The PDF version of this newsletter can be downloaded from here.
Prepare students for tomorrow. Teach the future today!
We believe that young people of any age can learn to think critically and creatively about the future and develop the agency to influence it. The Teach the Future community is dedicated to bringing futures thinking to schools, educators and students around the world. Here's our latest update!
VACANCY: SOCIAL MEDIA ENTHUSIAST
Teach the Future is growing and therefore we are looking for a volunteer to help share our mission and grow our network via Teach the Future's social media channels. Are you the content creator we are looking for? Or do you know someone who might fit the profile? Download the vacancy here. We are looking forward to your application!
NEWS FROM OUR WORLD WIDE HUBS
BRAZIL: helping high school students to design their lives
DPV (Life Project Design) is a program of 10 modules, aimed at young people in high school, which provides methodologies from Gaia Education, Transition Network and now also TTF.
The objective of this program is to complement conventional training of schools with methodologies that are holistic and provide an integral formation of ‘being’. In the program youngsters develop a life project to become aware of their roles and actions in the world. Wellington Porto, a teacher of TTF Brazil, facilitated the 10th module for 45 students of private schools in Sao Paulo.
The module was designed to be face-to-face, but went online due to COVID-19 restrictions. Wellington presented the concept of Futures Thinking, the future of work and facilitated some activities from the Future Thinking Playbook.
“I leave this session relieved because I feel that I don't need to choose a profession that is forever, as 80% of the professions will no longer exist in 2030 as they exist today. I can build my own path.” - Renan, 14 years old
GERMANY: New playbook translation
The Futures Thinking Playbook is available in German. Thanks to Pero Micic, a TTF board member and owner of FutureManagementGroup, for organizing this!
Buy it here on Amazon
TURKEY
We’ve made new friends in Turkey and are now collaborating with the GEN Futures Generation School in Istanbul.
Peter Bishop provided an introduction to futures thinking for GEN to kick off the new partnership.
Teacher training will start this Fall and classes for 5th to 9th grade in Spring 2021.
SOUTH AFRICA
Next to training teachers, our South African hub has also started to offer Futures Fundamentals training to professionals, managers, business owners, and entrepreneurs. You will learn the tools and techniques of Strategic Foresight in six sessions spread out over three weeks from the comfort of your home or office. The online training starts on October 26. More information and sign up.
GREECE: Teacher Testimonial
Read the moving experience of Amalia Georgelou, an English as a Second Language Teacher who has created a Dyslexia Friendly English Learning School, in Patras, Greece. She shows us another way of looking at education and pupils getting 'labeled' because of their dyslexia. Integrating futures thinking skills into her classroom helped her in her mission. Check the full story and get inspired!
EVENTS
FUTURES FESTIVAL
On October 24th you can join the online APF Futures Festival for free! In collaboration with global learning platform #NextGenEdu we will organise a youth panel during this festival. We live in an 'adultocracy' where adults are considered the only ones mature enough to think about the future and make decisions about it. Why not include young people and kids in these conversations and forums? It’s their future too! The panel will consist of young voices from diverse countries, backgrounds and profiles. It provides a great opportunity to listen to youngsters talking about their visions of the future and about their ideas for including them in the decision making processes.
The amazing panelists are: Anushka Quadir (15) from Bangladesh, Teteus Bionic (14) from Brazil, Arlynn Veldink (12) from The Netherlands and Andrés Castellanos (12) from Colombia. Here are the hours for some time zones for the panel "How do young people of today imagine tomorrow? Their voice matters."
4:15pm - 5:15pm (Netherlands). // 8:15pm - 9:15pm (Bangladesh) // 11:15am - 12:15pm (Brazil) // 9:15am - 10:15am (Colombia)
Get your free ticket now and tune in on October 24th!
UNESCO FUTURES LITERACY SUMMIT
Mark your calendars, from 8 to 12 December 2020, the High-Level Futures Literacy Summit will be held by Unesco. It will provide testimonials from around the world that being futures literate changes what people see and do. From high ranking leaders in the public and private sector to activists, artists, students and professors, the Summit will show how people become futures literate and the impact it has on all aspects of life, from dealing with COVID-19 to breaking the reproduction of oppression.
So save the date and keep updated!
COLLABORATE 2020 The APF organised an online conference: Collaborate 2020. The closing keynote is done by Peter Bishop on foresight as a societal competence. Watch it now!
PROJECTS
SUMMER INTERNS
As Teach the Future is expanding as an organisation we welcomed four interns this Summer to help us with (re)structuring our internal organisation and network.
TTF partnered with Golden Gate University’s (GGU) Industrial Organizational (I-O) Psychology Department when we took on Alanna Barnes, Katrin Eyjólfsdóttir, Kristy Radachowsky, and Lisa Giuliani as interns. They learned about Teach the Future from their Strategic Thinking course taught by Lori Silverman. These 4 ladies then became our organizational development consultant interns. They were welcomed to observe our team meetings via Zoom, our team communication via Slack and provide feedback, analyze and create tools.
It was a great success and we learned a lot from each other. Their university supervisor appreciated their work too, they all got an A+! You can find a short movie, blogs and results of their internship on their Internal Consulting webpage. Lisa has stuck around and is still active for TTF. Make sure to read her personal profile at the end of this newsletter. Want to apply for an internship at TTF? Drop us a line.
THE FUTURE OF TEACHER-STUDENT RELATIONS
How will the relationship between students and teachers look in the future? What do you think and what do you hope? Share your thoughts with us! Teach the Future is participating in an EU-project related to ‘Teachers of the Future’ based on the topic teacher-student relationship. What are the current developments around this topic (like online learning, media literacy, augmented intelligence, etc.)? What does the teacher of the future need to build a good relationship with its students, with all challenges of the rapidly changing world? We would love to hear from you! For Dutch speakers there's a survey to fill in. For all others: Send us an email answering the questions above or send us your contact details so we can talk to you about this subject. As a thank you we will send you the snapshot scenarios we will develop, designed with your answers in mind, when finished.
INSPIRATION
REPORT
A new report 'Radical Thinking for Equitable Futures, was published recently by Imaginable Futures and IDEO. It explores evidence-based visions of the future of education, based on trends identified today. You can download the full report for free.
BOOK
'How to Future' is a new book by futurists Scott Smith and Madeline Ashby. It claims to be a practical guide for everyday futuring in a complex world. It provides tools and practices that enable better understanding of possible futures and their impacts.
HOW SMALL SCHOOLS SET THE STAGE FOR INNOVATION
Read about new ways educating featuring TTF's Canadian advocator Amanda Dervaitis of Summit Mirco School in Toronto.
"With all the doom and gloom and negative messages from media, futurist thinking is proving to help [young people] develop a more positive outlook and sense of agency,” says Amanda Dervaitis.
RESOURCES
Janine and Zanne of TTF South Africa did a webinar for Systems Innovation, a UK based eLearning and collaborative platform for applying new ideas from systems thinking towards tackling complex challenges. In this 1-hour session, Janine and Zanne share an introduction to the world of future studies. Available resource for everyone who wants to teach futures thinking.
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
LISA GIULIANI
Teach the Future has many advocators worldwide. Let's have a chat with Lisa Giuliani, our former intern and now volunteer. What is your background? My background is in project management with a history of working in public education, private and nonprofit organisations. I'm experienced in organisational development, diversity and inclusion leadership, research and community outreach. I've received my Bachelor of Arts (BA) focused in Psychology from University of California, Berkeley and a Master of Arts (MA) in Industrial Organizational Psychology from Golden Gate University, San Francisco. I'm dedicating my time volunteering as a Crisis Counselor and continue to be actively involved with the Teach the Future Community. What drives you in life? I'm inspired by this quote by Eckhart Tolle:
"When you become comfortable with uncertainty infinite possibilities open up in your life.” Why do you feel teaching the future is important , especially to a young generation? This past semester, Lori Silverman’s class on Strategic Thinking expanded my awareness on the way groups of people, organizations and systems can begin to co-create possibilities and opportunities in their world. I feel that introducing futures thinking to younger generations prepares a generation of conscious leaders to consider the well-being of others, the environment and our global community as a whole.
Thank you for inspiration and dedication Lisa!
Connect with Lisa via LinkedIN.
Thanks for reading!
Please share this newsletter with anyone you feel it is relevant for.
// Are you inspired and do you want to start a Teach the Future hub in your country? Please contact Peter Bishop. // Do you have any news, events or resources to share related to Teach the Future for the next newsletter? Please contact Els Dragt.