Thinking about the future

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54cUmAFrWp8

I was alerted to the International Futures Forum (IFF) and thought it would be a good idea to check it out.

It was started by Graham Leicester who had worked eleven years in the British Foreign Office with a background in policy making. He left to go into the world of think tanks and policy making outside government, which he thought might be a bit more creative and possibly more influential.

After a couple of years, he spotted that Scotland, with a change of government in London, was likely to get its own parliament and a set of new evolved institutions. He saw the opportunity to make things happen and so he moved to Scotland where he set up the IFF which engages in thinking about the future.

The International Futures Forum

It takes a surprisingly longterm view.

"IFF uses the remarkable talents of its international members and their wide range of contacts to understand the new concepts and practices both our own and future generations need to master the transition to the third millennium."

We have hardly begun the second millennium before this think tank begins masterminding the transition to the next.

With its talk of transitioning and future generations I immediately think of the United Nations.

"We maintain an active scanning community keeping track of the way the world is changing, and our membership includes proponents and practitioners of different schools of futures thinking, notably scenario planning."

Armed with its different scenarios, there is hardly anything it cannot do. Here are some examples:
helping to imagine and design an appropriate education system for the 21st century (for a range of partners including Scottish Government, Learn Direct Scotland, the REAL Partnership Glasgow, North Lanarkshire Council);

helping a UK philanthropic foundation extend its thinking and establish a context for developing its future work programme in the area of promoting democracy (for Carnegie UK Trust). [John Elvidge and the Enabling State will be in there too.]

supporting the design and establishment of two significant new institutions: the Glasgow Centre for Population Health and the Scottish Parliament Futures Forum.
Some Testimonials

"I wish I could have stayed longer… IFF becomes more and more interesting." Director of Policy, No 10 Downing Street, UK Government

"Probably the most thought-provoking experience I’ve had since joining the company." Senior Manager, Multinational Corporation

Education Reform:

Education is a `wicked` issue thinks Graham Leicester, meaning its problems are intractable.

He says:

"It is a moot point whether it is any longer worth the investment of time and money involved in going to university: the number of graduates now exceeds the number of jobs requiring graduate skill levels, and in any event cheaper online degree factories are widely available." [This is why education is being dumbed down.]

"As for the world of work, this hardly shows up as motivating when it is seen as dominated by under-employment, odd jobs to make ends meet, or career positions in organisations that either destroy your soul or the planet or both. ..." [He said it.]

"Let me declare my own position. I have been involved in school reform in Scotland for many years. Since 2010 International Futures Forum (IFF), has been working closely with Education Scotland (and previously with HM Inspectorate of Schools) to provide schools with the wherewithal to consider their own future in a changing world and realise their own aspirations - under the permissive framework of Curriculum for Excellence. ..."

"Education is not a mechanical, but a human system. And human systems are capable of transformation."

"IFF has not offered a view on the content of learning in any of this work. It has been about releasing the energy and aspiration of the schools themselves - the staff, the parents, the students."

"But I do have a view on content too. A few months ago I published a book with my colleague Maureen O'Hara called Dancing at the Edge: competence, culture and organisation in the 21st century. It takes as its inspiration the four pillars of learning first identified by Jacques Delors' UNESCO Commission on Education for the 21st Century: learning to be, learning to know, learning to do and learning to live together. "

I see his colleague Maureen O`Hara coined the term `person centred` and is part of the human potential movement. (Total control of the human being, that is.)

"We find that people who are thriving in the contemporary world, who give us the sense of having it all together and being able to act effectively and with good spirit in challenging circumstances, have some identifiable characteristics in common… "

http://www.internationalfuturesforum.com/p/dancing-at-the-edge

Yes they do have some identifiable characteristics in common. Have a look at the World Economic Forum - masterminding the fourth Industrial Revolution - or as IFF would say: transitioning us into the third millennium. There`s no difference.

What these billionaires at Davos have in common is the ability to `buy` politicians and think tanks to push forward their own agendas.

http://www.weforum.org/events/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2016

No wonder we have the Named Person, GIRFEC, Curriculum for Excellence and all the other `person centred` nonsense.

Scotland, with its evolving institutions, was just ripe for these manipulations.