I was recently sent a link to a YouTube video that I was told focused on short vs. long-term planning. As I watched Ari Wallach talk about his idea of 'futuring', I realized that my expectations of the video were nowhere close to the actual content. The view that Ari took in discussing planning for the future challenged my thoughts on what I consider long-term, and as a result I probably watched the video 20 times overall, no joke.
Short-termism
Ari starts off discussing his career of 'futuring'; by this, he means consulting with clients to look further than 20 years to plan action that affects the future, and not just themselves. This can be difficult because sometimes people don't want to look too far into the future; the future is scary, and unknown, and that leads to an unwillingness to act. Ari dubs this problem 'short-termism', and explains how much of a problem it really is. He specifically touches on the problem of teachers not being able to spend enough time one-on-one with their students, and then provides a disheartening statistic about high school drop-outs. Is there a correlation?
I absolutely see short-termism affecting the educational world. How often do teachers have to cut meaningful lessons short because they have to get through the standards before the state testing date? Teachers are often unwilling to try new things in their classroom because it could negatively impact those standardized tests and, in turn, impact the state funding for their school. This leads to Ari's next point.
Sandbag Strategy
When money hasn't been invested in the infrastructure of a dam and the levee breaks causing flooding, putting out sandbags can often ward off tragedies. But these sandbags should not be cheered as a heroic effort; instead, funding should be diverted to strengthening the dam in the first place. Ari argues that our instantly updating world has created a hyper-reactionary trigger in our generation. People, it seems, are more interested in immediate gratification than waiting for a delayed reward. But this can have negative impacts, especially in a school setting. I hear countless colleagues in other districts and states complain about new initiatives that Administrators implement in a heartbeat because it is guaranteed to increase standardized test scores. One year's focus could have been a renewed intensive writing program, the next year could see widespread station rotation models crop up in the elementary levels, and the next push for the district could be a BYOD program to get technology into students' hands (just because tech always makes scores better 🙄). These sandbags will never make a lasting difference because those in charge of implementation are not planning far enough ahead (futuring).
Longpath
To combat short-termism and the sandbag strategies out there, Ari presents the concept of Longpath, where you revisit different ways of thinking to practice (very) long-term planning.
1. Transgenerational thought puts into practice thinking and planning beyond your own lifespan to solve the really big problems of the world
2. Futures thinking acknowledges that whenever someone talks about the future, they always do it based on some form of technology. No, technology is not going away and, yes, technology will only grow to impact more and more of our lives, but it is not the end all be all. We need to think outside of a technological view and search for answers beyond the box.
3. Telos thinking is based on the ultimate aim and purpose that someone can have, and asks the question "to what end?" Thinking biggest picture possible, what is your ending point?
Professional Futuring
So how do we combat the sandbag strategies and short-termism that is so pervasive in our schools? As someone who is responsible for designing the Professional Learning Experiences that my faculty and staff undergo throughout the years, how can I future enough to plan for my longpath while still short-term enough for stakeholders to see the bang for their buck? Do I plan the most out of the box, transgenerational Learning Experiences that I can, knowing full well that I may find myself out of a job within a year? Or do we recognize that in education we cannot overlook the students of today for the students of tomorrow?
So, in regards to education, what is your longpath? Should we take the recipe that Ari wrote for us and build a longpath for education? What would it look like?
Emily