BACK TO THE FUTURE

Rather than being stuck in the past and the present, in order to prepare for a fast changing environment, generative learners need to go back to the future to survey the future landscape, examining trends and evidence to reason out future scenarios in their minds. Generative Learners project themselves into the future to imagine their future self in five, ten or twenty years time and the jobs or community work that they will be doing. They use these future images to prepare for future work or lack thereof and develop the future skills they think they will need.

They are constantly monitoring the external environment and technological and social developments to develop accurate scenarios. Like the impact of social media on mental health, they forsee the intersection of technology advancement and wider social issues and prepare for them in advance.

Instead of inheriting their values from previous generations, they critique and evaluate their own values to assert their identity and enhance their own future decision-making. They build out possible futures by using science fiction as a literature of the future to unleash their imagination and practise visualisation of future scenarios. They locate themselves in these future scenarios, and start the building their skills, knowledge and experience base in the present to prepare for the future.