Collectively Imagining Education Futures

When groups of education system educators, operators and policymakers get together there’s often a challenge of aligning on which future of education we’re talking about. Conversations can quickly spiral into a multiverse of potential, jargon-riddled verbism and policy blah blah. Introverted or zoom constrained participants may not get their visions heard and the boldest or loudest can dominate the conversation.

To prevent that I’ve written this short article as a guide for facilitating a meditative group exercise called Back to the future.

It was the most powerful exercise that I participated in during Education Reimagined’s Fall ‘Learning lab’ cohort in 2021. The 7 Session cohort enabled a group of 60+ education system innovators to align on a shared lexicon that supported us in reimagining education’s role in society.

I frequently share this ‘game’ at conferences, meetups and casual events when I’m trying to bring groups into a shared reality of what future the group is up for designing together. Here’s how it goes.

Back to the future Instructions:

You will have 8 minutes for each step of this exercise (24 minutes total). Set a timer and assign someone from the group to be a timekeeper. Someone should also be a note taker to capture contributions from every participant.

Step 1: Project Out

Envision the future and thoroughly describe what it looks, sounds, and feels like having fully transformed education in the U.S. to be learner-centred.

Rules:

You must speak in the present tense as if this has already happened.

Describe this future as accurately as you can. This is not a hope or a wish, this is a description of what is in place in this future.

Do not yet describe how it has happened.

Focus on tangible things you see, hear, feel, and you know to be true having accomplished the learner-centred vision. You may draw from what you heard learners in the panel say, if helpful.

Example: I see young people active in the community — contributing to businesses, planting community gardens, hosting workshops.

Example: I hear adults regularly learning from and with children.

Step 2: Look Back

Look “back” from your projected future and describe how the “past” (which is actually the present) looks from your envisioned future.

Rules:

You must speak in the past tense. A starting suggestion is beginning sentences with “I remember when…” you can diverge from this as you become more comfortable.

Speak to all aspects, including both the positives and the challenges, that were part of education or communities at the time.

Try to remain as concrete and explicit as possible on aspects like culture, conversations, organizational structures, challenging issues, etc.

Example: I remember when all children took the same standardized tests.

Example: I remember when learning counted only when it was assigned by school.

Step 3: Identify The Questions

Identify and list the questions we had to answer that we couldn’t answer at the beginning (our current time) but we had to answer in order to get to our future.

Be honest and as specific as possible.

The point is to generate questions; you do not need to be able to answer the questions at this time.

Example: How can we fund education to ensure that every child, of all backgrounds and circumstances, has meaningful learning experiences and resources?

Example: How might we capture learning if it’s happening in the community?

Wrapping up:

After your time together you will have surfaced and aligned on:

1. Concrete experiences in your group’s target desired future of education.

2. Specific pain points and challenges that your group encounter in their present-day organisations.

3. Questions that you can begin to answer going forwards

I’ve seen the final set of questions provide the base of enduring inquiry, friendship and collaboration long after a casual brunch or conference.

Taking ideas to reality:

Having run this dozen of times with different groups and being the note taker for most of them I’ve used this ‘collective wisdom’ to inform the design of what I believe to be a large part of the solution at my recent venture City as a School.