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“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
- Alan Kay
The rapid advancement in technology is accelerating the pace of change and widening gaps in meeting the needs of each successive generation of learners. The intensity of changes, coupled with global threats emerging from social, political, cultural, economic, and environmental challenges further heightens the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (known as VUCA, borrowed from the military) of our shared futures.
To effectively navigate our paths in a VUCA world, we must take a proactive stance in anticipating possible changes that can shape the future. Through the process, we can mitigate risks and "shock-proof" the future against adverse impacts and stressors rooted in short-sighted decisions made by private and public sectors today. On a personal level, it provides us with guiding stars to anchor our decisions, give purpose, and serve as a motivation (a void most learners experience today) to foster a sustainable and regenerative future where everyone thrives.
“In dealing with the future, it is far more important to be imaginative than to be right” - Alvin Toffler
Making a shift from a reactive to a proactive role in shaping the future requires us to adopt a futurist mindset. A futurist focuses on developing foresight and scenarios through identifying signals and prevailing trends. Unlike the predictors of the future who seek accuracy, future thinking takes into account evidence and facts to decipher drivers of change and craft narratives that can simulate and depict potential outcomes. This process of thinking into the distant future also helps to reduce personal biases, enabling us to objectively evaluate, imagine, and breakthrough with an open mind.
A futurist is a skillful storyteller who knows how to take a divergent path with stories enriched with details and vivid imagery of our futures. A well-crafted narrative enables us to live the future, while in the present, and prepares us for what it may hold. This mental preparation reduces our shock to threats, such as a global pandemic, and allows us to seize opportunities that might otherwise be missed.
Educating for the future demands that every learner cultivates future-thinking and foresight. It is undoubtedly an area of growth that can propel individuals to actively create and positively influence our personal and collective futures.
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