the conditions that comprise positive peace. If we are to educate for peace, both teachers and students need to have some notion of the transformed world we are educating for.

- Betty Reardon

 

Introduction

Futures Education focuses on solutions and actions, as opposed to other issue-based educations (such as anti-racist education or sexist education), which primarily focus on understanding the nature of contemporary local-global issues (Hicks, 2004). While all peace education initiatives seek to promote action as the final outcome, Futures Education does so more explicitly. Futures Education encourages students to explore the range of solutions for issues, which can lead to a growing sense of empowerment, and encourage the first steps in responsible global citizenship (Hicks, 2004). 

 

Futures Education is unique in that it is studying something that does not yet exist, except in imaginations and projections. However, studying the future is absolutely critical to informing our actions in the present, and thus can have a very real, immediate impact. Both Hicks (2004) and Haavelsrud (1996) use similar models of spatial and temporal dimensions, that show how the past, present, and future are in a continuous dialectical relationship, and operate at individual to global levels (see Figure 6). Hicks (2004) notes that “futures studies is substantively different from the other issue-based educations because its prime concern is not one particular issue but rather a key aspect of the temporal dimension itself” (p. 175). This characteristic allows futures education to be applied across disciplines. 

The spatial and temporal dimensions

 

Figure 6: Hick’s spatial-temporal model (2010)

While Futures Education is in itself its own discipline and field, it is important to note that in peace education, the future should always be a consideration. This is particularly relevant as action is always a goal of peace education, and in order to formulate appropriate actions, we must have a vision of the kind of future we are trying to create. Thus, while Futures Education can be its own field of study, it can and should be incorporated into every field of study. 

 

Education, according to Alvin Toffler (1974), is preparation for the future. Thus, the very act of education is implicitly related to the future by preparing learners to enter and shape the future world. Peace education, in preparing learners to act upon the world in a peaceful way, must incorporate learning that encourages learners to imagine possible peaceful futures and ways to get there.

The Futures Field

The futures field is comprised of three interrelated strands:

• Futures research – includes trend extrapolation, social and economic forecasting, global modeling;
• Futures studies – the academic field of enquiry into futures and future-related issues;
• Futures education – the application of futures ideas in formal and informal education (Hicks, 2004, p. 167). 

 

Influential work in Futures Education was carried out by Dutch sociologist, Fred Polak, and American peace researcher, activist, and sociologist, Elise Boulding. Fred Polak argued that the “potent images of the future can act like a magnet, drawing society towards its envisioned future” (Hicks, 2004). This theory illustrates the importance of envisioning positive futures, and implies the detrimental effects of negative images of the future. Boulding largely based her work on Polak's book The image of the future (1972), which Boulding translated from Dutch to English. David Hicks (2004, 2008) is one of the predominant voices in futures education today.

The Future in Education

According to research by Gough (1990), the future is often missing from discourse in education, and when it is included, it often falls into one of three categories:

• Tacit futures – assumed but never brought out into the open;
• Token futures – clichés and stereotypes that are often presented in a rhetorical manner;
• Taken for granted futures – when a future is described as something we cannot alter.

 

Futures Education, in contrast, seeks to explicitly talk about the future, bringing it out into the open, and explore various ideas about what the future could be. Cliches, stereotypes, and “taken for granted futures” should still be explored in a critical light, and alternatives should be imagined. 

Aims of Futures Education

According to Hicks (2008), the aims of Futures Education are for educators and learners to:

• Develop a more future-orientated perspective both on their own lives and events in the wider world;
• Identify and envision alternative futures which are just and sustainable;
• Exercise critical thinking skills and the creative imagination more effectively;
• Participate in more thoughtful and informed decision making in the present;
• Engage in active and responsible citizenship, both in the local, national and global community, and on behalf of present and future generations (p. 78). 

 

Futures education is thus within the scope of peace education, which has similar aims and methods of teaching. Futures education can be used to stimulate creativity, critical thinking, and participatory learning methods, with the result being actions that help create a more just, sustainable, peaceful world. 

Futures Education Pedagogies

One of the key pedagogies in futures education are futures workshops, which were initially developed by Robert Jungk in the 1960s and later by Warren Ziegler and Elise Boulding in the US in the 1970s and 1980s (Hicks, 2004). Jungk's workshops have four phases:

1. Critique – complaints and criticism about the immediate problem are collected;
2. Fantasy – various processes, such as brainstorming, are used to generate “utopian schemes” that might resolve the problem;
3. Implementation – the most popular suggestions for action are identified and checked for practicality;
4. Follow-up – detailed action plans are reviewed and finalized (Hicks, 2004). 

 

The workshops developed by Boulding, which have similar yet unique activities, have the following steps:

 

1. Wish list – individuals identify what they most hope to see in their preferred future as an aid to imagining;
2. Childhood memory – an example of holding an image in the imagination. The idea behind this step is an “imagination warm-up”.  By asking students to think of a childhood memory, which everyone has, and then holding this image in their imagination, the participants begin to engage their imaginations in a way that is very relatable for everyone. In asking students to think of a memory, which really happened, they are still engaging their imagination about something that happened, by imagining who was there, what was happening, colors, smells, sounds, etc. Through this process, the participants begin to engage their imaginations, and are thus “warmed up” to begin imagining about the future.
3. Stepping into the future – a guided visualization to “see” details of their preferred future. The facilitator guides learners through the process of imagining their ideal of the future.
4. Sharing images – in small groups, depicting images on paper. In this step, students work together in small groups, sharing their images of the future and using artistic expression or words to express the image.
5. World construction – developing shared scenarios between group members. Through this process, in small groups the participants see how their preferred futures can be linked together as part of one unified preferred future.
6. Action planning – the specific steps needed to work towards the chosen future (Hicks, 2004). How can the preferred future(s) be achieved? Using the wish list, images, and world construction, participants brainstorm concrete steps to make their ideal future a reality.

 

While Futures Education can be applied in the classroom as a course or field of study, educators can also consider applying a futures perspective or dimension. This would involve explicitly incorporating ideas of the future - such as through imaging exercises - in all aspects of study. 

 

Furthermore, children's perception of the future varies developmentally, and thus their conception of time (particularly with young children) should be considered when planning activities with a futures perspective.

Sample Lesson 

Cora's Vision (Reardon & Cabezudo, 2002) 

One of the most effective pedagogical tools of peace education is futures “imaging” or imagining transformations of the world that embody the conditions of peace and justice that motivate the 50 recommended steps toward a culture of peace outlined in the Hague Agenda. Peace educators have long understood the need to cultivate the “moral imagination” of learners, so as to enable them to see peace as an actual condition of a preferred and possible future. The educational task then becomes the designing and imparting of the learning required to bring about the changes that can make the possible future a probable one. This learning unit provides teachers with a sample of an exercise in futures visioning to be adapted to their own pedagogical purposes.

Source

“Vision for Women in the 21st Century” was the substance of the closing statement of the Plenary of the Court of Women delivered by Cora Weiss, President of the Hague Appeal for Peace, on March 7, 2001, in Capetown, South Africa.

Grade Level and Subjects

Grades 8-12; social studies, gender issues, current affairs

Materials

Copies of “Vision for Women in the 21st Century” as it appears at the end of this unit; copies of the Hague Agenda; newsprint or blackboards

Methods

Discussion; analyzing text; envisioning a culture of peace; planning transitional strategies for change; brainstorming possible actions to be taken; identifying new learning required to carry out change process

Concepts

Culture of peace, gender justice, social change action

Objectives

Students will

• ·         Describe the world conditions they believe would characterize a culture of peace;
• ·         Outline the main world changes required to achieve such conditions;
• ·         Identify actions to be taken by individual citizens, civil society organizations, and governmental institutions to achieve the changes;
• ·         Designate what they will need to learn to participate effectively in the change process;
• ·        

Procedures

Step 1: Distribute the text, “Vision for Women in the 21st Century.” Ask students to read and respond to any of the questions embedded in the text.

 

Step 2: Next, form four small groups to discuss the potential consequences of the numbered questions. Assign one question to each group.

 

Step 3: Have the groups report their responses outlining the consequences that would occur should the change be brought about.

 

Step 4: Ask students to return to their groups to plan actions to bring about the changes they found desirable. Review the 50 points of the Hague Agenda to see if some of the recommendations would be appropriate and effective.

 

Step 5: Ask the groups to describe their own dreams of a culture of peace and how to achieve them.

 

Step 6: After the whole class discusses and compares dreams and action plans, ask what they need to learn to work for peace.

 

Step 7: Make a list of learning objectives for peace activists.

Handout

 

Vision for Women in the 21st Century

I dream

Not day dreams

Nor nightmare dreams

Not impossible dreams

I dream, “what if” dreams

What if AIDS were only a verb? As, “She aids her aging parents.”

What if the people fighting pharmaceutical companies and people for peace and justice would support each other? It would multiply our numbers and our strength.

What if the nearly one billion guns and small arms that are in uncontrolled circulation used to kill nearly 6 million people a year – more than die from malaria and HIV – what if they were all destroyed?

What if the arms trade were taxed, or stopped? (Question #1)

What if children went to school and learned a new skill? Reading, writing, ‘rithmetic, and reconciliation?

What if peace were learned? I dream that peace education is integrated into all school curricula.

What if we all learned nonviolent approaches to conflict? What if nuclear weapons were all abolished? (Question #2)

What if half the candidates running for office at every level in every country were women? (Question #3) I dream that the women of East Timor are half the members of parliament, half the new government.

What if women were at every negotiating table? (Question #4) Women, my friends, are the glue that hold societies together.

I dream that human rights are never separated from peace and justice.

I dream – what if everyone understood the 50 points of the Hague Agenda for Peace and Justice for the 21st Century? It’s a way to get from a culture of violence to a culture of peace.

I dream that every child reads and understands the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

I dream the results of the Tokyo Women’s Tribunal for the Trial of Japanese Sexual Slavery be known to all people.

I dream that no country is allowed to have a military budget that is larger than its health and education budgets combined.

I dream that women never settle for token numbers anywhere, anymore.

Men have run the world since the beginning of time, and from the point of view of violence, illiteracy, poverty, racism, and gender inequality – they have failed.

So I dream that one day women and men will share power, and that both will run the show.

I dream that the resolution that women wrote and was unanimously adopted by the Security Council, #1325, is fully implemented, and that we see, as a result, women involved fully and equally in all peace processes. *

What if, just as slavery, colonialism, and apartheid have been abolished, so, too, war is abolished? Our laws and our taxes would no longer support men to make weapons and train young people to go to war to kill and destroy.

I dream of peace and justice. I dream women will make it happen.

 

* Copies of SC Resolution 1325 are available from the Hague Appeal for Peace or online at http://www.peacewomen.org/un/sc/1325.html.

 

Questions for Comprehension and Reflection

1. What are the key principles of Futures Education?
2. How does Futures Education contribute to the overall field of Peace Education?
3. What is your personal vision of the future? For yourself? For your local community? For the world?
4. What is the stereotype or cliché view of the future in your culture or region?
5. Are your students given opportunities to envision and work towards alternative futures? If not, how can you change this in your classroom? If such opportunities exist, please explain what they are.
6. Which of the Futures Education pedagogies are you most interested in using in your classroom? How would they impact student learning? How would you incorporate them into your existing practice and curriculum? Give examples.

References

Reardon, B. A. & Cabezudo, A. (2002). Book 2: Sample Learning Units. Learning to Abolish War: Teaching Toward a Culture of Peace. New York: Hague Appeal for Peace.

 

Gough, N. (1990). Futures in Australian education: tacit, token and taken for granted. Futures 22(3), 298-310.

 

Haavelsrud, M. (1996). Education in developments. Norway: Arena Publishers.

 

Hicks, D. (2004). How can futures studies contribute to peace education? Journal of Peace Education 1(2), September. pp. 165-178.

 

Hicks, D. (2008). A Futures Perspective: Lessons from the Schoolroom. In M. Bussy, S. Inayatullah, & Milojevic, (Eds.) Alternative Educational Futures: Pedagogies for Emergent Worlds. Rotterdam: Sense Pubblishers. pp. 75-89. Retrieved from http://www.teaching4abetterworld.co.uk/docs/download5.pdf 

 

Hicks, D. Teaching For A Better World. Web site. Retrieved from http://www.teaching4abetterworld.co.uk

 

Polak, Fred (1972). The image of the future (E. Boulding, Trans. and abr.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass/Elsevier.

 

Toffler, Alvin (1974). Learning for tomorrow: the role of the future in education. New York: Vintage Books. 

 

Additional Resources

World Futures Studies Federation www.wfsf.org

WSFS Pedagogical Resources http://wfsf.merlot.org/index.html

David Hicks, Teaching for a Better World http://www.teaching4abetterworld.co.uk/