A FUTURES PERSPECTIVE FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATORS ° WILLIAM M. LAY, JR. ° Head of the Department of Business Bryan College Our students are going to have a future whether we like it or not, and according to how we prepare them, that future can be pleasant and happy, or it can be chaotic and unhappy. What we do to prepare our students now will determine that future.1 The eminent futurist, John Galsworthy once said, "If you do not think about the future, you cannot have one." The wisdom of "thinking about the future" includes such concepts as anticipation of needs (forecasting), proactive planning, and the flexibility of spirit to adapt to or appropriate positive change. The inability or unwillingness to anticipate the future and think only in terms of the past or the present, results in the shattering stress and disorientation that individuals encounter when they are subjected to too much change in too short of a period of time, what Toffler called "future shock." Increasingly, professionals in the field of higher education are recognizing the importance of preparing students for the future. This newly emerging discipline is commonly referred to as futuristics (represented by the World Future Society; the society journal, Futurist: a Journal of Forecasts, Trends, and Ideas About the Future; and other society publications). Unfortunately, because the study of futuristics is studded with the techniques and concepts utilized by the New Age Movement (the human potentials movement, encouragement of change, moral relativism, and monism), it seems probable that many Christian educators will not appropriate nor integrate futuristics into either their curriculum or their thinking. Such an attitude is both nonproductive and unnecessary, since the key elements in futuristics are non-partisan and scientific (once you filter out the biases of some of the statements of key futurists). Therefore, the utilization of many of the techniques of futuristics will prove to be helpful in permitting Christian educators to have a positive impact in preparing their students for the future. The Need for an Orientation to Positive Change The world has been changing right from the beginning. What is new, as we approach the twenty-first century, is the high rate of change which has significantly reduced the time allowed for adaptation. For the first time in our history, the time-span of change is of shorter duration than a person's life.2 As a result, people are experiencing a greater level of disruption from change than ever before. Several examples of how rapidly change is occurring demonstrate the relevance of this concept. First, whereas it used to take centuries for the knowledge of mankind to double, it is now estimated that humanity's total knowledge doubles every seven to eight years. Toffler quipped that "'Knowledge is change'-and accelerating knowledge acquisition, fueling the great engine of technology, means accelerating change."3 Because of this explosion of knowledge the dynamics of change has intensified. Today, careers are increasingly strained by the juxtaposition of two negatively related knowledge factors: (1) the increasing need for knowledge and job specialization and (2) the increasing rate of knowledge, skill, and job obsolescence. This will result in an ever-increasing struggle to keep knowledge, skills, and career relevant. Second, change is noticed in the dynamics of industrial production. The rate of new product development is bewildering. It has been estimated that a third of all products that are in our supermarkets today, did not exist twelve years ago. The decline in brand familiarity and the increase in product proliferation results, to some extent, in an increase in consumer uncertainty and frustration. The impact of change in production does not stop simply with new product development. It has also been suggested that seventy-five percent of all of the people employed by industry twelve years from now will be producing goods and services that have not yet been invented.4 So the rate of change in product development will ultimately impact workers and careers as well. Third, the information sector of our economy has experienced profound change. Approximately 56 percent of the United States economy is now involved in the production of information related goods and services.5 Not only is the knowledge explosion affecting the rate at which we must learn, it also demands that we have the capability to manage an increasing quantity of information-we must know more. Stress is clearly the result of the new demands for increasing knowledge, and again, this places new tension on the traditional workforce. By the end of the century, less than ten percent of those employed will be engaged in the production of durable goods.6 Thus, change in knowledge is a function of stress in the future for our society. Fourth, as an overall perspective, it is interesting to notice that more wrenching changes have occurred since 1940 than in the previous 600 years. This includes the development of innovations such as molecular biology, recombinant DNA, nuclear power, jet propulsion, television, electric data processing, and systems analysis-things that are laden with social, moral, ethical, and spiritual implications for the future. How we adapt and continue to adapt to these and other pivotal developments may greatly affect the very essence of human existence in the future. The result is that we can no longer pass along to our students the pat answers of our own generation as useful information for the shatteringly new and different conditions they are going to face. As caring educators, we must prepare them to face a novelty of conditions, a vortex of ethics and mores, a paroxysm of change-the future. Futures Integration for Christian Educators What then, can Christian educators do to help prepare their students for such a future? Several methods or techniques have been recommended by futurists to orient the individual to what is ahead. Their effectiveness is evident upon investigation. Upon using these techniques, students become involved in a discussion of a wide range of possibilities. Social, moral, ethical, and spiritual issues come to the surface and they realize that potential developments in these areas quickly break from either biblical or traditional patterns. They realize the importance of learning as a life-time responsibility. As Christians, they see that even in the future, scriptural principles are just as relevant and applicable as ever. As a result, the use of these techniques by Christian educators can be instrumental in preparing students not only to be able to navigate the unknown seas of the future, but also to do so in such a way as to provide leadership for tomorrow. Such future-orienting techniques should, therefore, be appropriated by the Christian community at large. They should definitely be used by Christian leaders and action groups of all types but it is urgent that they be used by Christian educators. The gale winds of the storm of change are upon us. Three approaches or techniques that stand out as significantly effective in this preparation are described by the key terms: change, foresight, and freedom. Change. One approach that is frequently utilized in futuristics is the development of a positive orientation toward change. Since our students will live in a world of rapid change, it is imperative that we prepare them to cope with the dislocations and the stresses that are generated by rapid change. We have to realize that while we have been educating for change, we must now educate about change.7 We need to provide students with the creative skills that will permit them to effectively utilize and adapt to change. In a discussion of new learning needs, Elmandjra pointed out that we must reshape our learning systems to favor innovation, participation, and anticipation which will facilitate skill in tackling growing complexity.8 One way to do this is to help our students integrate their learning so that it is more easily applied in real-world problem-solving situations. No real-world problem can be neatly fitted to a single academic department. This leads us to the importance of a liberal arts education. Cleveland notes: ". . . students seem to prefer offerings that cut across the vertical structures of method and help them construct homemade ways of thinking about the situation as a whole."9 This means that our traditional emphasis on narrow specialization will have to give way to the educator with breadth-with the ability to provide integrative thought. Another approach that should be utilized more frequently involves action learning. Learning in which the student is forced to develop and use decision-making skills is utilized all too infrequently in the traditional undergraduate educational process. The classroom experience, in which students actively work with their peers in analysis, leading to critical thinking and decision-making, is essential to prepare them to participate in active response to change. Shane and Tabler remind us that educators have long advocated educational experiences that extend beyond the school walls: "Today's speed of change and the serious nature of global problems, which lead to turbulence and to wide-scale disorder, make such extended learning more important than ever."10 Traditional education, with its content orientation, is appropriate for developing the students' knowledge base and the capacity to learn, but to prepare them adequately for change, extended learning is necessary. After content has been provided, our students must have active, dynamic experiences sponsored by the school but going beyond its confines. One approach to this is the internship course, in which students work for a company or agency in a creative learning experience, jointly administered and supervised by professors and manager/professionals. Another related factor that also needs to be addressed is the dynamics of career change. As has already observed, many futurists believe that individuals will be forced to repeatedly change their careers because of knowledge and product development and career obsolescence. As a result, preparing our students to adapt to this phenomenon should be a priority. Such assistance will help students learn to cope more wisely and successfully with such developments and to participate more willingly in the task of envisioning and inventing the future. A potential problem that will inevitably surface is reflected in the following statement from a futurist: "One of the challenges of the learning tasks is how to unlearn and how to reduce the resistance to change . . . ." (Italics added)11 As citizens and as Christians we must not permit our students to develop an attitude that is willing to accept change uncritically. This would be disastrous for political, economic, social, and especially, religious freedom. It would be very easy for us, as educators, to condition our students to simply accept change-to become sheep that blindly follow the agents of change. Peretti captured this danger in a monologue of one of his characters in Piercing the Darkness: . . . One of the hardest lessons I have had to learn is that the utopian dream of a new world order is not without its dark side, its power mongers, schemers, manipulators, and killers. Behind all the Mrs. Dennings and Miss Brewers who dream of refining and guiding mankind, there are the Mr. Steeles who dream of subjugating and controlling mankind. The Dennings and Brewers work hard to prepare all mankind for a global community; the Steeles look forward to running it.12 Even futurist John Creager admitted that "some thoughtful humanists, recognizing the hubris in the new futuristics, are asking whose goals and values will determine our choices?"13 Other columnists, such as Peter Shrag, in the Saturday Review, have taken the futurists to task for their elitist assumption that they know what is best for mankind.14 The task that is before us is to train our students in the absolutes of Scripture, the basis upon which all moral decisions must be made, then, to educate them as to the process of evaluating potential change in the light of such standards, so that they can steer change in a positive direction. Foresight. Because there can be no specific preparation for the truly unknown, we need to develop in our students the ability to anticipate change, that is, to develop foresight. This involves the various techniques for social forecasting. Students will need to be taught how to forecast outcomes of particular trends to help anticipate the unknown. Creager includes a list of objectives that any forecast of the future should have. They include the following: (1) a survey of possible futures in terms of major alternatives, (2) ascription of the relative likelihood that a given alternative will occur by some specified date, (3) identification of preferable alternatives relative to various basic policies or values, and (4) identification of decisions subject to control, whose occurrence will have a major effect on the probability that an alternative will be realized.15 Using such an approach, our graduates would be able to anticipate the implications of contemporary trends for both the immediate and the long-term future. This involves the use of social forecasting techniques (such as trend 9 projection; scenarios; simulations; or models like the futures wheel, in which several forecasting techniques are combined). These techniques permit them to generate a wide range of alternative developments, to determine whether they are possible, probable, or preferable, and to anticipate the actions required to either attain or prevent them from occurring.16 Coming to understand that the unknown can be anticipated, evaluated, and even prevented via concerted action, can go a long way toward improving a student's attitude about both the future and his future role in society. Students should know that as Christians, God has not called us to either hide our light or bury our heads in the sand. We are to impact society with a message of salvation through the finished Cross-work of the Lord Jesus Christ and, with the assurance that He is there, we can be 10 confident that absolute values of right and wrong do exist. Therefore, as a Christian and an educated citizen, students should be actively involved in anticipating future forces and trends and working toward positive change in our society. Freedom. Among futurists, there are a number of humanists and nurturing individuals who have a genuine concern for the direction that the future will take. Such concern is illustrated by the following statements by Creager: Clearly the substantive and methodological aspects of futurism must be in the hands of the technically competent. . . . The evaluation of possible futures and the decision to implement one or more aspects of some scenario involve complex normative issues, in which we all have a stake, but which few persons are competent to resolve. . . . Our theologians and moralists search for new bases for normative judgements amid their dead deities and fallen idols, or try to resurrect and rejustify the old bases. What is needed is a high order of scholarly development of ethics and esthetics applicable to the complexities of modern decision making. This may require interdisciplinary teams of experienced scholars and representatives of tomorrow's leadership, a combination most likely to be found on a university campus.17 Here the concern over appropriate decision-making results in an unacceptable proposal. Under this scenario it would be easy to envision a future that is so rigidly controlled that there would be no future shock. The technocrats would program humanity's experiences, reducing the degree and content of our awareness to that of an animal.18 Nothing would be left to chance, to ignorance, to possible 11 differences of opinion-much less, to religious freedom!19 What limits then will restrain such compulsion? These leaders see the desire to force new values on society as a quest for "good" and an affray against "evil." But as Foley has observed, "when individuals seek to do 'good' by coercive means, they actually accomplish a great evil by depriving their subjects of their primary human trait (the power of creative choice)."20 Obviously, we cannot turn our future over to such people. Yet failure on our part to adequately prepare our students to intelligently participate in the process might, indeed, do just that. Notes 1Jack D. Arters, "Educating for the Space Age," Unpublished paper presented to the Fifth Annual Conference of the Southern Future Society, Mobile, AL (April 1-3, 1982), p. 2. 2John A. Creager, "Futurism in Higher Education: Fad or Fulfillment?" in Education . . . Beyond Tomorrow (Homewood, IL: ETC Publications, 1975), pp. 294-5. 3Alvin Toffler, Future Shock (NY: Random House, 1970), p. 31. 4Jack D. Arters, Unpublished class notes, Instructional Development in Higher Education, Middle Tennessee State University, Summer, 1991. 5Harlan Cleveland, "Educating for the Information Society," in Challenges and Opportunities: From Now to 2001, ed. Howard F. Didsbury, Jr. (Bethesda, MD: World Future Society, 1986), p. 270. 6Arters, "Educating for the Space Age," p. 1. 7Ibid., p. 4. 8Mahdi Elmandjra, "Learning Needs in a Changing World: Human Resources in a Knowledge Civilization," in Challenges and Opportunities: From Now to 2001, edited by Howard F. Didsbury, Jr. (Bethesda, MD: World Future Society, 1986), p. 252. 9Cleveland, "Educating for the Information Society," p. 276. 10Harold G. Shane and M. Bernadine Tabler, Educating for a New Millennium (Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation, 1981), pp. 31-2. 11Elmandjra, "Learning Needs," p. 253. 12Frank E. Peretti, Piercing the Darkness (Westchester, IL: 12 Crossway Books, 1898), p. 237. 13Creager, "Futurism in Higher Education: Fad or Fulfillment?" p. 300. 14Ibid. 15Ibid. 16Arters, "Educating for the Space Age," p. 3. 17Creager, "Futurism in Higher Education: Fad or Fulfillment?," pp. 300-301. 18The danger of the possibility of being controlled by a manipulative elite has been brilliantly presented by Francis A. Schaeffer in his How Should We Then Live? (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1976), pp. 228-45. 19Ibid., p. 308. 20Ridgway K. Foley Jr., "Ezekiel's Job." The Freeman 40 (September 1990): 334. 13