White papers
Scenario planning and the future of education
Exhibit 3: Narratives of the future
The Future of Work team created narratives based on students’ extrapolation of key characteristics of students and learning environments in each scenario (Rasmus 2007). The result was a vivid illustration of what life is like for students and workers in each of the futures described. In Proud Tower, for instance, Thomas is a corporate learner:
With good marks in math, he thinks he will be able to follow his father as a successful manager at BPRDS. They are, after all, paying for his education. Thomas and all of his friends learn for BPRDS. When they graduate from college, their test scores will help determine if they go on to university or not. Most from this rather prestigious middle management enclave do, but in the country, where the association between company and culture becomes vague, fewer students matriculate. For Thomas and his friends, there is little beyond school and neighborhood. Everything they do is designed to prepare them for work at BPRDS. The company, however, has regular meetings with students from various other schools around the world run by BPRDS or one of its subsidiaries. Work is collaborative, his father often says, so it is never too early to learn to work with other people.
By contrast, the chaos and openness of Freelance Planet results in a different kind of student and a very different narrative:
Today’s assignment is to initiate negotiations with other students across England in order to create the ace project team for the next phase of the project. They have a full project description. They also know, from past experience, that the project description is probably rubbish and will change a dozen times before their assignment is due. Cameron wants to attract smart, flexible students. But then, so does everyone else. He wants people he can rely on to think around problems, but mostly he wants people he can trust while having fun.
In Continental Drift, isolationist governments control both the content and the manner of learning:
His books and learning material were increasingly becoming electronic, as the Internet waned in influence. The books, his instructors told him, could be more easily updated with current information when they were digital. Stephen suspected that they could also more easily forget things as well. As he read some history it seemed that parts were hastily written. Story lines were confused as plot lines abruptly ended with little explanation. It seemed to Stephen that his grades were not as important as his parents made them out to be. In other words, receiving good marks was not a huge struggle, because not even the teachers knew what to grade on anymore.
Frontier Friction, devastated by a catastrophic attack on the world’s computerized financial systems, is a much smaller place than the other scenarios. Samuel’s education is driven by a strong sense of community and self-reliance:
Having managed to put together a collection of books on child psychology, that became Samuel’s major, so to speak, at least his area of concentration. That was his first assignment when he arrived at Eton-Thames College. Other subjects were taught as materials permitted. Some instructors created their own material, others cobbled together enough for shared books, others participated in school barter programs where books were exchanged with other schools for a year, and then hopefully returned.
Reference
Rasmus, Daniel. 2007. Microsoft Future of Information Work Scenarios: Students of the Future. Microsoft Business Division. http://www.innovateonline.info/media/scenarioplanningan-supplement1(2819).doc (accessed May 28, 2008). Archived at http://www.webcitation.org/5YADZqcGr.
