Discussion Point 2: What would ‘futures literate’ learners and educators be like?

• What attributes would they have?
I would suggest that the greatest present obstacle ‘futures literate’ students need to overcome is dispositional: at the moment most students are simply not interested in most of what they do at school – and when they are, those interests are mostly extrinsic and expedient (competing for praise and grades, or avoiding getting into trouble).They simply cannot see the direct link between what they are asked to do and their desired futures – especially as those futures are increasingly understood as ones where the acquisition of pre-existing knowledge will not guarantee employment or status. The attributes they most need, then, are intrinsic motivation, the ability to see the relevance of things to them and their worlds, and the willingness and confidence to connect and explore these.

• What sorts of behaviours would they demonstrate?
‘Futures literate’ students (and staff) would be self-directed, while knowing how to cooperate with and draw on support from others. They would negotiate and focus on individual and shared goals. They would demonstrate understanding of what they are doing and why it is relevant and important to them and others. They would be increasingly confident, articulate and secure. They would know and pursue their personal strengths and interests. They would work to bring about change in their environments in line with their personal and shared values.

• What kinds of outcomes and capabilities would they be seeking to develop?
The key capabilities would be what are sometimes called ‘leadership skills’: the abilities to assess information and situations for relevance, share and learn from others’ perspectives, identify the resources available, negotiate and make decisions (either individually or in groups), to act meaningfully and to evaluate the results. Whatever the outcomes of this process are, they should not be as rigid as to prevent the inherent flexibility required for students to arrive at their own solutions, rather than pre-ordained ones; they must have the scope to act in ways that express and develop their uniqueness.

• What contexts would support them (curriculum, pedagogy, assessment)?
The curriculum, pedagogy and assessment would have to be individualised and constantly negotiated, agreed and reviewed by learners in partnership with educators. Educational outcomes would be much more individualised and ‘portfolio-like’; ultimately qualitative, not quantitative.

• What existing research and practice might exemplify this?
The Aspire project has thrown up interesting examples of the effect of opening spaces for students and teachers to get in touch with their intrinsic motivation and shared values, such as when working in partnership on ideas for school improvement. My current research into leadership education for teenagers has shown the power of creating spaces for students to approach open-ended activities in ways which reflect their abilities and values, to agree on and reflectively work towards joint tasks, and to reflect on the links between their own wider aims and their current activities and ways of working.

• What changes to existing practice would this require?
Lots. Start by ripping out classroom walls and basing schooling round students’ individual work-stations; surround them with break-out rooms for group work and larger, lecture and seminar-style learning when appropriate. Make the educators peripatetic, not the students.
• What new research might help us to develop this?
A mixture of two approaches: first, working with radical, small-scale educational projects that allow some of these affordances; secondly, look at how elements of these sorts of approaches can be incorporated, even if only briefly, into mainstream education environments, and try to demonstrate the advantages. This is largely what we’re already doing.

Rupert Higham