Seeing into The Future

One of the challenges, to those of us who want our traditional school system changed into something more centered on the individual learner, is the inability of others to “see” what that future might look like.

I ran across an article recently shared by Education Reimagined, that might help us “see” better into the future and what that future offers. It was written by Kevin Kelly, who co-founded Wired in 1993 and published Cool Tools, an over-sized book dedicated to the best tools available for individuals and small groups.

In “How to Future,” Kelly writes:

“The best futurists I know are really keen historians and study the past to see the future. They look carefully at the past because most of what will happen tomorrow is already happening today. In addition, most of the things in the future will be things that don’t change, so they are already here. For example, most of things surrounding you right now are old technologies – wood tables, concrete blocks, water pipes, flooring, electrical wires, wool carpets, etc. They were invented centuries ago, but today they will 90% of our lives. Maybe only 10% is new stuff. The past is the bulk of our lives, and it will be the bulk in the future.”

Kelly goes on to write:

“The second phase is to study the now. It is often said that most futurists are really predicting the present. It turns out that the present is very hard to see. First the present is obscured by the noise of 8 billion lives looking for attention, and it is overwhelmed by the flashy glitter of the new. Mostly the now is obscured by our deep assumptions and prejudices which makes it very difficult to actually see what is going on.”

Kelly discusses the third phase, the future, this way:

“Here I find it helpful to unleash the imagination and trying to believe in impossible things. Much of today would seem impossible to someone a century ago. The occupations of an American farmer’s descendants would not make sense.  We might say to the farmer of old, ‘you are the last person in you family’s thousand year lineage who will ever farm the land,’ and he would say: ‘well what will my descendants do?’ And we’ll say ‘well, they are mortgage brokers, web designers, yoga teachers, tech support, Airbnb hosts’ and he would say ‘What? None of those make sense. No one could make a living doing that. It’s impossible.’ As are the driving directions on the phone in your pocket.”

Kelly continues to write:

“Ideally your imagined future would have a history. Whatever happens has to happen one-step at a time. So for every new technology or cultural innovation there needs to be versions that are economically viable one step at a time. Before the iPhone, there were cell phones and tablets. Whatever happens in the future will have intermediate steps that also have to be possible, so this line of evolution has to work every step of the way. That’s where the craft of futuring comes in. I like to use a thought exercise to help outline this progress. I imagine I meet a traveler from the future who tells me X happened in year YYYY. As an example let’s pretend we are told by the time traveler that in the future only robot soldiers are allowed to kill others. No human soldiers are allowed to kill. So the game for the futurist is to try and imagine what led to that state. What kinds of technology and laws and social expectations needed to be in place year by year in order to arrive at that state? Then going back further, what had to happen in the next five years from today to reach X by that date?

Most important, the main job is to think about the consequences of X arriving. What would we do if X was true? How do we manage it? How do we regulate it? How does it change us as humans?”

“most of what is happening tomorrow is already happening today.”

Now doesn’t that sum up the current status for most of our traditional public schools? It’s inability to change, or even consider change, is confounding. So, so many traditional school leaders have convinced themselves (especially now) to double-down on practices like improved curriculum, better testing, and extended tutoring – all practices we’ve tried in the past, with I’m sorry to say less than impressive results, especially for black, brown, and poor kids.

“Mostly the now is obscured by our deep assumptions and prejudices which makes it very difficult to actually see what is going on.”

Sadly, I experienced this viewpoint for too many years when I worked in a large, urban school system in Texas. Our assumptions and prejudices told us that what we were doing – improving curriculum, drafting better tests, hiring talented teachers, attracting charismatic school leaders – was the way to improve learning for all. Sadly, for too many kids, our assumptions and prejudices were very, very wrong. But because of the power of those assumptions and prejudices, not enough of us were willing to confront the brutal truth that what we thought was best, in the end, wasn’t.

“I find it helpful to unleash the imagination and trying to believe in impossible things.”

Today’s traditional school system has lost whatever imagination it once had – if it ever had it to begin with. Instead of believing in the impossible, the traditional system now treats “action research” (to see if the impossible might work) as something that will take them away from what is really going to work for kids – improved curriculum, better testing, increased tutoring.  Add the fact that the traditional system failed in its attempt, over the past two years, to succeed with out of school learning, we can all understand now that today’s school system is not interested in imaginative projects or experimenting with the impossible.

“Whatever happens has to happen one-step at a time.”

What’s the first step in changing learning for our kids? To me, it’s leveling the playing field between rich and poor Americans as to what type of learning system those families choose and can afford moving forward. Rich folks have way more choice when it comes to their child’s learning than the poor. That needs to change, and quickly. If not, the writing is on the wall that more and more black, brown, and poor kids in this country will continue to fail at learning while trapped in a struggling, outdated traditional public school system. And, may I add, more and more Americans won’t care enough to change it.

What’s your first step?

Til tomorrow. SVB