SYMPOSIUM “IS A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE SCIENCE FICTION?” A trans-disciplinary ENIRDELM/CoRk symposium Silesian Botannical Gardens 18-21 July 2012 The future.

SYMPOSIUM “IS A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE SCIENCE FICTION?”

A trans-disciplinary ENIRDELM/CoRk symposium

Silesian Botannical Gardens18-21 July 2012

The future and education: Where do we go from here?

Jón Torfi Jónasson School of Education University of Iceland

[email protected] http://www3.hi.is/~jtj/

Future and education July 2012 JTJ

mailto:[email protected]

The dimensions of the discussion• Education

– Aims. PPF-PastPresentFuture, what needs to be included, the developing aims of education, replacing curriculum concerns with concerns for aims

• The future– The different spheres; Cultural, social, industrial, technical, scientific,

personal– Change, development, grand challenges – Whose task is it to weave the future into education?

• A social system– Of social infrastructures, of systems of education, fragmentation of the

field, the “role of the teacher” dilemma, change within the system: inertia


The dimensions of the discussion

• Action plans– Global, local, school levels; leadership for change: what change?– Merging vision and pragmatism– Radically new infrastructures– Forging ties between formal and non-formal practices


The chapters

• Some questions and perspectives• The Future• Inertia• The dilemma• Education• Action plan, a call for a new infra-structure

Note that the problem we are dealing with is not only a European problem but an issue for education in general


Some questions


What does it mean to think about the future? The future for education?

Whose task is it to think explicitly about the future?Whose task is it to think explicitly about the future and education?

Governments, universities, industry, the schools or nobody in particular? What role should each play? Who has the capacity to do this?

How do we do it?Do we extrapolate from the present? Build scenarios? ...

Some simple questions for the system of education (but the answers are complex)

Why is it difficult to change? What are the impediments to change?


What are the preconditions for “the school” to respond?What kind of professional development must take place? On what basis?

Perspectives


Which perspectives do the discussants adopt in the normal discourse?

What do we look at or focus on within the field of education?Content (science, arts, grand challenges, sustainability, individual or social development), or skills or competenciesMethods, cultures, structures (systems), ...


Where is the focus of the normal discourse?The world of technology?The world of work?The local; the global society?The individual or social welfare?The individual and social potential?The grand challenges?

The system(s) of education – where is the focus of the discourse?Is it possibly completely outdated; a 1950s discourse?


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The past

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Where are we now within education? On balance?


How is the school system addressing the past, the present and the future?


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The past, the present and the future, within education: how should we change our emphasis?


The past

The present

The future

Upper secondary education

Higher education

The future, two issues: first - can we predict or envisage the future?

The simple answer is yes, in very important respects we can and we should be dramatically more preoccupied with it than we are now.

We must rid ourselves of the laissez-fair myth that the future cannot be predicted and therefore we should not think very seriously about it; it is not only both silly and wrong, it is also harmful. But it has been very powerful.

But of course the insistence that we can predict a lot, does not imply that we can predict most things, or even the most important developments.


But is it really possible to predict?

Yes and no, but in important arenas yes; take some examples

All are examples of exponential growth (Albert Bartlett)

I also ask, by the way, who in the “system” are monitoring these changes and suggesting action for education?

I. The development of computer calculating power, viz. Moore’s law, (but not how it may be utilised).

II. The growth of published papers or material in the sciencesIII. Use of mineral deposits, (but not necessarily their price)IV. The increase in the number of students in higher education in Iceland (US, Japan, the

Nordic countries); we know this but not necessarily what they choose.

Most of this is robustly regular, not only over 25 years but probably 125 years and the growth 1970-2010 could have been accurately predicted in most cases.


http://www.albartlett.org/

Staðan tekin


The rate of growth in scientific publication and the decline in coverage provided by Science Citation IndexPeder Olesen Larsen1 and Markus von Ins2 Scientometrics. 2010 September; 84(3): 575–603. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2909426/ Fig. 3. Number of records for nine databases 1907–2007 (semi logarithmic scale)


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2909426/

The rate of growth in scientific publication and the decline in coverage provided by Science Citation IndexPeder Olesen Larsen1 and Markus von Ins2 Scientometrics. 2010 September; 84(3): 575–603. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2909426/

“... whether the growth rate of scientific publication is declining? The answer is that traditional scientific publishing, that is publication in peer-reviewed journals, is still increasing although there are big differences between fields. There are no indications that the growth rate has decreased in the last 50 years. At the same time, publication using new channels, for example conference proceedings, open archives and home pages, is growing fast.”

“A tentative conclusion is that old, well established disciplines including mathematics and physics have had slower growth rates than new disciplines including computer science and engineering sciences but that the overall growth rate for science still has been at least 4.7% per year. However, the new publication channels, conference contributions, open archives and publications available on the net, for example in home pages, must be taken into account and may change this situation.”


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2909426/

Eternal exponetial growth?From Kristín Vala and Harald Sverdrup



Higher education: enrolment in Iceland 1911-1970

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Exponential trend. All Icelandic university students in Iceland and abroad as % of average of 20-24 yr cohorts based on the years 1911-1970


Higher education: enrolment in Iceland 1911-1970-2010

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All Icelandic university students in Iceland and abroad as % of average of 20-24 yr cohorts

Exponential trend. All Icelandic university students in Iceland and abroad as % of average of 20-24 yr cohorts based on the years 1911-1970

Source: Statistics Iceland

The future, two issues: second - What changes should we be concerned

with?

I will now mention 10 important reasons why we must look to the future, more proactively than we tend to do?

Each deserves a serious in depth discussion, but here we only have time just to mention each of them.

Some of these arguments on their own might be deemed to be a sufficient reason for rethinking; but I think all of them taken together present a very powerful case for the re-conceptualization of education.


So why should we, not be content with small steps forward?

I. The formal argument. Many statutes (laws) on education, require the school system to prepare for the future, not just for to-morrow, but also the day after (even if we don’t exactly know how).

II. The ethical dimension. There is a strong indication that social and ethical issues are (largely neglected) long term goals for education.


So why should we, not be content with small steps forward?

III. Global or grand challenges are now considered to call for a total rethink of the funding of research; similarly it calls for a re-evaluation of the educational system for the same purposes.

See e.g. 2009– Lund declaration ; climate change, food and energy security and the ageing society; Sjá einnig titilinn “New worlds – new solutions”. See also 2008, Challenging Europe’s Research: Rationales for the European Research Area (ERA).

IV. The sustainability issue. The (over)use of the worlds resources and the general call for a self sustainable local and global economy and culture. This presents an enormous challenge to the future generations; a host of problems need to be solved.

Self sustainability, use of resources and energy production see e.g. UNESCO’s Teaching and Learning for a Sustainable Future.


http://www.se2009.eu/polopoly_fs/1.8460!menu/standard/file/lund_declaration_final_version_9_july.pdf



http://www.vr.se/download/18.29b9c5ae1268d01cd5c8000631/New_Worlds_New_Solutions_Report.pdf

http://ec.europa.eu/research/era/pdf/eg7-era-rationales-final-report_en.pdf

http://www.unesco.org/education/tlsf/

Why should we?

V. New knowledge. The fast development of scientific and technological knowledge calls for a thorough revision of curriculum in a number of fields but probably more importantly for totally new subjects for study.

We can find fields with doubling time down to 2-5 years but even if it is 10-20 years this is very fast. This should be taken into account and the redesign of the curriculum should be considered.

VI. New technology. Technological development allows for dramatic changes in a whole spectrum of tasks.

In the computer field the doubling time can be around 1-3 years. All kinds of tools for designing, communicating, writing, calculating etc. etc. will be used. Many tasks of today are already obsolete. Assume our students will use these tools; all of them and much more.

“General-purpose computing capacity grew at an annual rate of 58%. The world's capacity for bidirectional telecommunication grew at 28% per year, closely followed by the increase in globally stored information (23%).” Martin Hilbert1* and Priscila López2 2011 Science April 1

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6025/60.full.pdf


http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6025/60.full.pdf

Why should we?

VII. New cultures of connection and communication. The communication technology similarly calls for important changes.

Whether it is the environment afforded by Web 2.0 or Web 3.0 (semantic web) , 4.0 (symbiotic web) we may anticipate important changes. The recent development of GSM, tablets etc. underlines that much of the technology the children use today will soon become obsolete; but some of ours schools still operate as if not even these instruments are there, as normal tools of their lives. The same applies to other levels of education.

VIII. Changes in labour markets. Global changes in the labour market, both cultural and technical within the jobs themselves, but also mobility issues.

Jobs change fast, people move fast within a particular labour market; the situation in many sectors is already very different from what was the case only 10 years ago.

These changes call for a discussion of the role of the education system, not only to respond to the employment market but to have a proactive influence. Education could play an active role rather than the thoroughly passive one it is accustomed to.


Staðan tekin


Why should we?

IX. The demand for new skills for our new economy and culture. This is a discussion that has got furthest but perhaps has made least headway. Now there are easily 20, 25 years since this claim started to emerge (forgetting Dewey in the 1910s). The call was for new skills, but has not had much success until with the new key factors introduced by the notion of key skills or competencies (European Union).

X. Substantial research on education, teaching and schooling affords a lot of suggestions for change to our educational practices.

Thousands of research papers are published on every aspect of educational practice every year. But it is very unclear what impact it has on education; in fact the channels for the interaction between the two are not very wide. But a lot of suggestions for change exist.

But research may sometimes only inspire further research, let it not necessarily control all we do.


Skills that probably should play a central role in our curriculum; not a marginal role as some people think.

• New skills, 21st century skills• http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/publ/pdf/ll-learning/keycomp_en.pdf • http://www.p21.org/ • http://www3.hi.is/~jtj/greinar/JTJ%20DISCUSSION%20PAPER%20May%2031-2010.pdf


The Partnership for 21st Century Skills; from the USA

Somtimes put as:

3 Rs

4 Cs

Core Subjects

Reading, writing, artimetic

Critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, and creativity and innovation

21st century interdisciplinary themes into core subjects

Information, Media and Technology Skills

Learning and Innovation Skills

Life and Career Skills

3. Mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology

4. Digital competence

5. Learning to learn

6. Social and civic competences

7. Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship

8. Cultural awareness and expression

European Framework for Key Competences for Lifelong Learning, suggests these key areas:

1. Communication in the mother tongue

2. Communication in foreign languages

http://www.p21.org/

Education


Rethinking education vis-à-vis the future is needed

But what does rethinking education mean, once we get beyond its most superficial meaning?


Creating a Learning Society, - a society of education for the future.

We must probe the aims of education much more aggressively, and holistically than we normally do and also what the future calls for and discuss what should and might be changed to respond to the prospects more proactively than we have done,

in terms of organization,

content,

methods

values

and the culture of education


New world, new curricular wars


The subjects of the 19th and the 20th centuries

Complete renewal of the existing subjects

New subjects

New tools, new cultures

New skills and key competencies

The fundamental aims of the aims of education must be constantly reassessed

Creating a Learning Society, - a society of education for the future.

We have now indicated, why a new educational perspective should be adopted, and some of the reasons why this may amount to a fairly steep uphill walk.

We must probe the aims of education much more thoroughly than we normally do. The emphasis should be shifted from curriculum to aims.

We must look into the future with a totally different intent and insight than we have become accustomed to (note the various Think tanks).

We must also discuss what type of a learning culture we are developing.

We must discuss openly and critically the inertia inherent in the system and how it moulds it and holds it back.


Inertia


Why inertia? There are a number of important reasons.

We now turn to the more complex but more intriguing plethora of interacting factors that hold back education, rightly or wrongly; note that I am certainly not talking about ill-meaning conspiratorial factors, but mostly implicit genuinely cultural or systemic factors that happen to be in control.

Educational systems evolve notoriously slowly; their history manifests this very clearly; this applies to their form, operation and content.

Traditions and traditional values and often very strong interests keep education in the throes of old time (some see this as the role of education). The traditions are strong and so are the conservative forces which stem from many sources.

They relate to old or traditional values, old content and old ways of doing things and not least entrenched interests. Of course some old values should be cherished, but which?


Why inertia? There are a number of important reasons. Reason no. 1

The general discourse is conservative. A conservative discourse and ideas held by many outside the educational system who naturally control the course of its development.

I am here referring to the views of many parents and politicians; somewhat conservative impetus from industry that the education system serve the economy (yes, but how is that best done ?); teacher education, its content and organisation – related inter alia to the time since a lot of the teaching force graduated; conservative ideas proposed by the university as an institution about the education of young people and generally outdated notions about content and how new techniques, new content and new cultures could permeate education. As an agent in this would also be some well established standardised tests, which volunteer to gracefully take the central stage, marginalising other contenders.



The new ideas that are to replace the old, are sometimes woolly or cloudy, not well moulded and sometimes even vacuous. Some might even not be very good! They may also be inherently very very difficult to implement.

This applies inter alia to some new ideas that were proposed during the 20th century, e.g. applied to discovery or project learning, ideas fostering creativity, arts or moral values; this also applies to some of the 21st century skills programmes which have been proposed repeatedly for the last 20-30 years. This will probably also apply to the new basic factors in the new EC eight key competencies.



The current ideas were once good. One reason why the push to introduce new ideas is somewhat undermined, is that the rationale, the utility and ambition behind the introduction of the current ideas, some time ago, were all convincing and credible, even though it took a long time for them to win their place.

The proponents of some of those ideas may still be operative and still think the ideas they adopted or fought for or introduced stand the test of time. This is partly a problem that may be traced to the older (my) generation but may also influence the judgement of those outstanding young people who did so well with the content and operations of the traditional environment.



Nothing dramatic happens if we don't exchange new ideas for old ones. In fact nothing happens ― yet. This is the fourth reason why it is somewhat cumbersome to secure the place for new ideas replacing old well established and tested ones. (It is relatively safe for the present era not to instigate changes).

The ensuing problems are at least two:a) Young people are not given the opportunity to do a variety of interesting

and valuable things, that new ideas, new skills, new technologies or new cultures might afford them; but of course they will survive nevertheless.

b) The necessary pre-emptive and proactive action required by many of the grand challenges will be undermined.



The stronghold of vested interests. It is especially important for those who want to argue for replacing new with old that one may seriously threaten a variety of vested interests and ideals of those who are already there. This may operate at several levels and perhaps present the most formidable obstacles of all I mention here.

Here we may also introduce a variety of intra-institutional tensions that may stifle change.



Lack of overview and lack of foresight. The sixth reason why new ideas don't emerge is that very few people who are engaged in education have the overview or a wide perspective over all the different, but pressing reasons for change. Very few have the responsibility or opportunity to follow the many quite substantial changes in the social and ethical and technological and cultural environment and speculate about the possible educational implications. The perspective we, in the educational arena, have is often very narrow, far too narrow. Fragmentation of the field of education is one of the most serious problems of education in general.



Standards are conservative. The seventh reason relates to the metrics or indices that are used to indicate standards. These are implicitly very conservative, and the higher the stakes the more so.

They are probably normally proposed and defended by those who have a relatively secure position to defend. They are also well intentioned and ambitious. Thus this is not meant to criticize their genuine ambition to retain a high standard. Standards are much more conservative than most of their proponents realise.



Educational leaders who could take the initiative are preoccupied with other things.

The demands and pressure on the school system are steadily on the increase and thereby the tasks for the leaders at all levels multiply. They cannot, despite their potential interest, take time to immerse themselves into the ideas and development required by the complex task of attending to the future.



The number of actors is formidable. The purely logistic problem of implementation is huge.

In 2010 the 0-15 world population was 1850 million, which means that each cohort was about 115 million. Given that the trend is towards 30 pupils per class that might mean 4 million teachers per cohort, or 50 million teachers for 12 cohorts. Introducing new ideas on a regular basis is a daunting task.

In Europe with 20 pupils per class and 15 cohorts the corresponding numbers would be 720.000 teachers.



Educational research is preoccupied with the present. The tenth reason relates to the relationship of educational practice to research. This is an intriguing situation but very frustrating. On the one hand, enormous amount of potential inspiration from research does not find its way into education. There is no venue. That is a major problem. On the other hand if one gets too preoccupied with research into particular problems one may get stuck with attempting to solve those without moving on. Thus the relationship with research is a major problem; it is an interesting paradox to be dealt with; a paradox because of the high hopes attached to the inspirational and guiding value of research concomitant with its potential conservatism.


Thus I have presented a number of reasons why a prediction involving rather modest but gradual development of education is probably reasonable.

“The teacher as a primary mover” dilemma


A host of studies show that very little change takes place in education if the teacher is not the owner (or at least a co-owner) of the change.

But to what extent is this realistic? The primary task of the teacher is to teach, to educate, to take care of the pupils in light of the context and the current aims of education. This is a very demanding task, which requires expertise and total commitment.

The task of understanding the current and foreseeable developments and mapping those on to the evolving aims of education is also a very challenging task again requiring a lot of expertise and creative realism (if that is possible!). The same goes for channelling educational research sensibly into educational practice.

Thus it seems that there must be an extensive division of labour, even though at every stage it must result in a co-operation between the experts at each level of the operation. There seems to be a need for an operational mechanism to make this happen, over and above current professional development programmes.


Action plan


Leadership for change ...

– Global, local, school levels; leadership for change: but what change? Who decides, on what basis, against which opposition?

– Merging vision and pragmatism• Note Tycak and Cubans, “grammar of schooling”, and their “how

schools change reforms”

– The call for a new infrastructure to enforce the action– Forging ties between formal and non-formal practices


The new infrastructure ...

• Educational future oriented think tanks should be established,

– see e.g. UNESCO’s Rethinking Education

• Leadership for change should be made an institution

• Teacher education should be reformulated to be characterised by organized CPD (continuous professional development) rather than as now, pre-service education + some unsystematic (but of course not pointless) PD

• CPD should be defined as a central part of the professional duties of educational staff ; not as a peripheral addendum

• Forging ties between formal and non-formal practices.Future and education July 2012 JTJ

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-international-agenda/rethinking-education/

Thank you very much

Kærar þakkir


SYMPOSIUM “IS A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE SCIENCE FICTION?” A trans-disciplinary ENIRDELM/CoRk symposium Silesian Botannical Gardens 18-21 July 2012 The future.

Documents

system of education

systems of education

field of education

developing aims of education

inertia future

social development

social welfare

social potential