World Future Society -- Future Generations Forum

Education Forum
Visit Other Web Forums

The World Future Society invites its members and other interested persons to submit papers on ideas and innovations for improving education, including strategies for K-12, higher education, vocational or professional training, and lifelong learning and life enhancement.

Proposals deemed of general interest will be posted here, and readers are invited to peruse them and offer their comments, questions, critiques, or encouragement.

To submit proposals: Please e-mail the full text, along with an abstract of no more than 50 words, to the editors. Only electronic submissions with an abstract will be considered.

Copyright: These papers are protected by the authors' copyright and may not be reproduced or distributed without the authors' permission.

A Proposed Coherent Curriculum
By Bart Main
Our current system of public education is under fire on several fronts. Social activists complain that underprivileged children are not lifted up by their education. Public funders complain that schools cost too much. Parents and community members worry that schools are not safe. Kids complain that what they’re asked to learn isn’t relevant. And, most damning of all, universities and employers complain that new graduates are not adequately prepare.

Challenging Education’s Conventional Wisdom
By Tom P. Abeles and Wayne B. Jennings
What if the problem in K-12 education was not that students are not meeting standards but rather that the standards are set too low and students are not challenged to excel? Or, what happens if the students are trapped in their desks, in their boxes, rather than being challenged to test their knowledge in practical applications? What happens if those challenges do not find relevance in the students’ eyes?

Essentials of a Futures-Oriented Public Safety Leadership Development Course
By Gene Stephens
Many consider the ideal leader to be the person with the right qualities for the situation at hand. In 1944 Winston Churchill’s bulldog tenacity and ability to stay the course made him an ideal prime minister for wartime Great Britain; a couple of years later he was no longer considered the right leader for a nation tired of war and sacrifice and ready to kick up its heels and enjoy its victory.

Sustainable Medical Schools PDF File
By Gary S. Kodel
Twin challenges for medical education are to prepare medical students to improve the quality of life for their patients and develop meaningful lifestyles for themselves. The author reviews literature from several disciplines to show that much of human suffering is related to the unique lifestyle and social organization of our civilization.

Sparta and Athens
By Thierry Groussin and Manfred Mack
We want to put forward the hypothesis that the type of engineering that has now to be developed is not only technological, chemical or mechanical, but primarily social and psychological.

We have chosen to present an experience which significantly exemplifies such a dynamic. In authors’ opinion, this experience is not a sheer pedagogical innovation: it is a social innovation, a kind of model for the future, a process for creating a new economy and a new society.