粽子- Chinese Sticky Rice Dumpling
Futures Literacy Program designed by Dr. Anisah Abdullah, 陳思思
Background
Our students will be spending much of their adult lives in the 21st Century. We are currently experiencing looming shocks exacerbated by the pandemic and climate crisis of rising temperature. Our education practice tends to be concerned with the problems and conditions of the past rather than with the decisions of tomorrow that would be very difficult to make when the environment we live in is changing drastically. There is an urgency to educate and train our younger generation in alternative problem solving skills for the future.
Teaching the future emphasizes on coaching our youth, in the face of accelerated rate of change in society, by guiding them through an exploration of the looming issues, problems and the possible opportunities, and teaching them the skills they will need in anticipating what lies ahead as they become active participants in shaping and creating a desired future.
Pedagogically, the approach of teaching is grounded on Argyris and Schon, Vygotsky, Bandura, and Mezirow's amongst other learning theories that individuals learn better with metaphors rather than abstract theories, with peers and socialization rather than alone, with role-models and coaches rather than 'sage-on-stage', and with reflections and critical thoughts rather than simple regurgitation of transmitted concepts and theories. A learner-centered approach is adopted in engaging students for deeper, critical thinking (Trigwell et al, 1999).
The proposition for the delivery of the four modules of Futures Studies over four semesters of is the curation of materials and the use of games and futures methods of analysis for stimulating curiosity about the future, and shifting and broadening world-views in understanding as part of the anticipatory journey of shaping the future.
Why Futures Studies in High School?
Futures Studies respond to a need that is especially felt in our time of great rapid, discontinuous and interrelated change exacerbated by the pandemic.
We saw the emergence of multiple threats to the survival of the entire human species - the Covid-19 pandemic and drastic floods & droughts happening all at once across different continents; the high rate of social change and the complexity of society perpetuated by advancement in technology- artificial intelligence, internationalisation, 24/7 connections & communications, space travel for leisure; - making planning for the future and coping with long-range problems enormously more difficult, there are no longer any simple decisions when everything is related and/or connected in more ways than we realised and hence pushes our adaptability to the limit.
Do we dare think how our future will look in the next 30 years? How are our children being prepared to face these changes? Were they forewarned with what's coming? Are our students psychologically able to cope with a changing society? Do they have the skills to anticipate these changes and complexities?
Futures thinking and Futures Studies are a choice which each person or society has to make in the present: whether to think about the future or not; whether to think about the consequences of our actions in the future, and the impact that our view of the future might have on our present action (Godet, 1979); or whether simply to think about the present.
Futures Studies is a way of thinking, a way of constructing our minds, a way of conceptualizing life, our everyday actions, our every decision. This way of thinking leads to the possibility of educating ourselves and others towards the future, towards the fact that the future is part of our whole life as a sort of anticipation of the future itself (Botkin, 1979).
Futures Studies ought to be an important component of education as it:
- helps us move beyond 'crisis management' to proactive thinking;
- helps us visualize the images of the future and that visualization affect our decisions in the present;
- helps us exerts our will and intentionality on the future;
- helps us realize that there are strategic consequences of our actions and decisions;
- helps us realize that education (which is strongly rooted in the past) requires credible futures alternatives to establish appropriate strategies and directions.
[extracted from Educating for a Sustainable Future: Futures Education. Christopher Jones (1998, p231)]
The Course
This course consists of 4 modules to be delivered over four 18-week-semesters.
Each module comprises components that help progressively develop futures literacy for our young. The course aims:
- Develop cognitive skills to understand, challenge/question and cope with complex systems and problems
- Develop a sense of agency and the ability to look ahead in shaping a better future
- Introduces games and activities in creating spaces encouraging imagination and creativity, opportunities for team and collaborative learning, and stimulating learner independence using reflection.
Module One - September to December 2021
This 1st module delivers 4 main objectives:
- Futures Studies 101- An Introduction
- Create spaces for students to explore the past, present and the future and learn that these are interconnected
- Create spaces for students to explore alternative futures
- Create an awareness that the future is a zone of possibilities rather than a list of things that is going to happen
Module Two - February 2022 to May 2022
The 2nd module covers the following:
- Exploring and understanding trends
- Exploring the impacts & implications of technological trends
- Exploring the impacts & implications of social change
- Exploring the impacts and implications of environmental change
- Create spaces for students to explore solutions for social issues
Module Three - September 2022 to December 2022
The 3rd Module extends the following:
- Understanding Social Change, Systems & Complexity
- Exploring inter-relatedness and inter-connectedness of issues
- Create spaces for students to explore solutions for social issues
Module Four - February 2023 to May 2023
Final Module - Capstone Project : The Museum of Not-Yet-Possible
- Create artefacts of solutions for a more sustainable future
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