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The future of education The problem of cultivating the unique human capacities required in a world of rapid change. Lars Geer Hammershøj PhD and A ssociate Professor Danish School of Education, Aarhus University. Education and anticipation. Education as anticipation
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The future of educationThe problem of cultivating the unique human capacities required in a world of rapid change Lars Geer Hammershøj PhD and Associate Professor Danish School of Education, Aarhus University
Education and anticipation • Education as anticipation • Preparing for living and working in future society in 10, 20, 40 years • What is important to learn in order to live and work in future society? • In times of rapid change • Rely less on tradition as a anticipatory model • Growing need for future studies • Anticipation as education • Anticipating the future as part of the curriculum • Cultivating capacities of anticipation in times of rapid change • Which capacities should be cultivated when and how? • What is the nature these capacites?
Diagnosis of the times • Diagnosis of the times • Diagnose tendencies in the times • Identify signs of change • Interpret signs aspatterns in and direction of change • Guided by historical analyses of past tendencies • Tradition in sociology and philosophy • Tendencies as individualization and modernization • Kant (1784): Diagnosing Enlightenment • Tendency: People make use of their own reason with guidance • Sign: ”we see clear indications that people are now being opened up to this”
Future studies strategies in sociology • Diagnosis of the times • Diagnosing tendencies • Focus on the processes of changes in the times • Facilitates decision-making: By taking bearings of the times • Sociology of future society • Building scenarios • Focus on the outcome of change • Facilitates decision-making: By drawing attention for the need for action
Accelerating pace of change • Accelerations of the page of change in human history • Introduction of agriculture (10.000 years ago) • Working and planning: The rise of cognitive anticipation • The Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution (18th and 19th century) • Historical consciousness: The future may be different from the past • ‘Crisis consciousness’ (Koselleck 1959): Things cannot continue as they were • The notion of progress and the appearance of the entrepreneur • Today: Times of crisis • Shift from industrial to knowledge society (OECD 1996; Florida 2002) • Climate change: ‘New catastrophism’ (Urry 2016) • The future of work: The Second Machine Age (Brynjolsson & McAfee 2014) • 47% of jobs will disappear in 10-20 years (Frey & Osborne 2013) • Singularity in 2047 (Kurzweil 2014)
Diagnose the accelerating pace of change • Studies of change create change • Not only analyzing, but also creating change • In as much as they become public discourses • Discourses of knowledge society, digitalization, exponential growth etc. • Anticipation begets anticipation • The more we talk about the possiblity of change • The more open the future actually gets • Focus on the nature of change • Only humans can create change • Matter of how we relate to our existing practices and ways of thinking • Diagnose the pace of change today • Look for signs of intensified ‘crisis consciousness’
Future employment • The imminent crisis of future employment • Public debate (signs) • Automation of tasks that use to require humans, including ‘white color’ jobs • Intensifies crisis consciousness: Automation is possible • Academic discussion (analysis) • Advances in artificial intelligence: Go, generative design, expert intuition • Machine learning: Any task can be automated provided data is available • Can machines be creative and innovative? • The nature of creativityand innovation • Combineelements from different domains • Beyond domains in whichrulesapply and data is available • No rules and data to guide and drive the process • Machines needhumans to sense, understand, handle and createchange
Future education: Preparing for change • Capacities to cultivate for the future • To sense change: Crisis consciousness • Expect and be open to change • To understand change: Future studies • Diagnose, forecast and anticipate change • To handle change: Will and judgment • Guide and drive action beyond the boundaries of accustomed practices • To create change: Creativity and innovation • Way of relating: Open for new ways of thinking and doing • Moods of enthusiasm and disturbance: Anticipate that things are different • Fundamental shift in focus • From skills (20th century) to the person’s way of relating (wisdom, ethos, Bildung) • Not abilities, but capacities affective in nature