High Schools for Futurism:

Nurturing the Next Generation

Arthur B. Shostak, Ph.D.

A variety of unique high schools--novel charter schools, cyber charter schools, and magnet schools--are opening across the United States. New York, for example, now boasts the Bronx High School for Law, Government, and Justice, along with the all-male Urban Assembly Academy for History and Citizenship. Another high school will be run by Amnesty International, and plans are afoot for a school to boost careers in sports. Thanks to growing demand for fresh learning approaches, futurists have a rare opportunity to promote development of high schools specializing in futurism. If we act swiftly, creatively, and with determination, we can help enrich pre-college education as never before.

For many years, futurists have influenced progressive school systems through programs like the Future Problem Solving Program (www.fpsp.org), Future Lab Expo (www.futurelabexpo.com), and the Institute for Global Futures (www.FutureGuru.com). Futurists now might help create entire high schools with futuristics at their very core. These schools would explore futurism, emphasizing the importance of rational, scientific, AND commonsense thinking about the future.

Each learning center would be a smart combination of bricks-and-clicks--a physical site combined with interactive Internet distance learning. They would honor basic high school requirements while tweaking the curriculum so that it relied on lessons based in futurism. Schoolwork would highlight critical thinking, computer modeling, data warehousing and mining, discovery learning, environmental impact assessment, forecasting, social impact assessment, and technological assessment, among other futures features. Youngsters would gain an early appreciation of how these tools can promote national and world well-being. They would also learn about promising career paths in these areas before going off to college.

In the best of all possible worlds, an entire school system--from kindergarten through twelfth grade--would have futurism as its emphasis, and students would progress through curricula strong in ever-more-demanding aspects of the subject. Until this lofty goal is reached, however, it would be wise to CREATE real-world examples of several high schools devoted to futurism and call attention to their pedagogical and career-aiding successes.

Building a Futures Curriculum

Recognizing the unique nature of futuristics from the outset is vital to imagining a futures curriculum. Jeff Krukin, a graduate of a master's degree program in futures studies at the University of Houston, Clear Lake, explains the field as follows: "It is a mixture of art and science, of the quantitative and qualitative, right and left brain, with a dash of heart and soul. This field must not be pigeonholed into a pre-existing category of study. Most importantly, this field seeks to understand how seemingly disparate issues, forces, and disciplines are interwoven. While the scientific method seeks to break what is being measured into increasingly finite units, future studies should do the opposite and study the big picture. The most valuable part of my future studies education was learning to see and seek connections everywhere. This has given me a perspective of the world that I'm not sure I could have learned elsewhere."

A futures curriculum could and should include the following elements.

... Themes to unite Curricula. Every year certain writers and/or themes could help knit the entire student body together as a single community of scholarly concern. Attention DURING one year, for example, could go to the ideas of female writers of science fiction, such as Ursula K. Le Guin, or TO minority writers, such as Walter Mosely, some of whom might be asked to speak at the school in person or via teleconference. Topics could be explored from A to Z, involving nearly every course and learner across THE curricula.

... History. Any futures curriculum STARTS in the study of the past. History cannot be plumbed enough, for to forecast without a solid grasp of history, as some sage once warned, is to sow with cut flowers. Histories commonly overlooked, such as those of African, Asian, and South American civilizations, along with little-told stories of vanquished peoples and under-classes, should be explored for obvious lessons as well as for their intrinsic majesty. Sandra Burchsted, a futurist educator, notes that she has "students approach futures projects as if they were anthropologists from time to time, imagining and sometimes creating artifacts from future cultures."

Here, as with every such subject, the approach should stand on the shoulders of giants--in this instance, ancient classic historians and major commentaries--but also go far beyond. Generous use also should be made of relevant computer simulations, games, virtual visits to long-gone sites, and teleconferences with authorities in distant lands. Youngsters could immerse themselves in the vanished cultures under study by experiencing what is known of the culture's art and music, business, costumes, family life, food, language, religion, sports, and warfare. Special attention should go to assessing ancient methods of "telling" the future, including astrology, legends, magic, mysticism, shamanism, theology, and wizardry.

... Art Appreciation and Participation. Another "must" subject is art, both as a participatory and an informed onlooker activity. Right-brain development by youngsters is of the utmost importance, as creativity, playfulness, resourcefulness, resiliency, and risk taking are assuming unprecedented importance. "Over the next 20 years we will endow ourselves with creative abilities beyond any we have ever known--the creative [play and media] world of children has become manipulable, programmable, and mutable--where our children are already going, we look to follow," says Mark Pesce in The Playful World (Ballantine Books, 2000).

... Brain Research. "I would suggest building a curriculum based upon the emerging understanding of the brain," says futurist Jonathan Peck. "This flies in the face of the current educational policy. A curriculum finely tuned to what has recently been learned about the brain would teach emotional intelligence, lateral thinking, meditation (the Buddhists have spent about 2,000 years learning how the brain works) and a variety of cognitive approaches that can be customized to individual students."

... Cinema's Power. A film series for the entire school--including parents and siblings of enrollees--would be invaluable. Titles to screen as a group and later discuss COULD include such seminal future-oriented films as AI: Artificial Intelligence, Alien, Blade Runner, Brazil, Fahrenheit 451, Futureworld, Metropolis, Outland, Solaris, Things to Come, and 12 Monkeys. Interdisciplinary analysis could spark fresh learning and encourage some students to later create and show their own future-oriented digital films. These, in turn, could be shared with comparable schools around the country and the world with a Cannes-like festival.

... New Spaces. OVER-LOOKED rooms and areas might be turned to unique educational advantage. The school lunchroom, for example, could offer food perfected by NASA for its astronauts. Major food companies could be invited to SHARE recipes that draw on exotic new resources, including anticancer foods. Similarly, any school workshops (auto repair, computer repair, electronics, metal, wood) could feature the latest material and tools. The athletics program could experiment with tomorrow's sports, such as rollerball.

Building hallways could sparkle with student art on futures subjects, along with artwork from the covers of science-fiction magazines and from brilliant illustrators like Jacque Fresco and Roxanne Meadows. The building roof could feature ROOF GARDENS AND solar panels. Rain and soiled water could be recycled and made ready again for human use on site. Edible fish could be raised in on-site tanks, and a greenhouse could contain experiments with plants that could be new food sources.

Once every two years, the school could invite the community to enjoy a futures fair. Modeled on science fairs, the futurist fair would showcase student ideas about tomorrow and include booths that allow leading companies to share their pragmatic but glittering visions of a better future.

... Practicums or Co-ops. As John Dewey explained, learning without doing is not learning at all. Accordingly, every level of local, city, state, regional, and federal government, along with nonprofit and for-profit businesses, might be asked if students could shadow or apprentice with key planners and others whose responsibilities include practical forecasting. High-school seniors with outstanding records might be invited to work at contributing to what Parker Rossman calls the Cosmopedia, a global computer-based information resource available to all (see THE FUTURIST, May-June 2004). Others could assist local nonprofit organizations to develop sophisticated long-term plans, award-winning Web sites, effective futures committees, and other similar aids.

"I'd seek out service organizations like the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts," says educator Burchsted. "Wouldn't a futures merit badge be a cool thing for Scouts to work toward? Plus, this spreads the influence of futuristics outside of the boundaries of school into the greater community. The community benefits from the application of foresight, gains an appreciation for it, and so on. I imagine all kinds of futures-oriented community-service projects coming out of something like this, as aspiring eagle scouts apply futures thinking to their projects."

... Electives. Other subjects important to future-oriented curricula include assessment and evaluation skills, communication, ethics, humanities, logic, mathematics, social sciences, and statistics. Coursing through all subject matters should be an effort to help youngsters explicate their assumptions and uncover everyone else's. As "wannabe" forecasters learn how to understand where they are coming from and how to acknowledge their less-than-obvious biases, beliefs, and judgments, they will minimize the effect these forces can have.

An esoteric elective like "leading scientific controversies" might be helpful in this connection. The course might ask, "What is the sociobiology controversy all about, and why does it matter? Does evidence favor cooperation or competition as the root source of human advancement?" Similarly, students should be offered a starkly honest course about limitations and errors commonly made in serious forecasting. Some questions to explore: "Why was the implosion of the Soviet Union such a surprise? Why do so many stock market forecasts disappoint?" And why is that scorners contend "the best way to know what the future won't be like is to ask a futurist to predict it." Another invaluable topic is the theory and practice of utopianism, including the successes and failures of historic utopias and planned communities.

Courses would be chosen to help youngsters gain age-appropriate skills. Important techniques to learn include chaos and complexity theory, computer modeling, cross-impact analysis, Delphi polling, environmental scanning, collecting and analyzing expert opinion, monitoring, moot hearings, relevance trees, scenarios, science fiction, trend identification, trend extrapolation, technological forecasting, "third generation knowledge management," and visualization.

Electives could include artificial intelligence, biotechnology, conflict resolution, disaster relief, humor and the future, gerontology, mediation, nanotechnology, singularity, sustainability, war and peace, and other topics to which futuristics makes a valuable contribution.

... Student Imagination. Finally, futures schooling SHOULD rely on ideas from youngsters themselves. "A growing national movement is putting students' voices--and their work--front and center in the push to raise expectations and results in schools," observes education writer John Gehring in Education Week (May 2004). "There is a new movement for student empowerment."

Pioneering Futures

Programs Much already exists to undergird this campaign, and we need not reinvent the wheel. Bright ideas and field-proven techniques can be had from a cadre of K-12 educators well known in the futurist community. These pioneering school leaders continue to make headway, adding futuristics to formal curricula they already influence.

A pro-futuristics project could link up with the Generation YES Model, up and going since 1985 in more than 500 schools (www.genyes.org). It starts by listening to students who, for example, may want to help a local nonprofit day-care center add solar panels for hot water, or create a television spot to recruit enrollees and new staff. As part of a future-oriented education, students could learn about the solar industry, actually apprentice with skilled installers, and take courses in creating computer animation for television spots.

Similarly, there is WebQuest, a Web site featuring more than 1,500 activities sorted by subject and grade level (webquest.sdsu.edu). Each activity requires a youngster to draw most or all information from the Internet, thereby promoting creativity and high-order thinking. Typical is the Martian Haiku Quest, a 15-minute Internet-based lesson that asks learners to team up, do research about the history of Mars, write a haiku about Mars and its relationship to Earth, and present it to the class.

High schools throughout the United States already participate in the prestigious Intel Science Talent Search (www.intel.com), which allows students to link science and social issues (a 2004 finalist studied whether chemical compounds in green vegetables and green tea could delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease). Similarly, FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, www.usfirst.org), an international competition run every year since 1989, has teams of youngsters design and build a remote-controlled robot that competes in athletic-type matches. And MedMyst (Medical Mysteries, medmyst.rice.edu), a new online game built and designed with funding from the National Institutes of Health, enables youngsters to play the roles of scientist, historian, and detective. They join a team of elite medical minds to determine the cause of a futuristic plague that has left millions dead and is threatening the collapse of civilization.

The Challenger Center for Space Science Education is completing its testing of what it calls an EdVenture Lab, the next generation of K-12 computer labs (www.challenger.org). It features wireless laptop computers, plasma screens connected to the teacher's computer, a document camera, a digital camera, and several pieces of probe ware (electronic sensors that enable data collection and analysis). The emphasis is on inquiry-based projects that integrate futuristic technology using cooperative student groups. Many may soon be offered across the country, and they could be the launching pad for a strong futures-promoting education curriculum.

Launching a Futurist High School

Getting started is relatively easy. Any reader of this article could have copies sent to local elected school board members, area school planners, superintendents, or principals. Chapters of the World Future Society could take the lead by inviting dedicated volunteers to create a Futures Curriculum Committee. Using focus groups and Internet surveys, the committee would solicit advice from other chapter members, K-12 teachers, school board members, school staffers, and current school students. A special effort could be made to systematically cull the vast literature available for advice.

Attention should also be paid to the possibility of offering cost-effective distance learning and online interactive courses. The many Web sites that focus on funding for intelligent educational initiatives, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (www.gatesfoundations.org) and the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation (www.msdf.org), should also be investigated.

Some fundraising projects could be launched from the very outset. Initiatives COULD seek to raise funds to buy futurist books and cover World Future Society student memberships and subscriptions to THE FUTURIST, Future Survey, and Futures Research Quarterly. Further initiatives COULD cover the costs of enrolling high-school seniors in their local Society chapter and attending the Society's annual meeting. Organizers could raise funds to supply every student and staff member in a school with a laptop computer and DSL access to the Internet.

A further pre-ribbon-cutting project COULD identify places well worth field trips. Some U.S. locales to visit INCLUDE Arcosanti, Paolo Soleri's city UNDER construction near Phoenix; the annual e-government conference in Washington, D.C.; Gallup POLL offices in Washington, D.C.; the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum; and the RAND Institute in Santa Monica, California. Trips outside the United States COULD include the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, European Union headquarters, the Science Center in Osaka, major solar power sites in the Middle East, the Technion in Israel, Icelandic thermal heat plants, tidal power sites, and Dutch wind power installations. While all this CAN be studied via the Internet, person-to-person contact would be INVALUABLE. Summer field trips abroad would help top off an academic year in high style.

The example of successful futures high schools should be leveraged to win development of many other such ventures. A public relations effort could employ an online discussion forum, an interactive Webcast that connects schools to one another worldwide, and a "read-related" feature that links site visitors to related articles in the futures literature. An innovative approach to take note of is the Florida Virtual School, which invites legislatures--those who hold the purse strings--to experience an online course first hand, in order to win their critical support better. Media attention commonly spotlights current public school limitations (shortages of funds, violence, segregation, and friction between local and federal education specialists). One-sided media doom-and-gloom coverage actually distorts reality, as parents continue to express much satisfaction with the education they received and with the school actually attended by their youngsters. This undercurrent of school satisfaction, even if overlooked by the media, helps explain why futurists can take heart as they promote attention to forecasting in the schoolhouse.

Indeed, much encourages optimism in this matter. Many parents, for example, appear open to novel approaches to basic "three R" schooling: Witness the popularity in many major cities of charter schools now operating as African Village cultural counterparts. A future-oriented high school could operate much as if it were a Martian or moon-based or ocean-floor domed colony, or as an interstellar starship.

Additionally, many high schoolers are Net-savvy learners who want to study the future using cutting-edge technologies. These tech-savvy youngsters want educational settings that allow universal wireless access, permit instant messaging, stay open after school hours and on weekends, and offer endless software upgrades. The arcade games and films they watch and re-watch (science fiction leads the pack) attest to a deep interest in scenarios, an interest that agile educators could tweak to PROMOTE learning.

Modernization is another key school component, and in many cases it is already under way. High-school libraries, for example, especially in rural and inner city schools, are increasingly led by cybrarians. Their Internet-connected computers help close the digital divide and open the door to all kinds of new learning activities. Similarly, small wireless keypads linked to a computer enable students in affluent school districts to answer questions from their classroom seats by punching buttons. The results immediately appear on a large screen behind the teacher and/or on a class Web site. The device helps bring the classroom alive, encourages class participation, and enables students to study their own displayed answers in real time.

Another reason for hope is the increasing public recognition of the indispensability of the best possible forecasting. One example should suffice, namely, public outrage about the seeming lack of good advance planning for the U.S. military occupation of post-Saddam Iraq. Accordingly, receptivity to the case we can make for creating futures-oriented high schools is greater than ever. These schools would make it more likely that we will have better advance planners tomorrow.

For far too long, schooling has lacked an emphatic and rewarding focus on the future--its probable, possible, preferable, and preventable aspects. This dereliction of responsibility ignores the sage contention of Harlan Cleveland that futurism should perhaps be everyone's "second profession." Any educational status quo - ESPECIALLY IN OUR HIGH SCHOOLS - that neglects futuristics costs society too much and demands redress.

We futurists have a rare opportunity, a precious opening now, to help meet a very special responsibility OF OURS - sharing futurism in all its empowering aspects with young learners eager to get on with it.

About the Author

Arthur B. Shostak, a retired professor of sociology at Drexel University, serves as THE FUTURIST's contributing editor for utopian thought. His address is 523 Dudley Avenue, Narberth, Pennsylvania 19072. Telephone 1-610-668-2727; e-mail shostaka @ drexel.edu; Web site www.futureshaping.com/shostak or www.cyberunions.net. Among his latest books is Viable Utopian Ideas: Shaping a Finer World (M.E.Sharpe, 2003)