Futures thinking and EfS

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THINK. CHANGE. DO

Futures thinking and EfS
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Education for sustainability is futures education

• Questioning current trends
• Imagining preferable alternatives
• Understanding competing worldviews
• Building capacity for social foresight

Education for sustainability means developing
students capacity for social foresight
See Slaughter, R. A. (2006). Pathways and
Impediments to Social Foresight.
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Futures in education

• Young people are passionately interested in
  their own futures, and that of the society in
  which they live. They universally jump at the
  chance to study something with such intrinsic
  interest that also intersects with their own life
  interests in so many waysFor teachers and
  schools, on the other hand, teaching about
  futures can either be deeply inspiring or
  profoundly threatening.
• Foresight is a human capacity that allows human
  beings to order their priorities, navigate a
  complex present and, furthermore, actively deal
  with the not here and the not yet.
• Richard A Slaughter, 2004

Gidley, JM, Bateman, D and Smith, C (2004),
Futures in Education Principles, practice and
potential.
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EfS should equip students with futures concepts
and tools
Slaughter, R. A. (2006). Pathways and Impediments
to Social Foresight.
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Futures concepts

• The future is not fixed many futures are
  possible
• Probable futures
• Where are we heading?
• Possible futures
• Where could we go?
• Preferred futures
• Where do we want to go?
• Prospective futures
• What will we do to create a desired future?

Each approach provides educational opportunities
See Gidley, JM, Bateman, D and Smith, C (2004),
Futures in Education Principles, practice and
potential.
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After Gidley, JM, Bateman, D and Smith, C (2004),
Futures in Education Principles, practice and
potential.
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Futures tools and methods visioning

• Creative, fun, imaginative process
• Narratives / stories / scenarios
• Visual arts (collage, drawing, film)
• Performance
• Creating a lived experience of what futures might
  feel like
• Drawing out alternative worldviews
• The future is a blank page
• How you fill it reveals a lot about your values
  and worldview

Example ISF used STEEP (society, technology,
economy, environment, politics) to guide
visioning on the future of Melbournes wastewater
system
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Futures tools and methods backcasting

• Forecasting extrapolates trends forward from the
  present
• Backcasting starts with a desirable future and
  works backwards
• Develop a normative vision of the future
• Identify feasible pathways towards that future
• Develop an action plan for what would need to
  happen and when
• Can be an iterative process where desired future
  emerges from social learning

Example The Georgia Basin Futures Project in
Canada used a participatory backcasting approach
to identify pathways to desirable futures within
the Georgia Basin catchment.
Robinson, J (2003), Future subjunctive
backcasting as social learning, Futures, 35,
pp.839-856.
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Futures tools and methods causal layered analysis
S. Inayatullah, Causal Layered Analysis
Poststructuralism as Method, Futures 30 (8)
(1998) 815-829 Serafino de Simone, 2004, Causal
Layered Analysis A Cookbook Approach, in The
Causal Layered Analysis Reader.
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Futures tools and methods integral futures
Ken Wilber, The Integral Vision Richard
Slaughter, Futures Beyond Dystopia Creating
Social Foresight. Brown, B.C. Riedy, C.J.
2006, 'Use of the Integral Framework to Design
Developmentally-Appropriate Sustainability
Communications' in Filho, W.L (eds), Innovation,
Education and Communication for Sustainable
Development, Peter Lang Scientific Publishers,
Frankfurt, Germany, pp. 661-687.
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Barriers to futures in education

• Critique of business as usual
• Potential for ideological conflicts
• Overcoming simplistic media images of the future
  (the litany)
• Optimism about personal future
• Pessimism about global future
• There is no textbook for the future
• Challenging work for teachers

How might these barriers be overcome to develop
the social foresight capacity we need to move
towards sustainability?