Education 2050: Envisioning plausible future education scenarios
“The future is fiction. It is a story that we all write together, limited only by our imagination and our understanding of the world around us.” — Arup
A few weeks ago, the CPH Speculative Futures team hosted a hands-on(line) workshop that aimed at exploring the future of education, using Arup’s 2050 scenarios as a starting point. One week after that, we sat down with Jonelle Simunich, a senior strategist and consultant in Arup’s Global Foresight and Innovation team, who had herself also participated in the workshop. In this session, we were able to reflect with her on how the workshop went, and talk a bit more about scenarios and how they are used within Arup.
A talk with Jonelle Simunich, Senior Foresight Strategist at Arup’s Global Foresight + Innovation team.
1. What is something that you find fascinating about the present time?
My first thought with this question was to talk about pre- and post Covid-19 times. But because Covid has not been around that long. It feels like we are on the verge of a big transition, similar to those in the Industrial Revolution or the French/American Revolutions. I have been fascinated by large-scale human driven change lately and it feels as if we are living in a time unlike the last few generations.
Which is both exciting and frightening at the same time.
I’m oversimplifying it, but at the moment, we have mass unhappiness and many people challenging the status quo. If we look at the US over the last 5 to 10 years: unrest has been growing, there are race riots, there are environmental protests, there are people fighting over their believes. And we can look at these phenomena as either good or bad. On the positive side, it is nice to see people fighting for their beliefs. On the negative side, it feels like everyone’s beliefs are at the extremes.
This is exciting, because whatever direction we go, there will be huge change. And the good thing about change is, often, provides people the ability to create something new.
2. At Arup, you use scenarios to help understand and plan for our collective future, by telling stories of what the future could look like. How do you ensure that these possible futures are collective and, why should they be?
I think this is a very interesting question. The first answer to this is maybe not the best answer, but a pragmatic one. At Arup, we try to ensure that what we develop scenarios to be as inclusive as possible. Arup is primarily located in the Global North and even though we are in 90 different countries, the majority of the company is located in this region. We aim to develop our work to be as communal as possible, but to some degree there will always be something missed. No matter who creates a story, design, building, etc, there will always be some bias, because we are humans and that is our nature. The key is acknowledgement.
When think about foresight, it is important to remember that there will not be one universal future — there will instead be a number of different futures, depending on where you are in the world, your background, and your experience. When we wrote our 2050 scenarios, we sought to tell the stories in a way that is accessible and applicable to different types of environments, settings and people.
On the other hand, this question makes me wonder if future work should be communal. And my gut response is of course! However, one could also argue that it depends on how you tell the story of the future. For example, if we tell a story about the world, then absolutely we need to make it as inclusive as possible. But if I am telling a story about the future of London, do I need to know what is happening in Hong Kong? Maybe, but also maybe not. I think it depends what we mean when we use the word inclusivity and how we define it.
Lastly, there is the question of how to make it inclusive. Working in foresight is definitely a luxury job and the possibility to think about the future is often not possible when you are from low-income communities or living in the Global South. Why would they come and talk to us for four hours to play with what the future might be? People prioritize the things that matter. So even if you want to include the people, how do you do it? Where do you even start?
3. During the workshop, we focused specifically on what the future of education looks like in each different scenario. What reflections arose in you after experiencing people discussing and speculating on education in Arup’s 2050 scenarios?
Overall, it was really fascinating to see how you used and conceived our scenarios in a different context, as we have not used them this way before. It was really interesting to see the type of education forms that came out of the workshop and also to see how people interpreted the scenarios.
It was interesting to hear the groups present their ideas on the future of education, tied to the chosen person in the scenario their group. But it definitely created future implications per scenario and on how education.
Reflecting on this session, it was nice to see and learn how you used the scenarios differently. Internally at Arup, we launched a workshop series alongside the launch of the scenarios. But this was mostly designed around how to use them in business.
4. Our last question taps into new foresight tools and methods should we need to keep an eye on. What do you think are innovative experimental foresight methods that go beyond scenarios?
I enjoy visioning, mostly because it supports people in working towards what they think is possible. Whether you believe that positive or negative things are most probable; that thing will manifest. Visioning is a much more powerful than we give it credit for. Because, to me, visions are what drives our communal and collective future in the end.
Speculative Futures Copenhagen is a chapter of The Speculative Futures global community. We are a part of a network of practitioners, teachers, students interested in Futures Design, Critical Design, Speculative Design, Strategic Foresight and Futurism and any other approach which involves using Design to critically speculate about alternate futures. Please contact us for collaboration or a (virtual) chat at speculativefuturescph@gmail.com
