What can you do to help ameliorate or solve some of the challenges facing the world in the future?
I think being educated on sustainability and ways to lower our individual footprint on the world is key. Sustainability is key in that it ties into things like fuel consumption, plastic use, CO2 emissions, fracking – anything going on in the world that we can individually limit or reduce in order to lessen pollution and our harmful effect on the environment!
How can we best prepare students for many possible “futures”?
Educate and create awareness in students about potential futures and sustainability and possible ways as individuals they can prepare and reduce their impact. Talk about it regularly in classes!
What will your class look like in 2031? How will you teach? How will students learn? What should students learn? Where will students be educated? How will learning be organized?
I think everything will be digital in 2031, with all students learning on tablets, or some connected remotely – the ability to be educated anywhere such as their homes or other remote locations. I think emphasis should be placed on learning more about the world and its challenges and possible steps students can take as individuals to be a positive change.
Does your view of the future differ from your classmates? How? Why?
My view of the future is both similar and different to that of my classmates. Most of our predictions are slightly different in specifics, however the overarching ideas are similar. For example, broad ideas such as the effect that climate change will have or a major climate catastrophe occurring, new wars beginning, technologies invented, political events, etc. all seem to be common predictions but then specifically what those predictions look like are different. I do think there will be some sort of climate catastrophe but I don’t think another ice age will happen, but rather more intense natural disasters occurring and more often. I also agree that a nuclear war will happen at some point – where, however, space/water I’m not sure…
Will/Do world events have an impact on your life? How? Why? When?
Yes! I believe world events have an impact on your life. In general, war in an area can change dramatically how life carries on – it impacts us in Canada in that more people are immigrating here, and as new teachers we have higher proportions of immigrant students now. Elections and political parties in power can impact who can travel in and out of a country or area, weather events such as hurricanes destroy homes and uproot peoples’ lives – I would argue there is a trickle-down effect of any world event even if it doesn’t happen directly where we live.
What challenges might you face creating the future world you want? What? Why? When?
I think you might face push back from others who don’t want/share the same world view, along with the feeling of insignificance because you’re only one person and it can be hard to believe that as one person you can have an influence on changing the world.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
