futures thinking
"the way we solve problems is first by thinking about what problems we should solve"
Today I wrapped up my involvement with the Future of Canada programme.
About the Programme
The Future of Canada programme first debuted as a pilot programme at McMaster University. It was a three year pilot programme that supported 14 research projects, seven Future fellows, and an “Imagining Canada in 2080” forum. For context, I was not involved with this.
Over the past few weeks, I was supporting high school students in a Future of Canada pilot programme with Shad Canada and the Maple League of Universities. This one-month programme was targeted for Canadian high school students.
The aim of the programme was to encourage students to imagine what Canada would look like in 2040. Students were assigned to teams to focus on a specific topic of the future, with themes including the future of brain health, research, and work. The final deliverable was to create and present an artifact from that future.
The tools taught throughout the programme included a blend of systems thinking, futures thinking, and creative exploration.
Background on Systems Thinking and Futures Thinking
For those new to these concepts:
Systems Thinking: Exploring complexity of the world through its relationships and components; emphasizing interconnectedness rather than silos
Futures Thinking: Imagining multiple futures, based on current trends and predicting uncertainties; moving beyond what we use in our present-day lives
Some ground rules about systems thinking and futures thinking:
“Future” is not singular, it is plural: there are multiple futures
“What if” is the question that opens inquiry
Power dynamics, tensions, and stakeholders involved are important considerations
When we ask students, “what do you think the future will look like?”, the answers are cynical and dreadful. We are going to become more dependent on technology. AI is going to replace most of our jobs. We are going to have less human connection.
When we ask students, “what do you want the future to look like?”, the answers are optimistic and hopeful. The world will be more peaceful than it is now. We will be more eco-friendly. We will be more welcoming (as a country).
In the context of this programme, the objective wasn’t merely to ask students what they think the future will look like. It was also to invite critical thinking of these futures, encouraging them to think about the future they want to (or not want to) live in.
Systems Thinking and Futures Thinking as a Pedagogy
Pedagogy is the the art and science of teaching, and teaching methods. Pedagogy at its basics asks, how do we transfer knowledge?
The components that influence the transfer of knowledge include:
Teachers1
the tools they use
the strategies they adopt
the judgments they exercise
Students
the student’s needs
the student’s interests
the student’s backgrounds
Systems thinking and Futures thinking are concerned with complexity and ambiguity. It’s not necessarily about transferring knowledge. It’s more a methodology and form of critical thinking. It invites learners to see facts beyond their words and understand where that knowledge fits in with our existing knowledge.
The aims of systems thinking and futures thinking will become more important in early education. Complexity is experienced everyday in life, shouldn’t we have the language and vocabulary to describe it? We have language, theories, and vocabulary to describe many other human and non-human events (ex: anatomy, society, nature, etc.); but what about complexity?
Most importantly, systems thinking and futures thinking places ambiguity as the outcome, not a variable that should be eliminated. The aim is to engage with the process of thinking of systems and futures, not to arrive at a specific destination.
With, or for, young people?
The questions asked to the students about their artifacts were often the most simple:2
Is this a hopeful future for you?
Is this something you would enjoy?
Is this a future you would want to live in?
This programme emphasized to me that Futures Thinking is not merely an intellectual exercise for young people.
Young people are given more reasons every day to feel cynical about the world (starting with, loneliness epidemic, worst job market, climate anxiety, etc). The events and information create feelings of despair, helplessness, and inevitability about the future.
Instead, young people should be proactive, critical, and resistant. This programme is one step, in one local place, of aiming to shift the mentality of young people from passively accepting sentiments of, “this is what your future is going to look like”, to critically asking, “is this the future I want to live in?”. The hope is that then that criticism becomes, “what can I do about this?”
To me, working with young people is more than about “inspiring young minds”. More organizations and authorities should be involved in the investment of young people. The tools and services I use today was once an imagination of a future.
If humans are the ones behind many creations of the world of today, we must also accept the other universal truth, that these humans were all also once young people. Not everyone has the opportunity to grow old and participate in our future, but we all experience being young. The future belongs to today’s youth.
Others using Futures Thinking
The first result in a search of Futures Thinking is the UK Government’s Futures Thinking and foresight website. It was created by Professor Dame Angela McLean, the Government Chief Scientific Adviser.
The site is a written guide to introduce readers to the role of Futures Thinking in government policy. It has several sections on why Futures Thinking is important, where to start, and resources for people to engage with this topic further.
The first words of the site open with:
Citizens rightly expect government policy that creates long-term benefits for society that stand the test of time. To create such policies, we need to consider what is changing as well as the present context. The future is inherently uncertain. The past few years have shown us just how quickly the world can change.
Futures thinking and foresight tools provide us with a structured and robust approach to thinking about different possible scenarios. They help us monitor emerging trends, issues, possibilities and uncertainties to understand what is changing and explore what this might mean for our futures. Having this information is key to knowing what we need to do now to be resilient to a range of possible futures, and to make the most of opportunities.
(Emphasis and italics added).
OCAD University in Canada (Ontario College of Art & Design University) offers a Master’s programme in Strategic Foresight and Innovation. I’ve known a few people who have gone through the programme, many of whom I’ve had the fortunate opportunity to work with.
Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford hosts a systems thinking competition called Map the System3. While many competitions often focus on how well students can position themselves (and their creations) as solutions to pressing problems, Map the System rewards student teams for how well they can map the complexity of a problem. It counters the intuitive nature of people to jump to creating a solution, and instead sit in the messy complexity and ambiguity and wickedness of the problem they choose to focus on.
More related reading and resources:
Digital Public Square asks, what is the future of the public square?
The Rise of Play Among Youth Culture - Grownkid
What 81,000 people want from AI - Anthropic
This is day 7 of 30 essays in 30 days. Subscribe to receive new essays published every day.
Teacher does not necessarily have to be a human. As this is an entire programme and essay on futures, we had many discussions about how in the future, teachers may not be human.
Some of my other favourite questions include, “if we didn’t have teachers anymore (because of AI), what would you miss the most about not having a teacher?”, “you mention that social interaction is an important part of the future of brain health, can you tell me how you came to that realization?”, and “how will AI make a better workplace for us?”