Educating for the future and complexity Anne Jasman and Peter McIlveen
Anne Jasman is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Australia. Peter McIlveen is s Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Australia.
Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to open up the question of how we prepare people to be resilient, flexible and capable of managing the uncertainties and complexities of the twenty-first century by using both futures studies and complexity theory as a backdrop for a discussion of career education and teacher education in the future. Design/methodology/approach – Recent developments in the work of others in futures studies and complexity theory are presented. These developments provide a framework for discussing current understandings of career and teacher education and to explore the possible trajectories for supporting learning to, in and through work across the lifespan. Findings – Through applying futures studies and complexity theory to career and teacher education the authors conclude that these conceptual frameworks have much to offer practitioners and policy makers in the fields of career education and teacher education, and that theory development in these fields is already embracing the conceptual tools within these areas of study. Practical implications – Suggestions are made for what will be needed in the future and how educational organisations will have to adapt in order to promote resilience and flexibility in the face of the uncertainty and complexity of learning and work in the twenty-first century. Originality/value – This paper brings together four distinct areas of research and scholarship – i.e. complexity theory, futures studies, career and teacher education – in order to explore possible and desirable trajectories for supporting learning to, in and through work across the lifespan. Keywords Complexity theory, Career development, Learning, Teachers, Education Paper type Conceptual paper
1. Introduction In this paper the authors discuss recent developments in futures studies and complexity theory using the contexts of career education and teacher education to explore the possible trajectories for supporting learning to, in and through work across the lifespan. A brief overview of futures studies and complexity theory is now offered to provide the context for these discussions.
2. Futures The field of futures studies is not coherent, demonstrating many of the features of complex systems. The future is fundamentally ‘‘unknowable’’, so future studies are necessarily dependent on our current representations of reality and the role of our agency within it. There are a number of approaches and methodologies found within the field of futures work (Perrotta et al., 2010). For example, early work in futures, known as futurology, was aligned with predicting the future, and could be ‘‘deterministic and technology-driven’’ (Perrotta et al., 2010, p. 3). Perrotta et al. (2010) also identify two bases for categorisation of futures studies. The first category includes studies which focus on:
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Forecasting is usually applied within economic contexts, often using statistical approaches to produce a forecast.
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Foresight and strategic foresight aim to increase awareness about the future consequences of current actions, but do not necessarily provide scenarios for the future to help shape possible, preferred or probable outcomes.
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Futures studies and critical futures studies are usually framed within an academic context, offering rigorous and in-depth thought and reflection about the future (Semetsky, 2008). Claims are informed by understandings and theories of societies. Critical futures studies are likely to consider issues of power and agency.
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Sociology of the future is also an academic approach that traces the emergence of dominant ideas about the future, the history of thinking about the future and our understanding of time (Adams and Groves, 2007).
The second categorisation is based on the methodological assumptions which underpin different approaches: for example, output orientation based on rational and predictive capabilities, a process orientation which is exploratory where individuals engage in strategic conversations about possible, probable or preferred futures (Bell, 2003) and finally, a reflective approach which involves an ‘‘in-depth exploration of the ethical and epistemological assumptions behind different ways to think and talk about the future’’ (Perrotta et al., 2010, p. 4). Futures studies in education tend to focus on creating change in relation to particular practices, or to provide tools to those who need to engage with the complexities of the future and space to think about possible, probable and preferable futures. It is therefore action-orientated (Slaughter, 1988). In education the most typical approach is the development of multiple possible or probable or preferred futures in the form of scenarios rather than on proposing the future. For example, Futurelab developed six scenarios for the future of education in a recent project that are being used to promote innovation and alternative approaches to schooling in England (Beyond Current Horizons, 2010). Similarly, Teaching Australia developed four scenarios for a similar purpose (Freeman and Watson, 2008). These scenarios provide prompts for discussion amongst educators and a context for policy development and implementation. The development of scenarios requires significant research, rigour and capacity to identify the complex interactions and inter-relationships as viewed from within a particular context about future developments of that ‘‘context’’ (Blass et al., 2010). Scenario building is closely related to the understandings necessary in using complexity theory. Complexity theory development is now briefly outlined before consideration of the relationships between first, work, education and career, and second, education, teaching and teacher education as exemplars of complexity theory at work.
3. Complexity theory Complexity theory in the twenty-first century is comprised of a number of central tenets. First there is self-organisation or the ability of a system or organisation to evolve itself, from within. Self-organisation depends on several other features of the ‘‘system’’ or ‘‘organization’’: adaptability, open systems, learning, feedback, communication and emergence (Morrison, 2008). Complex adaptive systems are examples of where all these features, in relationship to each other, work to enable complex systems and organisations to both persist and innovate at the same time (Alhadeff-Jones, 2008). But as Alhadeff-Jones notes, ‘‘to go beyond a ‘new’ set of concepts one has first to consider how these theories might enable us to rethink educational theories’’ (Alhadeff-Jones, 2008, p. 74). What, then, is the relevance of futures studies and complexity theory to education and educational theory? Both are premised on the notion of change, and offer ways of describing and in some degree understanding what might be in order to enable more effective decisions whether made by individuals for themselves or for an organisation. The argument for relevance is based on the potential for both futures scenarios and complexity theory to represent an authentic,
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non-reductive and enabling narrative or picture through which individuals can have greater awareness of and pay attention to complex and unknowable possibilities. The implications of these approaches are now considered through two examples within education, that of career education and teacher education.
4. Education, work and career Vocational psychology proffers theoretical frameworks and constructs that facilitate an understanding of learning, work, and career, from the perspectives of different paradigms: positivist/post-positivist, constructivist/social constructivist, and critical/ideological (McIlveen, 2009). The traditional – positivist/post-positivist – paradigm of career-management has its roots in the industrial and scientific era of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It assumes a degree of predictability and certainty in career. Thus, career unfolds across the lifespan according to roughly predictable developmental stages, and individuals may be understood in terms of relatively stable traits, abilities, and interests. Thus decision making in regard to work, learning, and career can be formulated as a rational process that is amenable to educational systems. In this way, effective career management is a matter of determining and matching one’s personal qualities to occupations and workplace environments, and rationally making the right choice for post-school education, training, and work, and then implementing the decision. This approach entails the facilitation of learning knowledge of oneself, knowledge of the world of work, and a logical decision making process. This model has contributed positively to the design, provision, and evaluation of educational experiences and services that support individuals’ transitions from schooling to employment, from work project to project, or from occupation to occupation. Schooling and education systems are set up to accommodate this ostensibly rational process, with teachers, family, guidance counsellors and others contributing influentially to students’ decision making for what is often formulated as a decision for the rest of one’s life: to choose school subjects that are required for a post-compulsory education and training program that is required for a specific occupation that is aligned with one’s interests, values, and skills. While the traditional perspective has held conceptual and empirical predominance in the career development field, notions emerging in the post-industrial context have drawn attention to the necessity for personal malleability, resilience, and responsiveness to change in order to thrive in the contemporary world-of-work. Concomitantly, there is a need to recognise that learning for and in the world of work requires theoretical perspectives that assume in their tenets the complexity of managing a career throughout the lifespan, extending from the age of schooling to post-retirement. Of course traditional theories have included change in their tenets, but until relatively recently it has been stability, predictability, and rationality that have held sway in their formulations of career and educational interventions. The emphasis upon stability, predictability, and rationality has been brought into question, thus leading to assertions that they are less relevant as theoretical assumptions in this post-industrial world, which is defined by its flux and a pace that concomitantly demands the same fluid capacity within individuals (Collin and Young, 2000). We do not suggest the abandonment of all that has gone before, for, indeed, traditional approaches to career development learning have made a significant contribution to theory, research, and practice. Instead, we assert that there is scope to explore how well-proven theories and practices can be refurbished or integrated with theories of complexity, and to articulate how new theories and practices that can contribute in their own right. We address the latter proposition in this paper. 4.1 A systems view of career The systems theory of career (STF; Patton and McMahon, 2006) presents a wider perspective of career. The individual is positioned amidst systems of influences that interact with one another. Influences emphasised in traditional theories remain as constitutive of the individual (e.g. interests, abilities, personality); however, the STF extends career beyond this
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individualistic formulation to include contextual influences that have a significant impact upon career, extending from interpersonal and social systems (e.g. peers, family) to societal-environmental systems (e.g. media, socio-economic status). Thus, the STF reformulates career such that it should be considered as a dynamic interaction of personal and contextual influences. The STF stipulates that influences recursively interact, not as linear, reciprocal determinants of one another, but in a way that is multidirectional and non-linear, which makes for a far more complex and unstable vision of career that better reflects the contemporary reality of the world of work. Furthermore, the STF stipulates that the predominance of influences changes over time. Inherent to the interaction of influences over time is the influence of chance – the unplanned and unpredicted. As one career influence changes it is likely to have an impact upon another influence, and so on, the system continues to evolve. Core to the STF’s assumptions is the notion that individuals bring meaning to this ostensible chaos through personalised stories that they make sense of consistent patterns through the construction of explanations as meaningful relations among the influences that constitute their careers. Beyond the phenomenology of the individual, Patton and McMahon (2006) suggest that educators can use the STF to formulate their own understandings of an individual’s career and how he/she learns in and for the world of work. Furthermore, the school, college, university and their learning environments can be understood as one of the social influences posited in the STF, and therefore they need to be included in the conceptualisation of an educational intervention that aims to facilitate learning experiences that are authentic to the contextualised needs of students. Thus, according to the STF, educators can (and should) take a broader view of career and educational interventions that target preparation for and transition into the world of work. This suggests that they should target more than the usual grist of post-secondary planning indicated in traditional models (i.e. interests, skills, abilities) by taking a holistic view of learning for career in terms of it being a dynamic phenomenon in a dynamic world. 4.2 A chaos view of career Chance, change, and dynamic patterns of influences are identified in the STF. Recent advances in the theory of career have drawn upon theoretical physics and mathematics to inform understandings of how careers progress in a seemingly unpredictable world-of-work. The ‘‘Chaos Theory of Career’’ (Pryor and Bright, 2003a, b), in particular, has addressed how individuals might develop their careers and be prepared for transitions into and through the world of work. For example, the theory posits notions such as luck-readiness – accepting that change will occur and developing the personalised knowledge, skills and resources to enable readiness to exploit opportunities as they manifest. It is notions such as luck-readiness that can offer new perspectives on career development learning that eschew the rigidity of definite choices. The Chaos Theory of Career appropriates the conceptual notion of ‘‘attractor’’ and articulates four attractors that can be used to explain dynamics and complexity in career: 1. point; 2. pendulum; 3. torus; and 4. strange. The point attractor pertains to a system that is intrinsically aimed at one outcome. Traditional theories of career, that emphasise interests, skills, and abilities, tend to focus upon the implementation of a single factor. For example, expressed occupational interests may be treated as the focus of all learning and decision making: ‘‘I am good at and interested in mathematics therefore I should become a [enter any occupation you might name with mathematics as a requisite]’’. Such a focus is inherently constrained and limits the possibilities personal development through learning. The pendulum attractor explains dichotomous thinking that can similarly limit the scope for learning: ‘‘I am this personality
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type and therefore not suited to that occupation’’. These two attractors highlight risks in the traditional approach to learning, which is focused upon implementation of stable traits such as interests and abilities through educational choices and pathways. Rather than opening up options that might contribute to flexibility and resilience in the face of change, they constrain options to certainty, to that which is known, and therefore delimit visions of what can be known, and of what can be possible in terms of growth and development. The torus attractor pertains to systems that are complex, yet inherently predictable due to their repetitious reproduction of a pattern: ‘‘This is what I do well and I will keep doing it’’. These three attractors exemplify closed systems that reproduce what is known and what can be. In other words, people continue to learn what they know in order to be what they know. A curriculum that is focused upon pre-determined outcomes, supported by and constrained by institutional resources, and implemented by educators will continue to produce the same outcomes. This may very well be a strength indicated by sound educational outcomes; it may also be a flaw indicated by the manifestation of educational outcomes that leave students well educated according to the curriculum yet manifestly unprepared for a dynamic world. Like the torus attractor, the strange attractor entails repetition of a pattern; however, the strange attractor is an open system sensitive to influences beyond itself. Accepting, if not inviting, new influences into an open system contributes to its vitality. Perturbing a system with the introduction of a new influence is not seen as a threat, but as an injection of new input that may alter the system. At the micro-level one might observe rapid and seemingly random changes, but at the macro-level one will see a pattern within the flux. Learning for career development can be thus formulated as preparation for the unknown, rather than repetition of the known and predictable. The Chaos Theory of Career has been applied successfully to career guidance (Bright and Pryor, 2005) and its approach to counselling interventions can usefully inform education that is similarly future-oriented. Bright and Pryor (2008) appropriated complexity theory’s notion of ‘‘phase shifts’’ as it pertains to how a change perturbs or reconfigures a system. They suggested the career guidance be formulated as ‘‘shiftwork’’, as: . . . assisting clients to reinvent themselves continually, to identify opportunities, to recover from setbacks, to find meaningful work that matters to them and to others and to capitalize on chance. Hence Shiftwork covers the major developmental tasks in 21st century development (Bright and Pryor, 2008, p. 64).
Unlike clinical counselling which focuses upon the healing of past trauma and presently experienced problems, career counselling is future-oriented; it focuses upon growth, development, and what one might become (Bright and Pryor, 2008). Education has the same intent. Bright and Pryor proposed 11 ‘‘shifts’’ for the design and delivery of career guidance that exploits change and chance with the aim of building flexibility and resilience. These shifts can be used to formulate conceptual frameworks for learning and teaching. Rather than teaching for the known and stable, teaching individuals how to engage in shifts and welcome change becomes the objective for learning. There is insufficient space to deal with all of these propositions here; hence we present only a sample that we interpret as relevant to preparing high school students for post-compulsory education, training, and employment. 4.2.1 Shift 2: from plans to plans and planning. According to Bright and Pryor (2008), ‘‘a plan is to planning what a change is to changing’’ (p. 66). They go on to opine that despite the widespread application of school-to-work plans, internationally, ‘‘relatively little time appears to be devoted to teaching the next generation the skills of planning’’ (p. 66). Within our educational context, schools are required to facilitate the development of Senior Education and Training Plans (SET Plans) (Queensland Studies Authority, 2008) as part of a student’s preparation for their senior years of schooling (Years 10, 11, and 12). The plans should establish goals for post-compulsory education and appropriate subject choices that enable progress toward those goals. These plans should be developed collaboratively by student, nominated teacher, and family. This is an outstanding initiative; however, we wonder how it could be enhanced by calling upon a complexity vision of education. The educational
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objective would not be the plan per se; rather it would be teaching students how to engage in planning, thus shifting from the content of career development learning to its process. 4.2.2 Shift 6: from probabilities to probable possibilities. Continuing from the SET Plan example above, a convergent or probabilistic approach to determining directions beyond post-compulsory targets the best option, a single choice, and maximizing the probability the decision will be correct. Here the risk associated with point, pendulum, or torus attractors come into play; options are minimized on the basis of staying true to what is known and what can be (e.g. ‘‘I am a this therefore I should do that’’). Notwithstanding a need to make some decisions to progress, students can be taken through learning experiences that expose them to risk, failure, and the unknown as a way of experientially opening up understanding of alternatives that might be. When used with students the ‘‘Wotif’’ Exercise (Pryor et al., 2008) can facilitate students engagement in chance events as a way of generating additional alternatives for understanding and action. It is activities such as these that offer a way forward in thinking about teaching and the preparation of teachers for the future. 4.3 Career development learning and education systems If one were to accept the view of contemporary theories of career development, then there are important implications for education systems, pedagogical theory and ultimately how teachers engage their students in career development learning. Teaching from the traditional perspective of career – that exploring occupational interests and decision making can be formulated as a relatively predictable and rational process – may no longer be appropriate in the classrooms of the future that prepare students for the world of work and lives that are balanced within complex systems of interpersonal, social and societal influences.
5. Education, teaching and teacher education Education is locked into the discourse of economic globalisation, where national efforts and investment are focused on maintaining competitive advantage in the knowledge economy. In many respects, the history of teaching and teacher education parallels the role of career guidance. As part of this discourse there has been an increasing emphasis by government on controlling what and how teachers are prepared for and work within teaching. In a previous comparative analysis of policy trajectories in England and Australia in relation to initial teacher education (Jasman, 2009); government and policy makers: . . . focus on the maintenance of both the quantity and the quality of new entrants to the teaching profession, and increasingly seek control of the quality assurance and accountability mechanisms that shape the implicit and/or explicit values, curriculum, pedagogy and assessment of initial teacher education provision (Jasman, 2009, p. 327).
There is little evidence that schools and universities will become complex adaptive systems given this emphasis on control. The Association for Teacher Education in Europe – Research and Development Centre 19 (ATEE-RDC19) developed four scenarios for teacher education. These were described in terms of society, education and teacher education, roles of teachers and teacher educators. The scenarios differ from each other according to the emphasis on two intersecting continua – pragmatism-idealism and individualism-social coherence. In relation to teacher education, four scenarios emerge (Snoek et al., 2003). The first scenario is individual pragmatism, where teacher educators are registered by government, must meet predetermined standards, either for supervision of student teachers in school (training for teacher educators takes place outside of the university) or to deliver pedagogical theory (through acquisition of a higher degree). It is expected that teachers can continue in post as they train to teach trainee teachers. This scenario runs counter to the principle of self-organisation where an organisation or system can be responsive to feedback developing and growing to meet changing environmental factors. Thus, it is unlikely that teacher education will survive if this scenario is the predominant one for the future.
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The second scenario is individual idealism where teacher education has disappeared. The main aim of schools is to strengthen values but at the local level, as the nation-state disintegrates. The teacher is resilient, a problem-solver, diagnosing individual student needs and developing a wide range of learning activities within schools that are open and flexible. The ‘‘teacher’’ is not trained and education is undertaken by members of the community as needed. Social coherent pragmatism is the third scenario. This scenario bears the strongest relationship to a complex adaptive system, in that the group focuses on problem-solving as a pragmatic solution to both maintain functions and adapt to changing environments. Teacher education in this scenario is highly flexible, responding to changing needs and demands with an emphasis on supporting learning processes. Finally, social coherent idealism is the fourth scenario. In this scenario education is highly valued by society, so that teachers and teacher educators are sought after not only in education but also in other organisations. Education is focused on democratic and inclusive ideals. This scenario provides a strong values base. Given these scenarios the relevance of futures studies of this kind to developing teacher education systems is evident as is the potential of complexity theory to help describe the necessary complex adaptive systems needed to ensure flexibility and resilience within the teaching and teacher education workforces. Futures studies and complexity theory help teacher educators to be prepared for the future, whatever this looks like, but this requires a change in perspective in the kinds of learning experiences that will enable future learners to develop resilience and flexibility, and manage an uncertain future using similar shifts to those outlined earlier in this paper. Learner teachers will also start by diagnosing and understanding the performance of the learner before planning learner activities using simulations, ICT, scenarios and other learner-centred strategies. Their expertise will lie in being able to design tailored, specialised and innovative learning environments and activities that support all children and young people with whom they work. They will not deliver the learning but they will work with learners, be they children, young people or adults. In order for teachers to do this with their learners, teacher educators must also embrace such approaches in initial teacher education. There must be more tailored approaches, an understanding that it takes experience and expertise to assess where the learner is ‘‘at’’ and then design effective learning opportunities. The following elements are adapted from Jasman (2010) and provide a possible ‘‘curriculum’’ for future provision of initial (and continuing) teacher education where teachers:
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understand the learners’ capacities and needs, dealing with diversity, evaluating progress and addressing the individual needs and interests of each learner (focus of concern on learners);
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access knowledge about subject content, curriculum, students, teaching strategies and tactics including new information and communications technologies (professional knowledge);
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maintain a positive orientation to creating learning opportunities (commitment to life-long learning for all);
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draw on an extended repertoire of knowledge and skills when making decisions and professional judgments (pedagogical reasoning);
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understand the ‘‘bigger’’ and more complex picture in order to take account of a wider range of factors and circumstances both within and beyond the immediate context; for example, global education and sustainable development (situational understanding);
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pursue opportunities for professional learning using changes in programs, subject knowledge, the type of learner or context as a stimulus to undertake some form of problem or issue based learning or action research into practice (action inquiry);
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work with and support colleagues (collaborative/team orientation);
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communicate, work with and contribute to their community of practice, other professional groups and key stakeholders (extending their sphere of influence);
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work in morally just ways to support learners in achieving better outcomes (improvement orientation); and
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be proactive, creating change rather than responding to change in the interest of the learner (change agent) (Jasman, 2010).
6. Conclusion Just like their students, teachers are subject to complex personal and interpersonal influences and higher-order influences on their own careers (e.g. government policy, curriculum, industrial changes). Furthermore, teachers are the prime movers of career development learning in the classroom. Aligning policy, curriculum, and teachers’ personal pedagogies with contemporary understandings of career seems an important measure to ensure that teaching is relevant and authentic. In speculating on what is needed in the future and how educational organisations and teachers will need to adapt, it is unimaginable that teachers will be able to continue to work in the same ways as they do now. There will be changes in the expertise expected – this will be based on knowing where and when to locate knowledge – not necessarily knowing what. They will know where to find out ‘‘just in time’’ rather than having learnt something ‘‘just in case’’. They will then be able to support others to manage and find information, before working to create meaning and knowledge from this information. In this way their students will be able to adapt to and expect change as a given. These propositions place those who support learning in a position where they are able to look forward, not back, and exercise agency within their everyday activities and build their capacity to engage with the complexities through knowledge of what is, a sense of what might be and the capacity to move towards desired outcomes.
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About the authors Anne Jasman is an Associate Professor with the Faculty of Education at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. She has conducted education research, worked as a senior policy adviser and taught in the areas of professional learning, initial and continuing teacher education and development. She led the development of the Teacher Career Path Project in Western Australia; in 2001-2002 she held a Research Fellowship for the then Australian Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training; and she conducted research for the Higher Education Funding Council for England in 2009-2010 on the future of the academic workforce in 2035. Anne Jasman is the corresponding author and can be contacted at:
[email protected] Peter McIlveen is with the Faculty of Education at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. He teaches educational psychology topics, including career development studies and adult learning, and coordinates the university’s graduate qualification in tertiary teaching practice. He is a representative on the Career Industry Council of Australia, editor of Australian Journal of Career Development, and a founding member of Career Development Research Australia.
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