Speculative futures
When I think about the future, I either think about the endless possibilities for human innovation and improvements in every sector, or I feel sadness about things stagnating because no positive changes are coming about. Taking all of these courses helps me to see the potential we have when we think outside the box, but in my experience in some schools, people fear change and the work that comes with it as well as the unknown. In some ways, the education model has not changed in the past 150 years (Boyce, 2019). Perhaps access to education has improved, but in some ways the focus remains on acquiring information rather than analyzing and thinking about it (Boyce, 2019). Thankfully, improvements in technology have allowed for quicker and easier access to information, but learning to differentiate between good and false information can continue to be a struggle (Heick, n.d.).
When looking to the future, I worry that we will continue to rely on dated teaching methods hidden in new technologies, however, I am hopeful that we will find ways to be creative and shake up the way we teach our students (Dunne & Raby, 2013).
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Dear 2021 Danya,
I am writing you this from 30 years in the future. I’ve been debating for a while whether or not I really should get in touch, but after a lot of thought, I figured it can’t hurt if I’m careful about what I share.
Things have changed as much as you probably would have expected in 30 years. It’s strange to think about the technologies we didn’t have access to back in 2021. It’s also a bit odd to be writing on a computer like I used to as we don’t really communicate this way anymore.
Without being too specific (some surprises are nice), we continued to prioritize time. Ease of communication, access to information online, getting jobs done. Technology was found to be far superior to humans due to our speed and how prone to making mistakes we are. In some ways, this is a blessing as I don’t have to waste time with shopping, cooking, figuring out taxes, getting lost getting places. It also allowed us to make great strides in the fields of medicine and engineering. AI didn’t turn out to be the scary development I had thought it would be. In fact, it’s been extremely helpful to me as a teacher.
We don’t have the same time constraints we had before. AI has facilitated making incredible individual learning plans for all of our students. They are able to individually advance in their learning, allowing us to spend more time on individual needs. Although for a moment there we thought teachers may become redundant, the need for human connection and relationships amongst students themselves and with their teachers proved to be as significant as we always said it was. More than ever before we live in our solitary bubbles and now our focus is on going back to the basics to establish relationships. I remember when we used to cook and do the dishes as a family. We don’t need to cook or clean anymore, so we find new ways to spend time together. I remember knowing getting to know the people working at my grocery store or meeting friendly faces at the post office. We have lost these seemingly insignificant moment of socializing, but we have gained others. However, for some it’s a challenging and lonely place to be.
Despite all of this progress, we still have people around the world who do not have access to our technologies. Not even just across different continents, but within our own cities. Some students have access to incredible learning technologies, individualized learning plans, support systems, AI teaching support, while others are still trying to keep up with the same systems they had access to 30 years ago. Unfortunately, this leaves us with a continually growing gap in education and future prospects for these students.
I wish I had more to share about how things have changed for the better. Perhaps I’m just focused on the changes I had wished to see, but I guess we’ll see where the next 30 years takes us!
Danya
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References
Boyce, P. (2019, August 18). Schools are outdated. It’s time for reform. Foundation for Economic Education. https://fee.org/articles/schools-are-outdated-its-time-for-reform/
Dunne, A., & Raby, F. (2013). Speculative everything: Design, fiction, and social dreaming. The MIT Press.
Heick, T. (n.d.). 10 ways teaching has changed in the last 10 years. Teach Thought. https://www.teachthought.com/the-future-of-learning/teaching-has-changed/