alternative futures in education

1
alternative futures in education

• noel gough
  n.gough_at_latrobe.edu.au
• la trobe university

2
outline

• mini-lecture key concepts and methods
• activity using Richard Mochelles environment
  design approach to generating alternatives

3
my position

• longstanding teaching and research interests in
  futures studies
• designed and taught Futures in Education at
  Deakin University from 1975 to 2004
• extensive publications on futures in curriculum
• Noel Gough La Trobe Staff profile
  or go to www.latrobe.edu.au/oent/Staff/gough_noel.
  htm

4
(No Transcript)
5
why explore alternative futures?

• concepts that refer forward in time are
  commonplace (e.g. theme of this conference)
• past, present and future are interdependent
  dimensions of Western understandings of time
• redress educations temporal asymmetry past
  and present receive more attention than futures
  (e.g. history of education and comparative
  education are established sub-disciplines)

6
what do futurists study?

• futures are both empirical and conceptual
• futures study is a forward-looking equivalent of
  history
• history produces (in our present) disciplined
  interpretations of pasts
• futures study produces (in our present)
  disciplined anticipations of futures
• interpretation in history and anticipation in
  futures study transform fragments of evidence and
  stories of other times into stories that are
  meaningful now

7
key concepts in futures study

• alternative futures (no such thing as the
  future)
• probable futures (any future to which we can
  assign a probability by considering present
  trends and events)
• possible futures (any future that anyone
  imagines from different standpoints, some might
  appear more - or less - plausible than others)
• preferred futures (including futures that we
  prefer to avoid)

8
methods for generating alternative futures

• extrapolative
• consensual
• creative
• combinatory

9
generating alternative futures

• extrapolation analyse present trends and events
  and predict consequences

Curriculum Perspectives 22 (1) 2002
10
generating alternative futures

• consensus
• polls, expert commissions, Delphi technique
• collective wisdom (ant colonies resolve problems
  of a complexity that far outstrips the
  information-processing capabilities of an
  individual ant with very limited data)

11
generating alternative futures

• creative imagination
• analyse (and critique) imagined alternatives
• rehearse and emulate creative behaviour (e.g.
  scenario-building frequently emulates science
  fiction)
• speculative fiction (SF) constitutes rich data
  for futures study
• use SF to rehearse the experience of surprise

12
(No Transcript)
13
generating alternative futures

• combinatory
• combine extrapolation, consensus forecasting and
  creative imagination to produce images of further
  alternatives
• among the most characteristic tools of
  professional futurists are techniques such as
• futures wheels
• cross-impact matrices
• relevance trees
• computer modelling

14
a futures wheel
15
a cross-impact matrix
16
a relevance tree
17
futures study and prediction

• a common misconception is to equate futures study
  with prediction
• prediction is only one activity among many in the
  wide spectrum of activities and influences that
  fall within the futures field
• most predictions fail

18
The Americans have need of the telephone but
we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys Sir
William Preece Chief Engineer British Post
Office 1876
19
no possible combination of known substances,
known forms of machinery, and known forms of
force can be united in a practical machine by
which men shall fly long distances through the
air Simon Newcomb US astronomer, 1906
20
I can accept the theory of relativity as little
as I can accept the existence of atoms and other
such dogma Ernst Mach (1838-1916) Professor of
Physics University of Vienna
21
Fooling around with alternating current is just
a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever. Its
too dangerous It could kill a man as quick as a
bolt of lightning. Direct current is
safe Americans require a restful quiet in the
moving-picture theatre, and for them talking on
the screen destroys the illusion. Devices for
projecting the film actors speech can be
prefaced, but the idea is not practical Thomas
Edison 1926
22
While theoretically and technically television
may be feasible, yet commercially and financially
I consider it an impossibility, a development of
which we need waste little time in dreaming Lee
de Forest (inventor of the vacuum tube) 1926
23

• Arthur C. Clarkes laws
• When a distinguished but elderly scientist states
  that something is possible, he is almost
  certainly right. When he states that something is
  impossible, he is very probably wrong.
• The only way to discover the limits of the
  possible is to go beyond them into the
  impossible.
• Any sufficiently advanced technology is
  indistinguishable from magic.

24
In another hundred years the average
Australasian will be a tall coarse, strong-jawed,
greedy, pushing, talented man sic, excelling in
swimming and horsemanship. His religion will be
a form of Presbyterianism, his national policy a
Democracy tempered by the rate of exchange
(Marcus Clarke c. 1880).
Clarke also predicted that by 1977 Queensland and
all hot areas above a certain latitude would be
authoritarian potentates like those found in
Latin America and the Orient, while the South
will be a Greek democracy The intellectual
capital of this Republic will be Melbourne, the
fashionable and luxurious capital on the shores
of Sydney Harbour... The present custom of
drinking alcohol to excess... will continue.
25
predicted futures

• predicted futures usually reinforce the taken for
  granted, the stereotypical and the status quo
  they give us little hope of transcending our own
  histories
• prediction invests futures with spurious
  objectivity times to come are seen as
  metaphorical equivalents of places to visit, as
  though they had a tangible presence out there
• futures exist in human minds in an objective
  sense they are never out there but are always
  here, now
• recognising that futures are intrinsic to present
  action and existence liberates the critical and
  creative imagination it encourages us to
  explore possible futures without colonising them

26
predictions are objects of inquiry (not the
purpose of) futures study

• prediction can be a restrictive and unrewarding
  activity, but the effects of widely circulated
  predictions hopes, fears, probabilities and so
  on are data that can and should be drawn upon
  for analysis, synthesis and critical evaluation

27
e.g. futures for the university

• Federal Governments response to the Bradley
  review of higher education
• from 2012 funding for the teaching programs that
  universities offer will be wholly demand driven
• choices and preferences of people seeking
  entrance to universities will significantly
  influence university curricula

28
rethink concept of university

• the university descended from the monastery one
  way of knowing God became one way of knowing a
  unioneversity
• can we imagine a polyversity, a multiversity (or
  even a subversity)?
• shift emphasis in knowledge from uni (oneness) to
  turning (versus, vetere)
• polyversity promotes a greater and less
  controlled proliferation of inventiveness than
  diversity
• multiversity promotes exchanges among well-formed
  differences
• replace universal knowledge (a dominant groups
  imposed view of reality) by a universal
  acceptance of difference (after Ivana Milojevic
  2000)

29
anticipating alternative futures responding
constructively to faults in the present
30
activity

• whats cracking in your system?
• what possible choices are open to you?

31
conclusion

• In one of Ursula Le Guins SF stories, a young
  girl is on a journey from which she makes a short
  detour to visit her family in a nearby town
• she recalls I had been there many times, of
  course, but this time the town looked altogether
  different, since I was on a journey beyond it
• the search for alternative futures in education
  should have a similar effect, that is, to make
  the present and particularly the choices we
  perceive within it look altogether different
• but, unlike a journey beyond a town, alternative
  futures in education are not out there waiting
  for us to arrive
• they are waiting for us to imagine and to invent
  them here, now

32
thank you