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About the Author

Future Learning Environments

by Don Glines

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The education structures which currently exist worldwide—those commonly referred to as “schooling”—are almost impossible to justify for the present; they are certainly not appropriate for the decades ahead. In fact, they have not been defensible for the majority of citizens for the past one hundred years. Evidence supporting these conclusions abounds. Report cards offer one stark illustration, for thirty percent of the grades given in typical districts are D and F; forty percent are C, while thirty percent are A and B—or similar assessments at the primary level. Thus, seventy percent of the students are at best average, mediocre, unsatisfactory, or failing. Many high performing youth are bored. Such results are now unacceptable. New lifelong learning systems are essential. The crucial concept for accomplishing this priority is Imagineering—Imagining, Inventing, and Implementing. People in communities must imagine what could and should be, invent designs to achieve the dreams, and implement the plans to foster much more successful environments. Significantly different non-traditional visions are required if learning, not schooling, is to flourish.

In meeting this challenge, creative change processes are required to overcome years of neglect. More important than any method is the embracing of an open-ended, individualized, person-centered philosophy which reflects total dissatisfaction with most present forms and outcomes of public education. Beyond the belief, such a commitment should lead to bold actions which unleash the potential for breaking the existing lockstep, discontinuous, iron-cast, undemocratic requirement patterns.

Article 10 of the Declaration of the Responsibilities of the Present Generations Toward Future Generations, adopted by the 29th General Conference of UNESCO in 1997, states: “Education is an important instrument for the development of human persons and societies. It should foster peace, justice, understanding, tolerance, equality, and health for the benefit of present and future generations.”1 These lofty goals cannot be accomplished at their desired levels under the old competitive, repetitious, cognitive-focused, group-paced, 20th Century formats which dominate nations. Such systems continue to widen the gap between those who master the demands successfully and those who do not adapt well to the conventional rituals—whether North American, Asian, European, or other models.

The arrival of the new century provides the opportunity for educators to philosophically state: “If schools are to be significantly better, they must be significantly different.” Most futurists would add, “It is time to do the impossible; the possible is no longer working.” Major industries spend ten to fifteen percent of their budgets on research and development (R&D), while smaller companies allot five to ten percent. Education spends only one-fourth of one percent on R&D. Most of what is claimed in that category is only for questionable “standardized test” assessments. It is no wonder that schooling—not learning—yet dominates. There are limited opportunities for true innovation and experimentation. The few improved approaches that are developed, usually through university led studies, are not widely adopted. The often significant research from the past, showing, for example, the advantages of nongraded schools, is rarely used. Tradition prevails!

There are numerous possible societal futures, but only a few of them are most preferable. If there are to be preferable futures for coming generations, the Macroproblem—the combination of multiple global dilemmas—must be addressed and resolved.2 Each topic, such as natural resources, pollution, nuclear weapons, poverty, and crime can no longer be isolated by one-at-a-time solutions, for sustainable existence requires interdependence.

Education, as one of the multiple categories, must do more than independently promote technology, economic competition, and basic literacy. Increases in achievement test scores have not made a significant difference in the quality of young people's learning experience. As illustration, suicide rates have remained high in many Asian school cultures where students perform well. The age 11 examinations given in most European countries, which divide students into classical, vocational, or technical programs, have resulted in an educational have and have-not separation. The comprehensive school concept in North America has maintained an assembly line mentality without individual deviation; it has maximized the outcome potentials for at best fifteen percent of the learners. As again evidenced by the marks they receive on report cards, the other eighty-five percent are either ahead of or behind what is being “taught” in a given class, or are interested in entirely different activities. They are not truly excited about most group-paced learning.

Unfortunately, the preparation of teachers and administrators globally, the established bureaucracies designed to maintain traditional patterns, and the changing swings of political pendulums have blinded potential visions of what should or could be, and have limited reform efforts to rearranging the now too familiar deck chairs on the Titanic. The problem may best be illustrated by the famous American comic strip, Peanuts, by Charles Schulz. Lucy, a friend of Charlie Brown, acting as a psychiatrist, asks Charlie a most profound question: “Charlie Brown, on the cruise ship of life, which way is your deck chair facing?” Charlie ponders, and then replies: “I don’t know; I’ve never been able to get one open.” School people, like Charlie, have been unable to open their educational deck chairs.

In another philosophical discussion with Charlie, his friend Linus says: “I guess it’s wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow. Maybe we should only worry about today.” Charlie Brown replies: “No, that’s giving up; I’m still hoping that yesterday will get better.” The majority of the current politicians involved with education policy, and educators mired in the bureaucracy of survival, still hope that somehow “yesterday will get better.” More creative futurists, concerned with tomorrow, must begin to apply mounting pressure for change in their communities, for conventional schools as they exist cannot improve, other than to slightly raise test scores. The traditional group-paced classroom of 20-35 students is akin to a doctor giving flu shots to the first 30 patients examined, regardless of their individual illnesses or injuries.

For future generations, finally opening the educational deck chairs is a global priority. The “how” does require a focus on Imagineering. Futurists of all walks of life are now required to help communities with envisioning. Education today is not learning; it is politics. Governments and local school controls have chorused the whims of those who sing loudly for “accountability” or other trendy popular voter tunes that will keep them in power. It is time to help the majority unlearn what has been, and then help them learn what needs to unfold. Futurists believe that educators and community leaders must be disoriented before they can be oriented. They must “unlearn” how schooling has been conducted during the past century before they can “learn” how to envision the possibilities for the future.

Ironically, over the previous ten decades, there have been several exciting, creative renewal efforts, but all remained the exception in the public education system. These temporary successful programs were not able to permanently overcome tradition on a large scale, as illustrated by the innovative 1907-1937 Gary, Indiana program.3 This was a model work-study-play philosophy and platoon scheduling total community (children and adults) school system, open fifty weeks a year, twelve hours a day, seven days a week, at the same cost and with better student retention than comparable Indiana districts. When the superintendent passed away, World War II arrived, and Gary demographics changed, this exciting, successful innovation died too.

Startling, disturbing, yet delightful is the fact that the available reliable research overwhelmingly supports moving away from the “regular” practices toward easy to implement, already studied, non-traditional methods.4 Though not “futuristic,” these starting points are a foundation for what could be, and include nongraded environments (versus grade level schooling), individualized instruction (rather than group-paced assignments), personalized curriculum (versus mandated curricula for everyone), continuous progress (versus limited or unattainable expectations), self-directed evaluation (not letter or number “report cards”), twelve month opportunities (rather than restricted calendars), affective and psychomotor domain focus (as opposed to cognitive concentration only), all day caring, food, and clothing needs for youth in poverty (as opposed to limited social services), and personalized rehabilitation plans for discipline cases through Person Centers (as opposed to blanket suspension and expulsion practices).

To achieve these visions, communities should turn to creative educators; there are a few. Persons preparing to be future leaders should take “classes” in envisioning as more important than budget and management training. Creativity is a talent to be cultivated.5 This may be easier to state than accomplish, but unless the current lockstep educator training programs are abandoned, there will be little hope. Not all educators can be visionaries, but those who are pied pipers can lead followers. Pioneering communities should focus on hiring the leaders and teachers who can help disorient and then orient the populace out of the existing forms of schooling into potential learning systems for future generations.

Imagining is not enough; Imagineering truly is required. One illustration from the 1960s provides the documentation that Inventing and Implementing must combine with Imagining to equal Imagineering—to dream, to create, to accomplish. The United States government provided extensive funds for a project titled Designing Education For the Future6. Eight Rocky Mountain states (Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Idaho, Montana) received money to design and create new and/or improved learning systems for the region. The project staff enlisted many of the brightest education minds of the times; involved most all the eight-state school board members and government officials; catered to the local school trustees of major cities; produced five book volumes on what to change, why, and how; and conducted numerous major regional conferences focused on what could be and the processes needed to achieve new directions. Almost forty years later, nothing has changed in the schools of those eight states (except to add computers). Education in that region is still as traditional and rigid and “copycat” as it was before the project. A carefully planned, documented, financed proposal to create change was ultimately rejected by “experts” and others who lacked vision and creativity; they maintained their python grip on convention.

To overcome continuing repetition of such disappointments in education, communities can reflect upon a variety of successful improvement models. One is the creation of industry-style research and development centers. The space program, as illustration, has its volunteer astronauts, constantly improving spacecraft, preparation and launch sites, and mission support personnel. This coordinated design has transformed the knowledge of the universe and energy, and has improved communications, air travel, and weather projections.

Research and Development Centers of a critical mass proportion can provide local systems, states, and nations the opportunity to support educational astronauts who are willing to explore new horizons. Though the space industry received a special budget—such would be desirable for creating new learning systems as well as rockets meant to reach the moon—the fact is that the leading education communities can achieve significantly different, and potentially better, learning environments on their existing budgets. They can use school-within-school plans, magnet schools, cluster school choices of diversified learning options, community learning centers, laboratory school concepts, schools-without-walls, and prototype alternative experimental designs.

Rigid state and national mandates usually can be waived through permissive statutes when sound proposals are submitted. Such R&D centers should be staffed with creative, inventive, imaginative, take-a-risk, envision-the-alternative-futures personnel. They would enlist a cross-section of pioneering volunteer students. Families willing to assist the development of new learning approaches would enroll their children and participate in the ongoing designs evolving from continuous Imagineering. The process involves implementing well researched successful practices; testing experimental but potential additional methods; providing alternate means for evaluation; and offering parents, students, teachers, and administrators immediately available optional programs and learning climates.

R&D futures-focused visions can be both dream and reality, as was almost the case in the state of Minnesota where plans were drawn for the Minnesota Experimental City (MXC), a joint government and private capital venture. The MXC was to be the most experimental—not model—city in the world. It was designed for 250,000 people of all ages and was to be constructed on 60,000 acres of basically virgin northern Minnesota land. Only 10,000 acres were to be cemented, with the other 50,000 available for open preserve, wildlife, agriculture, play, and recreation. It was to be partially covered with one of the Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome configurations; featured were waterless toilets throughout the city. No automobiles were allowed (they were parked outside in an area reached by an automated highway), being replaced by an extensive people mover system throughout the city boundaries. The central “core” of the MXC contained common services and facilities. People were to live in satellite cluster villages to conserve energy and create shared outdoor commons. Everyone was to have access to all the latest available technological equipment.

The exciting phase for education was that the city was to be constructed with no schools or universities. More learning was projected caringly, humanely, inexpensively, and efficiently for more people than ever before. Everyone was to be a learner; everyone was to be a teacher. Learners and facilitators were to be connected in person, but initially often through the LORIN system (a computer-based resource network). The city was to serve as a lifelong learning laboratory.

As outlined by Ronald Barnes, MXC Director for Educational Planning, the system was based upon almost reverse principles when contrasted with conventional systems.7 In the MXC, learning was conceived of as life itself; it was never to stop. Learning was to occur everywhere, for people could learn on their own. Everyone was important regardless of how much he or she knew. Learning was a life-long process tailored to individuals. People could make their own decisions regarding what and how to learn, and could form positive social networks on their own without schooling.

Although there were to be no “school buildings,” the system did involve places for people to come together and share. Existing facilities such as homes, businesses, and public places were to be used. Beginning Life Centers were to offer a creative environment for very young children. Stimulus Centers were to offer films, tapes, sounds, smells. Gaming Centers were to allow for the study of complex realities in a simple fashion. Project Centers were to provide persons with opportunities to work on experiential outcomes. Learner Banks would store tools, equipment, non-print, and print materials. Family Life Centers were to encourage the family to learn together, and to communicate openly. Learners would use these sites whenever they needed or desired, not because they were required, especially on a daily scheduled basis. The learning and every other system in the MXC were to remain experimental, fluid, and open to change.

To help with the transition toward potential learning futures, the Wilson Campus School at Minnesota State University, Mankato, piloted many of the MXC concepts.8 This well documented and, at the time, most innovative, open, flexible year-round public learning system in America proved conclusively that there are better non-traditional approaches than those currently in use for enhancing the growth of spirit, mind, and body for many youth and adult populations. Initially, Wilson made sixty-nine deviations from the conventional school patterns. These involved nongrading, individualizing, personalizing, eliminating requirements and compulsory attendance, creating an infant through college and senior citizen age mix under one roof —including evenings as a community center—introducing teaming and suites rather than classrooms, incorporating self-evaluation, stressing self-direction and responsibility, considering everyone both a learner and a facilitator, focusing on urgent studies and global dilemmas, volunteering and tutoring where needed, spotlighting the affective as the priority domain, employing caring self-selected advisors and facilitators, encouraging community service, and instituting year-round continuous learning.

Wilson proved that the education proposals for the MXC were viable—that students of all achievement levels and economic backgrounds could improve toward their potential, and that new learning systems were possible. The program was achieved through creative Imagineering. The staff imagined what they wanted, invented ways to create reality, and implemented their dreams. Though a beautiful environment for people, documented by ten years of student success, Wilson fell prey to a political process. In a tight budget year, the legislature closed all university laboratory schools to provide “new” college buildings without additional construction. Monumental efforts were made to keep Wilson open, but to no avail. As consolation, the legislature did recommend that each major district should have its own laboratory program to continue educational research and development in Minnesota. Unfortunately they did not mandate a plan or establish a consortium of volunteers. In the era of conservatism that followed, and without visionary leadership, the required Imagineering never reached fruition. Thus ended one of the most noble education experiments of the 20th Century.

Learning will not be better worldwide if it remains as a practice of schooling. The publications from Education Now and the Education Heretics Press currently best document this conclusion.9 In envisioning the decades ahead, leaders must focus not only on the creative design of what, but on how communities might implement the new concepts (perhaps through the astronaut-style research and development centers), and most of all, how educators might disorient communities so that they understand what is currently wrong and thus become receptive to helping envision, create, and maintain the impossible!

Imagination is crucial. Imagine being on a trip to see the MXC, the most experimental city in the world. What would be seen from a distance? Would the city have tall buildings? Would it be underground? Would the central core be covered with a climate-controlled dome? What would one see upon arriving in the city? What would the MXC justice, health, employment, transportation, recycling, housing, and communication systems reflect? What would be the format for the most experimental learning plan in the world? The wonderful statement of Roald Dahl regarding dreams and realities in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory speaks very well to the specific possibilities articulated in each of these questions: “We make realities out of dreams and dreams out of realities. We are the dreamers of the dreams.”10

Artists paint a picture with drawings. Authors paint a picture with words. Educators now must paint creative processes and programs with visions of “Pure Imagineering.” Education can be changed if communities will 1) educate the constituents on the need for new societal and educational paradigms; 2) begin a process of disorienting away from the old school structure while orienting toward the new; 3) develop a philosophical base for education that is person-centered, not group-paced and aged-based; 4) establish R&D learning centers with volunteer participants; 5) Imagineer what is desired—invent how to do it—and then implement the imagined prototype; and 6) hire inventor leaders and pied piper staff.

Creative change processes can evolve in most communities if imagination is released and supported during the efforts to both transition into and transform global learning systems. In this regard, Jonathan Swift spoke for all futurists, including educational futurists, when he stated in Gulliver’s Travels, “I have seen what others can only dream...; I know these descriptions are true...for I have been there.”11 If the aerospace industry has the technology and intelligence to place humans on Mars in the next twenty years, then certainly in a two-decade span educators can learn how to eliminate the 7th grade. This is the worst year for most students for such a "grade-level" is impossible to support. Youth are spread from grade 3 to grade 13 on achievement tests. Physiologically, they are spread a minimum of six years. Only fifteen percent of the “7th graders” actually conform to the imaginary norm.

Reflecting upon the proposed Minnesota Experimental City, the 7th grade was abandoned, along with all other “grade levels” and buildings called “schools.” For three years, the state legislature supported the creation of the MXC to explore new dimensions for urban living. However, surprise election results again changed history. The conservatives, the leaders of whom had supported the MXC project, lost control of the house, senate, and office of the Governor. They were replaced by Democrats who then let the final approval process die without a vote, only one year before the planned ground breaking ceremony. The conservatives had encouraged the process, for they were determined to continue to promote quality cities in Minnesota.

It is time for politicians to finally set aside partisanship when societal futures are at stake. Among similar views of many authors, in Turning the Century, the late futurist Robert Theobald clearly outlines the need for and process of bringing community leaders together to rethink the coming decades and the interdependence of all global systems.12 In transitioning education, it is essential to seek futures-oriented creative people who will not maintain for everyone the existing structures of schooling. Instead they will envision the possibilities, design new proposals, as exemplified by the MXC, and constantly self-renew to ensure continuous improvement. Through Imagineering, significantly different and significantly better learning systems truly can evolve for the benefit of both present and future generations.

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Footnotes

1.

Future Generations. 24 (1998): 16-17
2.

The Futurist. October (1977): 274-278
3.

Glines, Don and William Wirt. The Great Lockout in America's Citizenship Plants: Past as Future. P.O. Box 711386, San Diego, CA: NAYRE, 1995
4.

Jennings, Wayne. "Startling, Disturbing Research on School Effectiveness". Phi Delta Kappan, March (1977): 568-572.
5.

Michalko, Michael. Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 1998
6.

Designing Education for The Future Project, 1362 Lincoln Street, Denver, CO. 1965-67
7.

Barnes, Ronald. Transitions Inc. 639 Pueblo Lane, Prescott, AZ. 1972
8.

Long, Kathleen. "Teacher Reflections on Individual School Restructuring". Diss. University of Oregon, Eugene 1992.
Glines, Don. Creating Educational Futures: Continuous Mankato Wilson Alternatives. P.O. Box 711386, San Diego, CA: NAYRE, 1995.
9.

Education Now/Education Heretics Press. 113 Arundel Drive, Bramcote Hills, Nottingham, England.
10.

Dahl, Roald. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. New York: Penguin Books, 1994
11.

Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels. New York: Pocket Books, 1996.
12.

Theobold, Robert. Turning the Century. Indianapolis: Knowledge Systems Press, 1992.

Bibliography

1.

Brown, Lester. State of the World. New York: W.W. Norton, 1999.
2.

Glenn, Jerome and Theodore Gordon, eds. 1998 State of the Future. New York: American Council for the United Nations University, 1998.
3.

Glines, Don. Educational Futures Trilogy. P.O. Box 711386, San Diego, CA: NAYRE, 1995.
4.

Glines, Don. Year-Round Education: Traditions and Innovations. P.O. Box 711386, San Diego, CA: NAYRE, 2000.
5.

Glines, Don and David Mussatti, Year-Round Education: Paths to Resources. P.O. Box 711386, San Diego, CA: NAYRE, 2000.
6.

Harber, Clive, ed. Voices for Democracy: A North-South Dialogue on Education for Sustainable Democracy. 113 Arundel, Bramcote Hills, Nottingham: Education Heretics Press, 1998.
7.

Harman, Willis. Global Mind Change: The Promise of the 21st Century. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1998.
8.

Meighan, Roland. The Next Learning System. 113 Arundel, Bramcote Hills, Nottingham: Education Heretics Press, 1997.
9.

Miller, Ron. New Directions in Education. Brandon, VT: Holistic Education Press, 1991.
10.

Moffett, James. The Universal Schoolhouse. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994.
11.

Schoolboys of Barbiana. Letter to a Teacher. New York: Random House, 1970.
12.

Van Til, William. My Way of Looking At It. San Francisco: Caddo Gap Press, 1996.

About the Author

Don Glines is Director, Educational Futures Projects, Sacramento, California. He has combined a concern for global futures with the need to replace current schooling rituals by creating entirely new learning systems based upon existing and new research, common sense, and visions of the future. His three volumes, the Educational Futures Trilogy, document the need for and methods of transitioning education for coming generations.
He may be contacted at

P.O. Box 2977, Sacramento,
CA 95812,
(916) 393-8701.

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© Copyright 2000. Don Glines - All Rights Reserved.