I believe Long term planning to be thoughtful art. The first thought to come to mind is long term mindfulness in the world of politics. How often do you get the sense that politicians plan ahead for the betterment of society beyond three, six, or dare I say a generation of terms? My second thought on the matter turns to the long term mindfulness within public/private education. How often do you get the sense that education is planning for needs of its students beyond 6, 12, 24 or more years? The third thought that occurred to me is how often as father of two boys (age 14 and 11) do I plan ahead for their well being 30 years from now, their children’s welling being 60 years from now, and their grandchildren’s best interests 90 years from now? Well, I do strive to meet the first part of that generational goal. In the fast moving word of rapid technology growth and global interconnectedness it is quite easy keep one’s focus on the here and a little past now, with not much more that passing glance to the far future.
Ari Wallach gives a TEDx talk on the topic of “3 ways to plan for the (very) long term.” As of October of 2018, Mr. Wallach’s TEDx video featuring the theory of “Longpath” has be viewed over two million times. Wallach is a self proclaimed futurist who believes in taking a thoughtful approach to long, and very long term planning for our future. I believe there is value in applying Wallach’s Longpath theory to the realms of education, educational technology and professional learning and development.
The first tenet of Lonpath is the process of transgenerational thinking. Wallach describes transgenerational thinking timescale as being well beyond the birth to death considerations of most people. So the idea would be to get the best ideas to the next few generations beyond our own. Parents do this with quality child rearing that ultimately results in new adults who when parents themselves continue quality child rearing. Teachers strive to achieve monogenerational thinking with impactful teaching practices that inspire students to reach greater achievements then they ever felt was possible. However, transgenerational thinking in public education system has been elusive given the demands of the state mandated testing phase that has dominated the thinking energy for the past 15 or so years.
However, over the past four years I see education moving into the world of differentiation that has been made possible with technology and 1:1 systems. The differentiated model is now leading to schools capable of providing students with internships, apprenticeships, dual enrollments with colleges, and custom course sequences opportunities. Furthermore students are now getting more options for proving their learning, and in turn the students are creating personally meaningful digital artifacts they can store in a cloud supported portfolio. This paradigm shift in education moves the focus from school performance scores to a student centric vision that aims to provide students with the experience necessary to be employable in a society that hasn't developed their jobs yet. In this way, I believe education is now trending in the direction of transgenerational thinking.
The second principle in Wallach’s Longpath theory is called Futures Thinking. Wallach describes Futures Thinking as looking beyond the limit of a single future and towards the grander idea of multiple futures. Imagine a society solely focused on the next batch of high powered cell phones to be released in quarter four of the year. Where would that single lens approach meet the diverse needs of society? Rather, consider what if the excitement broadens to consider the usefulness of new technology in enabling us to create in new and empowering ways. Perhaps we could then consider the social impact of new applications of technology, how to equalize access to quality internet connections, how to prepare for future needs of electricity, and how ensure enough access to healthy food and water for a global population quickly approaching 8 billion.
When it comes to professional development much of past four years have been focused on learning to operate a learning management system, and moving away from Microsoft and towards Google Apps for Education, only recently to reintroduce Office 365. Professional development at my school took an unexpected turn for the good with the reorganization of the school day to embed a 30 minute time slot for professional learning communities and professional development to occur as needed on a daily basis. The PD slot has now enabled teacher groups to form by design for grade level meetings and naturally for flipped, blended, and self paced learning. Other groups organically formed to work on thoughtful uses of 1:1 technology, using Flip Grid and Skype to network outside of the school building, and to bring the Agriculture Science and the Science departments together to coordinate student projects and competitions. Through the daily professional development time at Greenwood, I am fortunate to experience Futures Thinking theory in action.
Wallach’s third principal of Longpath considers the future based impact of Telos Thinking. Telos Thinking was established by Greek philosophers to consider the question, “to what end?” Thinking through the logical progression of outcome based events for long periods of time is difficult. However, it is exactly that idea that Telos Thinking invokes as one attempts to clearly consider the goals and effects of long term thinking. I can remember from my graduate study in curriculum and instruction learning about Backwards Planning when developing sections, units, courses, and multi-year sequences. The main idea was to think through what you wanted the students know, and be able to do at the end of the sequence before any lesson plans are developed. Once the preferred outcomes were identified then the plan shifted to developing your assessments, next came the practice activities, and lastly the lessons were created. Backwards planning is a Telos Thinking approach engages the teacher in an exercise that reveals the purpose of every decision in class as small steps leading towards the achievement of the end goal.
Long term Telos Thinking can push outcome based considerations beyond generational levels. In this sense Wallach argues that Telos Thinking directly opposes the Short Termism theory of concerning yourself with only the next week, month or year that dominates so much of society. In this regard Wallach believes that Telos Thinking is necessary for maintaining a society that continues to progress in a positive manner.
Let me know how Transgenerational, Futures, or Telos Thinking have or may impact your efforts in area of education, educational technology and professional learning and development by posting comments below.
Comments