Are you ready for the future?
Are you ready for any future?
Do you know what it will take to be prepared for any possible future that might
unfold affecting your school district? Do your teachers, principals, community members,
and parents know? Perhaps you have some idea of what the future world—let’s
say in 2028—will be like. After all, this is the world we are currently preparing
our students for, isn’t it?
Most education leaders spend some amount of time thinking about the future and
what their students will need to know and be able to do in order to be successful
in it. But some of our assumptions about that future could be incorrect. We might
prepare students for one kind of future; in fact, they might need preparation for
a different kind of future, perhaps one we hadn’t contemplated. Or, outside forces
beyond our control could create a situation where our fundamental strategies, or
even the system itself, must change in order to work successfully.
Educational leaders must anticipate all of these possibilities and be ready for
any future. Scenario planning—a method that allows leaders to plan strategically
for multiple, plausible futures, based on the Map of Future Forces Affecting Education,
is one way to do just that.
Map of Future Forces Affecting Education
Educators and education leaders of today have a tough job. They face numerous challenges
to reach the important goal of helping all students achieve academic proficiency.
They are hard at work improving school systems in order to reach this goal and should
not be deterred from that focus. But while education leaders are busy implementing
reform, the world at large is changing in unexpected ways.
To help educators become proactive in considering the external forces that could
influence the future of education, the KnowledgeWorks Foundation, together with
the Institute for the Future, created the 2006-2016: Map of Future
Forces Affecting Education. The Map describes “drivers of change” and
“trends” occurring across various impact areas such as Family & Community, Markets,
Institutions, Educators & Learning, and Tools & Practices, and invites us to consider
how these forces will impact our educational system. In addition, the Map offers
educators a set of “hot spots,” or the trends that are most likely to have broad
impacts on education, and “dilemmas,” which are problems that require new strategies
that go beyond “either-or” thinking.
These many drivers of change, trends, hot-spots, and dilemmas can seem overwhelming,
especially when contemplated all at once. But educators who examine these forces
of change one at a time find that some aspect is either currently at play or appears
on the horizon in their own schools and communities. So, how might educators make
better sense of these challenges in their own learning environments? And, how might
education leaders better prepare their schools, districts, state agencies, and other
organizations for these impending trends and challenges?
Learn more about scenario planning.
Read and example article.
Download the process tools.