Preparing for the future, or seeing what we believe

Foresight is an approach that aims to prepare for the future on the basis of currently available data and an understanding of socio-historical behavior. It's not a question of predicting the future, which is the domain of futurology, but of extrapolating from what we know, see and observe.

"I see what I believe

But what exactly do we see? The great American photographer Robert Adams claims to have adopted the phrase coined by his fellow countryman Theodore Roethke:"I see what I believe". As a witness to the destruction of the natural spaces of the American West, and of Colorado in particular, he has been questioning for half a century what the geography of a place forces us to believe about the life we can lead there.

Seeing what you believe is something we all know, on a certain level: you only have to look for someone in a crowd to see them in several places, based on a vague resemblance. Seeing what you believe means convincing yourself that what you want to see exists, to ensure the coherence of the internal and external. But seeing what you believe also means looking beneath the surface, seeing something other than what everyone else sees, being sensitive to faint signals and details, and finally discovering, in the literal sense of the word, another picture.

Belief is a gamble. So is foresight. Ever since antiquity, we've known that the unexpected always happens, ruining even the most solid forecasts. This is what Edgar Morin explains in a lecture from 2000, available on the Université de Toulouse Le Mirail website: La sociologie peut-elle prévoir?

To predict is to see before. It means believing before understanding. But when the unexpected happens, it takes belief by surprise, and reason with it. Of course, we can often rewind the film, looking back at events in the light of what has happened. In fact, our understanding of social, historical and physical phenomena relies heavily on this retrospective view. Understanding for better forecasting means shortening the time for belief, and substituting reason before its time.

If it were just a matter of being clear-sighted, of seeing better or seeing beyond appearances, things would be quite simple. But alas, there is no single picture of the future to contemplate, however well hidden. Instead, we're faced with a bundle of possible worlds, each based on a solid foundation of proven facts and knowledge of past phenomena. And it's here, of course, that belief and wagering come to the fore, in the form of more or less favorable but equally likely scenarios.

Foresight in education: the foundation

Practicing foresight means making choices based on what we believe, not to say what we want to see happen. Applied to education, this acceptance of the term seems pertinent: technology companies want to believe in an educational future filled with connected terminals and avatars acting as teachers. Trainers, teachers and pedagogues of all kinds want to believe in the durability of their function, no doubt freed from the industrial organization in which schools are fossilized today. And education system administrators are vying with each other to think ahead to the "school of 2025", confident that they will still be there, with or without connected terminals, with or without learners.

A few years ago, Isabelle Quentin produced a freely downloadable analysis of educational foresight documents. Of the 11 documents analyzed, several points of consensus emerged:

• The need to overhaul education systems, which are currently too expensive and underperforming.
  
  
• The need to give families and adult learners more room for maneuver, so that they can benefit from a wider choice of informed training options.
  
  
• The growing importance of e-learning to personalize learning, develop new skills and make lifelong learning a reality.
  
  
• The need to improve testing and diploma-awarding systems, with more reliable tests that better reflect the diversity of learners and their skills, and enable learning progression to be adapted. The portfolio of proof of skills should take precedence over the declarative attestation, whose value is correlated to the reputation of the awarding institution and/or the standardization of grades.
  
  
• The urgent need to improve the protection of online learners' personal data throughout their lives.

Three years after this study was carried out, the fundamentals are still there, and a few "unforeseen events" have even reinforced its relevance. The emergence of MOOCs confirms the vital role of e-learning in lifelong learning. The growing popularity of badges is in line with the desire to assess people's skills in a different way, outside institutions and based on evidence. The protection of personal data is at the forefront of citizens' concerns, especially since the Snowden affair and the revelations about the NSA's practices.

Here, then, is a forward-looking foundation that seems solid, having survived the last three years. The trends are broad enough to encompass many phenomena and aspirations for change on a smaller scale. It's up to each of us, wherever we are, to position ourselves in the face of these major trends, and to translate them into manageable actions to imagine an educational future in line with what we believe.

References :

Adams, Robert: "The Place We Live". Yale University Art Gallery http://media.artgallery.yale.edu/adams/

Adams, Robert: "The Place We Live". Musée du Jeu de Paume, Paris, 2014.
https://jeudepaume.org/evenement/robert-adams/

Morin, Edgar: "Can sociology predict? Conférence filmée". Université Toulouse II Le Mirail, March 2010. Available on Canal U. http://www. canal-u.tv/video/universite_toulouse_ii_le_mirail/la_sociologie_peut_elle_prevoir_edgar_morin.6099

Quentin, Isabelle : Analyse de documents de prospective en éducation - PREA2K30 - Rapport interne STEF. 40 p. 2011. http://www. stef.ens-cachan.fr/docs/quentin_prea2k30_rapport_2011.pdf

https://www.prisme-asso.org/analyse-de-documents-de-prospective-en-education-isabelle-quentin-cns-cachaninrp-mai-4481/

Illustration : Zeljkica, Shutterstock.com