Jessica Charlesworth and Michael Burton showed some work around futures and obesity during the workshop and here are some of their reflections.  They make for interesting reading, both for the comments Jessica and Michael make, but also for the articles and links they show.

Their reflections can be found here.

Education is a future-building enterprise.  One of the education system’s key roles is in preparing young people for the future world that they will inhabit and help shape when they leave formal education, whilst ensuring they are supported in making sense of the world in which they live now.  But in building learners’ capacity to live and work in this future world, it is vital to be mindful of the social and technological changes that have implications for the sorts of jobs, communities and relationships that will develop in the near future.   A child starting primary school this year will be leaving compulsory education in 2022.  So if we are to prepare these learners for this world, how can we begin to understand what they are being prepared for?

We can start by investigating a number of technological and social trends that have great implications for the role of formal education and in particular the aim of equipping people for specific vocations and the world of work.  Rapid improvements in digital synchronous communications and the development of virtual worlds are already challenging what it means to be ‘at work’.  In the same way, some of the technological developments that can be forecasted afford a range of new ways of organising learning and teaching: many already being investigated as new models for education.  The use of computer games as engaging activities where learners can play and investigate in different spaces, taking on a range of different roles and solving complex tasks and activities;  digital environments where learners can be immersed, not through graphics and sounds, but through investing their emotions in completing personally relevant challenges.  Computer simulations offer learners the chance to become involved in contexts otherwise inaccessible: dangerous environments (such as high risk laboratories) and remote or inaccessible places.  The opportunities afforded by the use of new and emerging technologies aligned with appropriate pedagogical approaches, offers new ways for learners to experience the work place and particular working practices.

Similarly, developing situated learning approaches that allow young people to learn within a real work context become possible and more realistic through developments in mobile, networked technologies.  Innovative examples of this approach to vocational learning can be seen at Boston College as part of the Learning and Skills Council’s MoLeNET programme, using mobile technologies to gather context appropriate assessments and providing appropriate support to students on a range of apprenticeship schemes.  At the same time, several companies are experimenting with linking their own bespoke training courses to national accreditation and to digital portfolios to support employees in demonstrating transferable skills to support them within a highly dynamic working environment.  These innovative projects may be signposts to wider scale developments in the future.

Other technological developments can support learning in activities that are currently prohibitively expensive. This is evidenced through projects such as the Haptic Cow where learning through manipulation and touch can become possible, but other complex tasks too can be assisted though haptic feedback: the ‘Phantom Haptic‘ is a design tool enabling budding (and experienced) designers to created 3D objects with force-feedback as the digital objects are manipulated and developed.  These technologies could provide ways for vocational learning to be moved virtually, if not physically, closer to the authentic contexts at which the training is aimed.

However, it is easy to imagine any future education as the current system with more technology.  Societal changes have equally great implications for the way in which the aims of education can be articulated and then successfully organised and achieved.  The forecasts of an aging population of 50% of the UK population aged over 50 and 25% over 65 years old is not a picture of a rise in the need for vocational training for nursing and caring.  Radical longevity represents a longer working life; a greater distance between the time of achieving school qualifications and final retirement, and a greater need for reskilling and later life training. The learners on vocational courses in the future may already have tens of years experience in other areas of work, so demand for vocational courses in this context may be job specific or even skill specific given the highly dynamic workforce that will be needed.  If data showing a below-replacement level birth rate and high levels of (inward and outward) migration is then taken into consideration, the requirements of diverse communities also becomes a factor influencing what vocational learning is needed:  Understanding how courses and training can be organised and delivered for a multi-generational, pluralistically financed, highly mobile student groups becomes a key issue for institutions and policy makers.  Does this then suggest a movement away from investment in formative education toward better funded re-skilling for older learners or does retraining become the responsibility of the commercial sectors or the learners themselves?

At school age, vocational learning may focus upon the skills, competences and attitudes of work-readiness.  Coping with change; working in highly diverse teams, and the ability to apply skills and knowledge to a wide range of contexts become the foundation of vocational teaching.  Other descriptors of ‘work’, such as effort, perseverance, dedication and target setting are those currently associated with the the literature on the benefits of playing computer games.  This broad range of skills and competencies may be covered then, by a range of formal and informal learning experiences.  But greater divergence in jobs means the specialism of specific industry may not relate to the expertise of teachers.  The role of the teacher becomes expert pedagogue whilst greater links with subject experts within industry bring the appropriate expertise into the ‘classroom’.

The implications of bringing work and vocational learning closer has obvious educational benefits, but what of other consequences?  Creative ideas generated by young people, as evidenced in projects such as Nuffield’s Young Foresite could be harnessed much more through links between industry and students’ access to 3D fabrication.  For the last 40 years, Moore’s Law has proved to be right and if it continues, as we expect it will, then a 3D printer that costs £0.5m today will cost around £500 in 20 years time.  Certainly affordable for every school and college, if not in most classrooms.  With creative learners producing production quality products as part of their learning experience, one could begin to question who is benefiting from the closer relationships between industry and learner, and the extent to which ‘vocational learning’ and ‘training’ are separated.

There is currently a growing recognition of the importance of vocational learning, not as a second choice to academic routes but as an equal (and even blurred in the case of some academies) route to success.  This developing trend has emerged from a range of campaigns and ties directly to current interest in personalisation: developing appropriate curricular and practices around the needs of the learner.  At the same time the voices of industry, highlighting the skills needed are becoming more clearly collected.  Yet is there a chance then, that as schools begin to take on andragogical approaches: listening to learner voice, providing greater choice and flexibility, an emphasis upon reactive teaching; that vocational learning for more experienced adults moves towards more traditional pedagogical models – where the teacher has far greater control over the aims, approaches and models used?  The focus of vocational learning becomes more strictly about short term responses to market need in a fast moving economy-driven market?

There are many possible long term vocational learning futures.  The important task now is to understand the preferable future and begin putting in place the practices and systems to work towards it.

However, there is a middle way between the demand for change and the need for consistency – and that is simply based upon reflecting upon the most appropriate practices for the aims of education.  If we take the aims of the Children’s Plan as these core educational goals, then a number of different practices are needed to reach the wide range of demands set out.

Some of practices are challenged by possible futures: what does ‘being healthy’ mean in an aging population where advanced pharmaceuticals and treatments challenge our current definition – and what does this mean for the way we educate young people to be healthy?  In the same way, what are the practices that support young people being active citizens in a world of complex multiple identities and diverse and dynamic communities?

Some of the challenges persist; some of them are newly defined, and some of the current practices are made even more important (whilst other new practices are needed to emerge).

There’s a new question posed on Million Futures which asks about this issue.  What are the things that we want to persist: the practices, aims, values and mechanisms that we want to take from today into future educational practices?  Not continuity for the sake of continuity, but continuity in the face of the new and continuing challenges facing education.

At a glance, the article is quite alarmist: learners have a right to use smart drugs; teachers guilty of discrimination if they don’t ensure equal access to cognition enhancers; children holding all their digital profiles on memory sticks!  But that’s just at a first glance.

What is so interesting about the paper upon which this is based is that its content causes an emotional response from the reader – and the TES article does just the same.  This is because the possibilities offered by technological change can challenge the beliefs and values we hold about education.

The data and trends that this article builds from are about the possiblities of using smart drugs, of psyco-pharmaceuticals to enhance memory and performance etc.  But it isn’t the possibility of these trends developing that causes such a reaction in the reader, after all, we already have Ritalin, Modafinil as well as a whole host of banned drugs for performance atheletes.  The reaction comes from how these changes challenge or are challenged-by our views and beliefs about education.

The greatest strength of this article is that is sparks conversations and thought about possible futures – and it takes questions about the future of education into the wider educational community.  In a previous post I presented some benefits for thinking about the future and the TES article is a great example of point 3: bringing about preferable futures.  The paper highlights techno trends that are part of a possible, even a probable future – but the way in which we consider these technological possiblities and the ways in which we act now, go towards creating the preferable future that we want.  So – if the TES article caused a gut reaction or the socio-tech paper caused a moment of reflection – consider the paper some more, share your thoughts on millionfutures or by commenting here.

For me the sentence “['smart' drugs] are expected to be common in schools within 20 years” is the one that concerns me – because it takes away the agency that I/we have to influence the way in these drugs are used in education – indeed the agency we have over any of these possible futures (positively and negatively).

There were a number of really interesting conversations at the FAN club event about cosmetic psycho-pharmacology and I’ll leave you with a question that was raised and left open.  Where is the acceptable line between early morning coffee to help with concentration; vitamins to feel healthy; fish oils for learning, ritalin for specific learner groups, and the use of provigil and other ’smart drugs’?

Over the coming week I will write a summary of the findings as the conversations were really rich and included the views of wide range of experts.  One group was investigating some of the possible implications of a mobile workforce set within an aging society where the development of smart drugs provided new opportunities (and concerns) for the aims, methods and roles of education.

A summary is here – and thanks to Steve Wells, the Director of Informing Choices for his facilitation and for the steve-wells-cosmetic-psycopharmacology-workshop-notes.

The majority of organisations that I have spoken with have, at most a 5 year vision, many a 3 year strategy and all a 1 to 2 year plan – so having conversations about 15 year futures is difficult and often the first conversation is about justifying why long term futures work is important and why it is worth investing the time to talk about it.   In the world of education where there are so many competing time pressures – with such a range of timescales – I thought it useful to state some of the specific values of long term futures thinking.  I’d be please if others added to the list (I will as the programme develops).

1. Who is education for?

The ‘formal’ education in England lasts from 4 – 19, that’s about 15 years of formal education.  Young children making the most of the ‘back to school’ shopping trips for stationery and daps getting ready for the first year in Reception class will be leaving secondary school in 2023, potentially leaving university in 2026 and entering the world of work.  If one of the aims of education is preparing the young for the world and for work then having an idea of what they’re being prepared for might be quite useful!  Investigating the sorts of changes that might occur, socially and technologically is important then in informing the sorts of skills, knowledges and aptitudes that we need to foster in formal schooling.  Having an understanding of the possible future of work and employment similarly could inform the curricular needed, the qualifications understood by industry and the options young people will have.  Preparing young people for the world outside of formal education means that we need to be informed about what that world will look like when they leave formal education.

2. Informing immediate actions

I mentioned in an earlier post that one of the main criticisms of big investments such as BSF is that they’re too short-sighted in terms of investment, essentially rebuilding current schools, rather than really investigating what education and schooling is for at the beginning of the 21st century.  In the same post I mentioned cones of uncertainty – that if we can think hard about long term futures (where our thinking is less certain), as we regress that information in time to shorter term futures, our cones become denser with information and more certain.  The final step then, having investigated the wide range of possible futures, is to make decisions that take into account the preferable futures, probable futures and possible futures so that our immediate actions and investments are as fully informed as possible.

3. Creating preferable futures

Throughout BCH we talk about futures, rather than the future.  This is because our collective actions got to create the future we will inhabit – there is no set future that we’re all mindlessly stumbling towards.  The notion of agency then, the ability to act in the world, is a really important reason to think about long term futures.  Which parts of the evidence BCH is highlighting do you welcome?  Which parts make you shudder?  Then what are you going to do about it?  What actions or investments must we put in place to ensure that the future that is realised is the one that we want?  Having a good understanding of possible futures can inform our actions to create the desirable futures.

4. Systematic thinking informing current actions

Ahh, you say – but you’re not telling us what will be in 2025, you’re making observations of what could be.  How can we make reliable decisions now based upon observations rather than statements of fact?  The short answer is that BCH is a systematic approach to looking at evidence, trends and opinions in understanding a whole range of probable, possible and preferable futures.  It is not about future gazing but about creating informed stories of the future upon which we can test current plans and policies.  Linking back to point 2, if we use a systematic and reliable approach to thinking about the future we can be much better informed about the decisions we need to take now.

5. Rapidity of change

Almost every education/technology conference I go to and most of my RSS feeds remind me of the speed of change, how practices and tools change with new developments, new possibilities and new demands.   Moore’s Law continues to hold true; Web 2.0 tools are being created more quickly that bring a new set of tools to my browser each day; personal communication devices are being developed with more functions etc etc.  Yet balanced with this are the arguments that education is not bringing about the ‘transformation in practice’ that is called for.  We need to be aware of what things are changing quickly and which are remaining constant.  At the heart, we need to ensure that we’re aware of what we want to remain and what changes we want to take advantage of.  To me this is about developing  an understanding of the shared values of education – being clear about its purpose and therefore how different changes might help us realise them.  Starting with the Children’s Plan as a central way of doing this, we can question how the aims of the plan can be realised in different futures, and of course which aims will be challenged.

Other suggestions?  Add a comment or use one of the engagement tools.

Long term futures work is not about predicting the future, but systematically investigating a range of futures so that short term actions are more informed about possible, probable and (through discussion) preferable futures. This systematic investigation is about understanding current and historic data, looking at trends and considering how those trends may develop. The forecaster Paul Saffo says that it is not predictions, but about mapping the ‘cones of uncertainty‘. As Saffo explains, uncertainty is cone-shaped because as you project further into the future there are more surprises. The longer the term the more uncertain or the less specific you can be.

Take your own work. You can be pretty accurate in statement one of what you will be doing in the next 10 seconds; statement two of what you will be doing in 10 minutes might have a little more uncertainty – the phone might ring, your coffee cup needs refilling or you’re back on facebook again. (Was your statement one right by the way?) 10 days time – your diary may suggest something but you can be less confident that it is 100% accurate, and the further you go, the more uncertainty there is. 10 weeks, 10 months, 10 years, the range of possible futures on the extremes of the cone become further from one another.

But BSF is about building the appropriate spaces for learning for the potentially the next 50 years. The level of investment in such infrastructure will surely not be around at this level again before that – so how can we ensure that the decisions being taken now will be relevant to the range of possible functions, learners and aims that the institutions may need to be cater for?

The answer, of course, is that we can’t. We can’t be certain that today’s decision is appropriate for tomorrow’s needs – there are too many factors that influence education: it’s expected role in society; numbers of pupils; types of learners; the aims of education; sorts of resources etc etc. But what we can do, is ensure that the decisions we make are as informed as possible. That we’ve investigated as wide a range of possible futures as possible to ensure that, not only are we prepared for a whole range of possibilities, but that we are actively working towards the preferable future that we want.

The Beyond Current Horizons programme is attempting to look at these long term possible, probable and preferable futures. The BCH blog is the scrapbook of developments that may be useful to provide insight into some things that may challenge the way in which we currently think about education (in terms of its aims, processes etc). Towards the end of March 2008 there will be a large collection of data and analysis, tools, and future scenarios that will also be of use in helping to inform more immediate decisions and strategies.

Long term futures work is about making visible some of the possible futures, detailing the cones of uncertainty, so that from longer term visioning and systematic thinking, we can develop richer and more informed nearer term visions, near term strategies and more appropriate immediate actions. By telling stories of our preferable futures, we can begin to ensure that our immediate actions go to creating and shaping the future that we want. To become involved in BCH please contact me or sign up to the blog and newsletter – all involvement is welcome. After all, the more informed our thinking can be, the better our use of the incredible resources of BSF.