Holistic and Integral Education

Declaration of Educational Goals: Foresight

MCEETYA are seeking input on the new National Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians for the next decade. See previous post.

• critical and cross-disciplinary thinking
• values of resilience and ingenuity
• thinking flexibly and creatively
• innovation and problem solving
• multi-disciplinary capabilities
• engaging with new subject disciplines

However this does not highlight enough the need for futures thinking, skills and tools. It is not enough to be able to cope with change and solve problems - although these are very necessary skills.

We need young Australians who can create their preferred futures, who have skills in problem prevention and social foresight, and who have the optimism for the future that comes with the empowerment these capabilities bring.

We need to be able to predict the consequences of our personal and collective actions rather than react to global challenges decades after they were caused - particularly with some of far-reaching applications of today's new bio/nano/gene technologies. We need young Australians who question underpinning assumptions and worldviews before they engage in a search for solutions.

Futures studies or social foresight has appeared regularly over the last few decades in educational discourse but is often overwhelmed by more immediate concerns and priorities. We need to think more creatively about how we can include the skills and tools of social foresight in education. Our successful future depends on it - locally and globally.

As far as the draft document goes perhaps an immediate improvement would be to include problem prevention with problem solving, foresight with resilience, and questioning assumptions and worldviews with critical thinking.

We certainly need "successful learners" who "have the capacity to make sense of their world and think about how things became the way they are" but perhaps we also need to add "and can create preferred futures".

See also World Futures Studies Federation and the WFSF Teaching Commons Resources

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Labels: 21stCentury, curriculum, futures

posted by Roger Stack @ 7:05 AM 0 comments

Doing IT Differently - H: What's Missing?

What will be different at HC in 2008?

H: What's Missing?

In this series I've focused on changes in the Computing learning area. Of course there are also new initiatives in other learning areas and I hope to write about some of those over the next few weeks.

In the last post of this series I'd like to touch on a couple of things I think are still missing if we are to engage all learners in education that leads to purposeful futures.


The first is Social Foresight or Futures Studies. We need to empower students with the knowledge and tools to be able to predict likely futures and create preferred futures - both personal and societal. However we have done little in this area and it has not been a priority in current course development work. This must change.

In the Computing area there are several avenues for exploring possible and preferred futures:

• Robotics
• Artificial Intelligence
• Technological solutions for current local and global challenges

The emerging field of Integral Futures might provide a way for students to use 4 Quadrant Integral Theory as a framework (see F: Conceptual Frameworks) to map possibilities.

The second is Spirituality. Spirituality is recognised in state and national educational policy but progress in this area has been slow until recently. We need to look for opportunities to address:

• students' sense of deeper meaning, connectedness, purpose and place
• spiritual literacy and spiritual expression
• inspiration and wisdom
• mindfulness and stillness

Above Maslow's need for self-actualization is the need for self-transcendence - a need to be of service to humanity and the planet. Today's global challenges provide many opportunities for expression at this level.

Previous: G: Blended Learning

Labels: futures, learning, spirituality, teaching

posted by Roger Stack @ 7:21 AM 4 comments