ABSTRACT

This paper investigates how the teaching and learning about “wicked” environmental problems may be fostered through an educational approach premised on futuring – the active imagination of the future. The growing academic interest in possible and desirable futures provides a promising starting point for restructuring education as coupling knowledge to imagination and teaching to policy practice can open up new, experiential ways of learning. Empirically, this paper draws upon research on an experimental futuring course employing a “mixed classroom” formula in which students and policy-makers learn together about sustainability challenges. Drawing on the notion of inquiry, this course is set up with the aim to foster a critical engagement with the ways futures are imagined in political debates and decision-making. Through complementary activities, the students were pushed to imagine possible futures around a central theme, the transition to a circular economy, in interaction with the policy-makers and other practitioners. This culminated in a “Museum of the Future”. From our action-research-based investigation of the learning experiences in the course, we conclude that a futuring approach to teaching wicked problems results in a more active attitude of students towards the space in which wicked problems and solutions are collectively imagined and deliberated.

摘要

本文研究了如何通过以未来为前提的未来教育为前提的教育方法来促进“邪恶的”环境问题的教学。学术界对可能和理想的未来的兴趣日益浓厚，为重组教育提供了一个有希望的起点，因为将知识与想象力结合起来，将教学与政策实践结合起来可以开辟新的体验式学习方式。从经验上讲，本文基于采用“混合教室”公式的实验性未来课程的研究，在该课程中，学生和决策者可以一起学习有关可持续性挑战的知识。该课程以探究的概念为基础，旨在促进对政治辩论和决策中对未来的想象方式的批判性参与。通过补充活动，这些学生被迫与决策者和其他从业者互动，围绕一个中心主题，即向循环经济的过渡来想象可能的未来。最终形成了“未来博物馆”。从基于行动研究的课程学习经验调查中得出的结论是，采用一种融合教学方法来教授邪恶问题，可以使学生们更加积极地对待和共同思考和思考邪恶问题和解决方案。