1. The future of education The problem of cultivating the unique human capacities required in a world of rapid change
Lars Geer Hammershøj
PhD and Associate Professor
Danish School of Education, Aarhus University

2. Education and anticipation
Education as anticipation
Preparing for living and working in future society in 10, 20, 40 years
What is important to learn in order to live and work in future society?
In times of rapid change
Rely less on tradition as a anticipatory model
Growing need for future studies
Anticipation as education
Anticipating the future as part of the curriculum
Cultivating capacities of anticipation in times of rapid change
Which capacities should be cultivated when and how?
What is the nature these capacites?

3. Diagnosis of the times Diagnosis of the times
Diagnose tendencies in the times
Identify signs of change
Interpret signs as patterns in and direction of change
Guided by historical analyses of past tendencies
Tradition in sociology and philosophy
Tendencies as individualization and modernization
Kant (1784): Diagnosing Enlightenment
Tendency: People make use of their own reason with guidance
Sign: ”we see clear indications that people are now being opened up to this”

4. Future studies strategies in sociology
Diagnosis of the times
Diagnosing tendencies
Focus on the processes of changes in the times
Facilitates decision-making: By taking bearings of the times
Sociology of future society
Building scenarios
Focus on the outcome of change
Facilitates decision-making: By drawing attention for the need for action

5. Accelerating pace of change
Accelerations of the page of change in human history
Introduction of agriculture ( years ago)
Working and planning: The rise of cognitive anticipation
The Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution (18th and 19th century)
Historical consciousness: The future may be different from the past
‘Crisis consciousness’ (Koselleck 1959): Things cannot continue as they were
The notion of progress and the appearance of the entrepreneur
Today: Times of crisis
Shift from industrial to knowledge society (OECD 1996; Florida 2002)
Climate change: ‘New catastrophism’ (Urry 2016)
The future of work: The Second Machine Age (Brynjolsson & McAfee 2014)
47% of jobs will disappear in years (Frey & Osborne 2013)
Singularity in 2047 (Kurzweil 2014)

6. Diagnose the accelerating pace of change
Studies of change create change
Not only analyzing, but also creating change
In as much as they become public discourses
Discourses of knowledge society, digitalization, exponential growth etc.
Anticipation begets anticipation
The more we talk about the possiblity of change
The more open the future actually gets
Focus on the nature of change
Only humans can create change
Matter of how we relate to our existing practices and ways of thinking
Diagnose the pace of change today
Look for signs of intensified ‘crisis consciousness’

7. Future employment The imminent crisis of future employment
Public debate (signs)
Automation of tasks that use to require humans, including ‘white color’ jobs
Intensifies crisis consciousness: Automation is possible
Academic discussion (analysis)
Advances in artificial intelligence: Go, generative design, expert intuition
Machine learning: Any task can be automated provided data is available
Can machines be creative and innovative?
The nature of creativity and innovation
Combine elements from different domains
Beyond domains in which rules apply and data is available
No rules and data to guide and drive the process
Machines need humans to sense, understand, handle and create change

8. Future education: Preparing for change
Capacities to cultivate for the future
To sense change: Crisis consciousness
Expect and be open to change
To understand change: Future studies
Diagnose, forecast and anticipate change
To handle change: Will and judgment
Guide and drive action beyond the boundaries of accustomed practices
To create change: Creativity and innovation
Way of relating: Open for new ways of thinking and doing
Moods of enthusiasm and disturbance: Anticipate that things are different
Fundamental shift in focus
From skills (20th century) to the person’s way of relating (wisdom, ethos, Bildung)
Not abilities, but capacities affective in nature