Education Futures: Part of the Solution or Part of the Problem?

Riel Miller, xperidox: futures consulting, 2011
Artist: Heyko Stoeber
Education
Futures:
Part of the
Solution or Part
of the Problem?------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Riel Miller
EDUCATIONAL FUTURES
Leadership and Practice
The Open University,
Milton Keynes, May 17,

Two Big Changes
Fundamental
indeterminacy
and the
creativity of
the universe
Heterarchy and
the Learning
Intensive
Society
murmuration
1. In the way we think about the world.
2. In the way we organize the world.

1. Embracing Complexity:
Changing the way we use the
future
Photo credit: Mark Schacter ©

The End of Certainty
… 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
Mankind 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

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

Caught in the Probabilistic Stance:
Probable, Possible, Plausible

What difference
does it make?
After all everyday life
goes on.
So why bother?
• It changes what we see.
• It changes what we
imagine.
• It changes what we resist.
• It changes what we
preserve.
• It changes how we
preserve what we want to
preserve.
• It changes the conditions
of change.

Then what? If we accept this
ontological starting point – how to make
it practical?
A. Take an anticipatory systems perspective that
encompasses both animate and inanimate
anticipation.
B. 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).
C. Learning processes that use collective
intelligence – action research, reframing, and
narrative capacity to question anticipatory
assumptions – embracing complexity,

What is Futures Literacy?

Futures Literacy:
ambient strategic thinking
Futures 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.

A. Anticipatory Systems

Anticipatory Systems View
S : object system
M : model of S
E : effector system
Source: Robert Rosen, Anticipatory Systems: Philosophical, Mathematical, & Methodological Foundations., Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1985.
Slide by A. H. Louie, Mathematical Biologist

“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.”

B. Three
dimensions
of the
potential of
the present

Contingency futures:
winning the lottery

Optimization Futures:
Chess, Farming, Assembly Line
• Non-complex
goal, known in
advance and
fixed
• Rules are given
in advance and
fixed
• Resources are
given in advance

Exploratory futures:
imagining the potential of the present

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

Futures Literacy: Decision Making Capacity
Using the Future for Knowledge Creation, Discovery and Communication
Narrative
Capacity
Capacity to
Reframe
Collective
Intelligence(interactive sense making)

Futures Literacy in Practice
• Level 1 futures literacy
–Temporal awareness,
values, expectations
–Rigorous imagining
–Strategic scenarios

Anticipatory Methods:
Context Makes a Difference
ExplorationComplex
Simple
Close
d
Ope
n
Optimization
(chess game)
Aligning Anticipatory Contexts and Systems:
Embracing Complexity – Use Futures Literacy

2. The Learning Intensive Society
Scenario – A Level 2 Model
Technology
Economy
Governance
Society
Scale of the change:
• Incremental radicalism transforms
everyday life
• Within one or two generations
• Disrupts most institutions
• Alters culture & values
Attributes of the model:
• Descriptive variables
• Not limited by how it is done
• Not causal
• Not path
• Imagining possibilities

Industrial
(goods & services,
public & private)
Craft/Creative
Household
Agriculture
Agricultura
l
Industrial
Society
Learning
Intensiv
Compositional Transformation
Share of total wealth creation by source

Learning in every day life is more
intense if, in daily life, over a lifetime,
people generate (flow) and accumulate
(stock) more:
– know-how
– know-who
– know-what
– know-why

Greater Learning Intensity of Daily Life
Source: Riel Miller, XperidoX Futures Consulting; rielm@yahoo.com
Average
intensity of
know-what
Average
intensity of
know-how
Average
intensity of
know-who
Average intensity of
know-why (decision
making capacity)
Agricultural Society Industrial Society Learning Society

Moving to the Micro-Level:
Complex societal evolution
• Economic
• Social
• Governanc
e
Photo credit: Mark Schacter, www.luxetveritas.ca

Systemic Economic Transformation:
Changes What and How We Produce
“Next stage” of market economy –
beyond mass-production and mass-
consumption
• Unique creation – what is value?
• How do we organize value
creation?
• Predominant type of economic
activity
• Scope of transaction systems

Unique
creation
Low
learning
intensity
High
learning
intensity
Mass-
production
Creating wealth – changing sources of value-added
Mass-era worker
and consumer
Empowered
team-worker,
informed
shopper
Artist/resear
cher/learner
Beyond the dualism of supply & demand

Teasing the Imagination:
Tools for Unique Creation

First car
produced
using a
“desk-top
factory”

Industrial Era
Sequential Production, Consumption,
Resource Deployment Process
Supply Demand Allocation Supply Demand Allocation
Repeat
cycle

Conception
Management
Execution

Starlings Flying in a Flock
Imagine Clouds of Unique Creation
Flows of Collaboration and Experience
Local and Global, Multiple Dynamic
Communities - Heterarchical
Murmuration

Describing Social
Dimensions of the LIS
• Attributes of identity:
– sources
– structure
– dynamics
• Patterns of social status -
affiliation
• Ecology of culture - capacity
to be free
Social
dynamism
Towards greater heterogeneity

Hetero-
geneous/small
Homo-
geneous /large
Decisions - what,
where, when,
with whom, how
Less
choice
More
choice
Scale of
social
affiliation/i
dentity
Identity & choice
Mass-era
Learning
Intensive
Society
Beyond individual vs collective: banal

Describing
Governance
Dimensions of the LIS
Capacity to make &
implement decisions in all
areas of activity
Quality of decision making:
• Extent to which best
information is used
• Transparency of the network
• Extent of opportunties to
experiment
• Knowing how to learn
Dynamic
Governance
Towards greater responsibility

Governance: capacity to make
decisions
Experimentation &
learning
Transparency &
access to
information
Limited &
fragmented
Extensive
& unified
Mass-era
Learning
Intensive
Society
Limited Continuous
Capacity for reframing and sense making:

Less
manageable
– less clarity
of goal
More reflexivity
More
manageable
– more
clarity of
goal
Less reflexivity
Greater
freedom and
ambiguity -
spontaneity
Regime 1
(Agriculture)
Regime 2
(Industrial)
Regime 3
(Learning society)
A changing context for knowledge
creation
New conditions for education leadership and
Different contexts and times?

1 – More university graduates does not
increase wealth nor lead to “greater
competitive” advantage
Why? 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

Changing Composition of Output
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040
Time
PercentageShare
Industrial products Innovation (S&T/R&D)
Personal products Creativity (Refinement of taste)

2 – Reducing classroom schooling
helps to avoid fundamentalism
Functions of Industrial School
• Custody: keeping pupils safe and secure (99%)
• Behavioural rules: 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%)

Knowledge Creation and Destruction:
Remembering, forgetting and inventing
Living knowledge
(stock)
Discovery
(flow)
Public sector
Preservation Net
new
Private sector
Preservation Net
new
Cover it all
Non-institutional
Source: Etienne Wegner

3 – The wealthiest societies
have the highest average age
The 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.

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

A time for method and
methods for our time
Why futures literacy now? Because a
futures literate society can use:
– diversification, imagination and inter-
dependency
to
• embrace spontaneity, experimentation &
complexity
• without being overwhelmed by
– fear of the risks (perception)
– failure (reality of risk)
• in order to inspire aspirations consistent

Thank you
rielm@yahoo.com
Image: Sempe
How we anticipate matters –
it changes the present

Education Futures: Part of the Solution or Part of the Problem?

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