The document discusses the changing landscape of education and society, emphasizing the need for 'futures literacy' to effectively navigate complexity and uncertainty. It highlights the importance of embracing multiplicity in thinking and decision-making, as well as the shift from industrial-focused productivity to a learning-intensive society. The author advocates for experimenting and creatively adapting to new conditions rather than relying on deterministic approaches, suggesting that a futures literate society can better handle transformational changes.

1. Education Futures: Part of the Solution or Part of the Problem?------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Riel MillerEDUCATIONAL FUTURESLeadership and PracticeThe Open University, Milton Keynes, May 17, 2011Artist: HeykoStoeber

2. Two Big Changes1. In the way we think about the world.2. In the way we organize the world.Fundamental indeterminacy and the creativity of the universeHeterarchy and the Learning Intensive Society murmuration

3. 1. Embracing Complexity: Changing the way we use the futurePhoto credit: Mark Schacter ©

4. The End of CertaintyMankind is at a turning point, the beginning of a new rationality in which science is no longer identified with certitude and probability with ignorance. … science is no longer limited to idealized and simplified situations but reflects the complexity of the real world, a science that views us and our creativity as part of a fundamental trend present at all levels of nature.Ilya Prigogine, The End of Certainty: Time, Chaos and the New Laws of Nature… we are now able to include probabilities in the formulation of the basic laws of physics. Once this is done, Newtonian determinism fails; the future is no longer determined by the present….

5. The possible is not in the future it is in the past.“We must resign ourselves to the inevitable: it is the real which makes itself possible, and not the possible which becomes real. But the truth is that philosophy has never frankly admitted this continuous creation of unforeseeable novelty.”Henri Bergson, The Creative Mind

6. Caught in the Probabilistic Stance: Probable, Possible, Plausible

8. What difference does it make?After all everyday life goes on.So why bother?It changes what we see.

9. It changes what we imagine.

10. It changes what we resist.

11. It changes what we preserve.

12. It changes how we preserve what we want to preserve.

13. It changes the conditions of change.Then what? If we accept this ontological starting point – how to make it practical? Take an anticipatory systems perspective that encompasses both animate and inanimate anticipation.Distinguish the three ontological dimensions of the potential of the present – three ways of imagining the future and the different methods that are related to each (ontology-epistemology linked).Learning processes that use collective intelligence – action research, reframing, and narrative capacity to question anticipatory assumptions – embracing complexity, spontaneity, improvisation.

14. What is Futures Literacy?

15. Futures Literacy: ambient strategic thinkingFutures Literacy is the capacity to tell anticipatory stories using rigorous imagining based on sharing depth of knowledge from across the community. FL is a way of internalizing the constant development of our understanding of the potential of the emergent present and of changing anticipatory assumptions.

16. A. Anticipatory Systems

18. Anticipatory Systems ViewS : object systemM : model of SE : effector systemSource: Robert Rosen, Anticipatory Systems: Philosophical, Mathematical, & Methodological Foundations., Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1985. Slide by A. H. Louie, Mathematical Biologist

19. “The main difference between forecasting and scenarios on the one hand, and anticipation on the other, is that the latter is a property of the system, intrinsic to its functioning, while the former are cognitive strategies that a system A develops in order to understand the future of some other system B (of which A may or may not be a component element). … The theory of anticipatory systems can therefore be seen as comprising both first- and third-person information.”Roberto Poli, 2010

20. B. Three dimensions of the potential of the present

21. Contingency futures: a tsunami

22. Contingency futures: winning the lottery

23. Optimization Futures: Chess, Farming, Assembly LineNon-complex goal, known in advance and fixedRules are given in advance and fixedResources are given in advance and fixed

24. Exploratory futures: imagining the potential of the present

26. C. Hybrid Strategic Scenario MethodRigorous imagining – developing analytically rich and imaginative stories of a functioning society as a way to question our assumptions.

27. Futures Literacy: Decision Making CapacityUsing the Future for Knowledge Creation, Discovery and Communication

28. Futures Literacy in PracticeLevel 1 futures literacyTemporal awareness, values, expectationsLevel 2 futures literacyRigorous imaginingLevel 3 futures literacyStrategic scenarios

29. Anticipatory Methods: Context Makes a DifferenceComplexExplorationOptimization(chess game)SimpleOpenClosedAligning Anticipatory Contexts and Systems: Embracing Complexity – Use Futures Literacy

30. 2. The Learning Intensive Society Scenario – A Level 2 ModelSocietyTechnologyEconomyGovernanceScale of the change:Incremental radicalism transforms everyday life

31. Within one or two generations

32. Disrupts most institutions

33. Alters culture & valuesAttributes of the model:Descriptive variablesNot limited by how it is doneNot causalNot pathImagining possibilities

34. AgricultureHouseholdCraft/CreativeIndustrial(goods & services,public & private)Compositional TransformationShare of total wealth creation by sourceAgriculturalSocietyIndustrial SocietyLearningIntensive

35. Learning in every day life is more intense if, in daily life, over a lifetime, people generate (flow) and accumulate (stock) more:know-howknow-whoknow-whatknow-why

36. Greater Learning Intensity of Daily LifeAverage intensity of know-whoAverage intensity of know-whatAverage intensity of know-howAverage intensity of know-why (decision making capacity)Agricultural SocietyIndustrial SocietyLearning SocietySource: Riel Miller, XperidoX Futures Consulting; rielm@yahoo.com

37. Moving to the Micro-Level: Complex societal evolutionEconomic SocialGovernancePhoto credit: Mark Schacter, www.luxetveritas.ca

38. Systemic Economic Transformation: Changes What and How We ProduceUnique creation – what is value?How do we organize value creation?Predominant type of economic activityScope of transaction systems“Next stage” of market economy – beyond mass-production and mass-consumption

39. Creating wealth – changing sources of value-addedUnique creationArtist/researcher/learnerOrganisation of Value AddedEmpoweredteam-worker, informedshopperMass-productionMass-eraworkerand consumerRelationship of actor(s) to objectLow learning intensityHigh learning intensityBeyond the dualism of supply & demand

40. Teasing the Imagination:Tools for Unique Creation

44. First car produced using a “desk-top factory”

45. Industrial EraSequential Production, Consumption, Resource Deployment Process

48. MurmurationStarlings Flying in a FlockImagine Clouds of Unique Creation Flows of Collaboration and ExperienceLocal and Global, Multiple Dynamic Communities - Heterarchical

49. Social dynamismDescribing Social Dimensions of the LISAttributes of identity:

50. sources

51. structure

52. dynamics

53. Patterns of social status - affiliation

54. Ecology of culture - capacity to be freeTowards greater heterogeneity

55. Identity & choiceHetero-geneous/smallLearning Intensive SocietyScale of social affiliation/identityMass-eraHomo-geneous /largeDecisions - what, where, when, with whom, howLess choiceMore choiceBeyond individual vscollective: banal creativity

56. Describing Governance Dimensions of the LISDynamic GovernanceCapacity to make & implement decisions in all areas of activityQuality of decision making:Extent to which best information is usedTransparency of the networkExtent of opportunties to experimentKnowing how to learnTowards greater responsibility

57. Governance: capacity to make decisionsLearning Intensive SocietyExtensive & unifiedTransparency & access to informationMass-eraLimited & fragmentedExperimentation & learningLimitedContinuousCapacity for reframing and sense making: spontaneity

58. Different contexts and times?Regime 1 (Agriculture)A changing context for knowledge creationGreater freedom and ambiguity - spontaneityLess manageable – less clarity of goalRegime 3 (Learning society)Regime 2 (Industrial)More manageable – more clarity of goalMore reflexivityLess reflexivityNew conditions for education leadership and practice

59. 1 – More university graduates does not increase wealth nor lead to “greater competitive” advantageWhy? Three sets of changes:A. The preponderant source of wealth is no longer industrial (tangible or intangible).B. The primary source of productivity increases is learning by doing, i.e. experience that allows for refinement of taste (self-knowledge)C. Unique creation is local, ideas are global and tangibles are cheap

61. 2 – Reducing classroom schooling helps to avoid fundamentalismFunctions of Industrial SchoolCustody: keeping pupils safe and secure (99%)Behaviouralrules: instilling punctuality, obedience, respect for hierarchy (95%)Cognitive development:literacy, numeracy, test scores (?)Socialisation: internalisation of specific values towards civic life (?)Screening and sorting: reproduces (legitimately) socio-economic differences (95%)

62. Knowledge Creation and Destruction: Remembering, forgetting and inventingCover it allDiscovery(flow)Living knowledge(stock)Public sectorPrivate sectorNet newPreservationNon-institutionalNet newPreservationSource: Etienne Wegner

63. 3 – The wealthiest societies have the highest average ageThe productivity of unique creation and the quality of decision making capacity both increase, all other things being equal, with experience and better information – this is the wisdom economy – the know why society.

64. Transformation“Society is now at a stage in history in which one pulse is ending and another beginning. The immense destruction that a new pulse signals is both frightening and creative. It raises fundamental questions about transformation. The only way to approach such a period, in which uncertainty is very large and one cannot predict what the future holds, is not to predict, but to experiment and act inventively and exuberantly via diverse adventures in living.”C.S. “Buzz” Hollings, “Coping with Transformational Change”, Options, IIASA, Summer 2010

66. A time for method and methods for our timeWhy futures literacy now? Because a futures literate society can use:diversification, imagination and inter-dependency to embrace spontaneity, experimentation & complexity

67. without being overwhelmed by

68. fear of the risks (perception)

69. failure (reality of risk)

70. in order to inspire aspirations consistent with a world where means are ends (values in practice)How we anticipate matters – it changes the presentThank yourielm@yahoo.comImage: Sempe