Our Hot Futures Think Tank is discussing Education for the Future this coming Monday.
The questions that are being prepared are:
Presumably education has to prepare us and our children for the present as well as the future.
In that present which are the most important issues that we face?
In our most likely futures which are the most important issues that we will face?
Which skills and understanding and attitudes will best equip us for the present and the likely future(s)?
What form of education will equip our children and us with the requisite skills and understanding and attitudes?
I assume that the *process* of education is at least as
important as the content — and probably more important.
If you agree with me what sort of educational *process* will support the skills and understanding and attitudes?
Educate for what future? You’ll recall I had supposed that there might be three future scenarios (not equally likely) that we might want to consider:
Somehow or other we use technology to muddle through the many potential disasters we face. Presumably technology remains pre-eminent and we maintain or even increase the present rate of change.
or We find intelligent ways of abandoning growth as our main
social purpose. The result will be the slow collapse of present ways and their slow replacement by a very different form of civilisation. This will mean dramatic change and then possibly a slowing down.
or The pursuit of growth continues and the many environmental and other challenges we face catch up with us — possibly several of them simultaneously. Civilisation collapses. Extreme and traumatic change results followed (possibly after a long and awkward transition) with a more “tribal” and localised society.