Riel Miller's Keynote Speech at ESRC Education Futures conference, Open University, 17th May 2011

1. Education Futures: Part of the Solution or Part of the Problem? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Riel Miller EDUCATIONAL FUTURES Leadership and Practice The Open University, Milton Keynes, May 17, 2011 Artist: HeykoStoeber

2. Two Big Changes 1. In the way we think about the world. 2. In the way we organize the world. Fundamental indeterminacy and the creativity of the universe Heterarchy and the Learning Intensive Society murmuration

3. 1. Embracing Complexity: Changing the way we use the future Photo credit: Mark Schacter ©

4. The End of Certainty Mankind is at a turning point, the beginning of a new rationality in which science is no longer identified with certitude and probability with ignorance. … science is no longer limited to idealized and simplified situations but reflects the complexity of the real world, a science that views us and our creativity as part of a fundamental trend present at all levels of nature.Ilya Prigogine, The End of Certainty: Time, Chaos and the New Laws of Nature … we are now able to include probabilities in the formulation of the basic laws of physics. Once this is done, Newtonian determinism fails; the future is no longer determined by the present….

5. The possible is not in the future it is in the past. “We must resign ourselves to the inevitable: it is the real which makes itself possible, and not the possible which becomes real. But the truth is that philosophy has never frankly admitted this continuous creation of unforeseeable novelty.” Henri Bergson, The Creative Mind

6. Caught in the Probabilistic Stance: Probable, Possible, Plausible

9. It changes what we imagine.

10. It changes what we resist.

11. It changes what we preserve.

12. It changes how we preserve what we want to preserve.

14. What is Futures Literacy?

15. Futures Literacy: ambient strategic thinking Futures Literacy is the capacity to tell anticipatory stories using rigorous imagining based on sharing depth of knowledge from across the community. FL is a way of internalizing the constant development of our understanding of the potential of the emergent present and of changing anticipatory assumptions.

16. A. Anticipatory Systems

18. Anticipatory Systems View S : object system M : model of S E : effector system Source: Robert Rosen, Anticipatory Systems: Philosophical, Mathematical, & Methodological Foundations., Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1985. Slide by A. H. Louie, Mathematical Biologist

19. “The main difference between forecasting and scenarios on the one hand, and anticipation on the other, is that the latter is a property of the system, intrinsic to its functioning, while the former are cognitive strategies that a system A develops in order to understand the future of some other system B (of which A may or may not be a component element). … The theory of anticipatory systems can therefore be seen as comprising both first- and third-person information.” Roberto Poli, 2010

20. B. Three dimensions of the potential of the present

21. Contingency futures: a tsunami

22. Contingency futures: winning the lottery

24. Exploratory futures: imagining the potential of the present

26. C. Hybrid Strategic Scenario Method Rigorous imagining – developing analytically rich and imaginative stories of a functioning society as a way to question our assumptions.

27. Futures Literacy: Decision Making CapacityUsing the Future for Knowledge Creation, Discovery and Communication

28. Futures Literacy in Practice Level 1 futures literacy Temporal awareness, values, expectations Level 2 futures literacy Rigorous imagining Level 3 futures literacy Strategic scenarios

29. Anticipatory Methods: Context Makes a Difference Complex Exploration Optimization(chess game) Simple Open Closed Aligning Anticipatory Contexts and Systems: Embracing Complexity – Use Futures Literacy

31. Within one or two generations

32. Disrupts most institutions

33. Alters culture & valuesAttributes of the model: Descriptive variables Not limited by how it is done Not causal Not path Imagining possibilities

34. Agriculture Household Craft/Creative Industrial (goods & services,public & private) Compositional TransformationShare of total wealth creation by source AgriculturalSociety Industrial Society LearningIntensive

35. Learning in every day life is more intense if, in daily life, over a lifetime, people generate (flow) and accumulate (stock) more: know-how know-who know-what know-why

36. Greater Learning Intensity of Daily Life Average intensity of know-who Average intensity of know-what Average intensity of know-how Average intensity of know-why (decision making capacity) Agricultural Society Industrial Society Learning Society Source: Riel Miller, XperidoX Futures Consulting; rielm@yahoo.com

37. Moving to the Micro-Level: Complex societal evolution Economic Social Governance Photo credit: Mark Schacter, www.luxetveritas.ca

38. Systemic Economic Transformation: Changes What and How We Produce Unique creation – what is value? How do we organize value creation? Predominant type of economic activity Scope of transaction systems “Next stage” of market economy – beyond mass-production and mass-consumption

39. Creating wealth – changing sources of value-added Unique creation Artist/researcher/learner Organisation of Value Added Empoweredteam-worker, informedshopper Mass-production Mass-eraworkerand consumer Relationship of actor(s) to object Low learning intensity High learning intensity Beyond the dualism of supply & demand

40. Teasing the Imagination:Tools for Unique Creation

44. First car produced using a “desk-top factory”

45. Industrial Era Sequential Production, Consumption, Resource Deployment Process

48. Murmuration Starlings Flying in a Flock Imagine Clouds of Unique Creation Flows of Collaboration and Experience Local and Global, Multiple Dynamic Communities - Heterarchical

50. sources

51. structure

52. dynamics

53. Patterns of social status - affiliation

54. Ecology of culture - capacity to be freeTowards greater heterogeneity

55. Identity & choice Hetero-geneous/small Learning Intensive Society Scale of social affiliation/identity Mass-era Homo-geneous /large Decisions - what, where, when, with whom, how Less choice More choice Beyond individual vscollective: banal creativity

56. Describing Governance Dimensions of the LIS Dynamic Governance Capacity to make & implement decisions in all areas of activity Quality of decision making: Extent to which best information is used Transparency of the network Extent of opportunties to experiment Knowing how to learn Towards greater responsibility

57. Governance: capacity to make decisions Learning Intensive Society Extensive & unified Transparency & access to information Mass-era Limited & fragmented Experimentation & learning Limited Continuous Capacity for reframing and sense making: spontaneity

58. Different contexts and times? Regime 1 (Agriculture) A changing context for knowledge creation Greater freedom and ambiguity - spontaneity Less manageable – less clarity of goal Regime 3 (Learning society) Regime 2 (Industrial) More manageable – more clarity of goal More reflexivity Less reflexivity New conditions for education leadership and practice

59. 1 – More university graduates does not increase wealth nor lead to “greater competitive” advantage Why? Three sets of changes: A. The preponderant source of wealth is no longer industrial (tangible or intangible). B. The primary source of productivity increases is learning by doing, i.e. experience that allows for refinement of taste (self-knowledge) C. Unique creation is local, ideas are global and tangibles are cheap

61. 2 – Reducing classroom schooling helps to avoid fundamentalism Functions of Industrial School Custody: keeping pupils safe and secure (99%) Behaviouralrules: instilling punctuality, obedience, respect for hierarchy (95%) Cognitive development:literacy, numeracy, test scores (?) Socialisation: internalisation of specific values towards civic life (?) Screening and sorting: reproduces (legitimately) socio-economic differences (95%)

62. Knowledge Creation and Destruction: Remembering, forgetting and inventing Cover it all Discovery (flow) Living knowledge (stock) Public sector Private sector Net new Preservation Non-institutional Net new Preservation Source: Etienne Wegner

63. 3 – The wealthiest societies have the highest average age The productivity of unique creation and the quality of decision making capacity both increase, all other things being equal, with experience and better information – this is the wisdom economy – the know why society.

64. Transformation “Society is now at a stage in history in which one pulse is ending and another beginning. The immense destruction that a new pulse signals is both frightening and creative. It raises fundamental questions about transformation. The only way to approach such a period, in which uncertainty is very large and one cannot predict what the future holds, is not to predict, but to experiment and act inventively and exuberantly via diverse adventures in living.” C.S. “Buzz” Hollings, “Coping with Transformational Change”, Options, IIASA, Summer 2010

67. without being overwhelmed by

68. fear of the risks (perception)

69. failure (reality of risk)