Author: Marjo Suominen, PhD researcher, Doctoral programme for philosophy, arts and society, University of Helsinki
Introduction: outlining and understanding education, future, universal(s) and creativity
While thinking the future or futures of education there appear four key words, which I utilize here and of which meanings I feel needing to be explained before I try to dive into the issues of how the future education might be constructed and what are the main components of the educational futures presented to us.
This is related to the basic concepts of education, future, universal(s) and creativity. They are defined in short by me here as a 1) change (or intervention by education; Schaffar 2013/2014, 5), 2) plan (designs and solutions for future by forecasting, ie. estimating future by pre-determined and systematic manner via using relevant data, rather than predicting future by subjective manner), 3) common impact (universal) and 4) innovation (creativity). I put these together into working pairs(main themes) which support each other, so the change and planning make the future education, and impact and innovation make the impact of innovation, which I consider as the building block elements of the future education and its planning. In this article I try to outline and study these basic concepts in order to ask and study the following questions raised in my mind while having participated in the Future Education II Lecture series at the University of Helsinki in autumn 2022: what is education and how it is used to mold or design our future(s)? What does future mean to education? How could we define future education? Is it universal, having an impact to everyone, and should it be universal? What is universal? How could we define creativity and preserve it in future education, what are the tools for that?
How these things might be related my field of studies and my ongoing doctoral dissertation research. Future is not my direct research topic but having studied the 18th century music, it has given me tools, insights and motivation to read history to-and-fro. As if I would be travelling in a time-machine. I think history (or the time) is in a constant movement, so this has led me to view some future oriented windows via which I am trying to understand the variables of these eras and explaining them. Accordingly, I try to go in depths of these terms via my own experiences as examples in order to view the educational future(s) from some ground perspectives from my personal viewpoints for to try to understand this very wide ranging transformational phases we are experiencing now. I am seeing all of these above mentioned via two basic phases of future education discussion: 1) via the changing plan(ning; educational futures) and 2) common impact of innovation or creativity (the effects of novelties applied; creativity).
1. Defining education, future, universal(s) and creativity via a personal case history example
1.1 On defining education
In order to try to explain education and the change it will make, I will give here an overall introduction to my case in the field of lifelong learning. Education has always been a very important part of my life, so I would say that my relationship to learning has been privileged and in some way an easy relationship, even if learning never is an easy process in such. For me education has been the driving force to get to know more, to gain skills to get to know more and to understand the world via my skills and inherent characteristics by which I am viewing the world. It is a cultural whole in which I live in and which I wish to know.
Music has been always part of my life for as long as I remember and I have got encouraging education in that field. Therefore I could say that probably my sense of culture, history, philosophy and language mainly originates via musical culture, music history, music philosophy and musical language or languages. I always tend to reflect the data I get with and against these. This is why I have chosen to have my personal views and research as cases versus which to ponder about the future education. Since my research interests lay in the 18th century I am curious to know how might education been defined back then when there was a vivid and broad interest in new things. To me education is knowledge gaining, broadening understanding, making sense of the world, and culture(s), self-development, and changing and making change for oneself and others.
1.2 On defining future in education
Since thinking of future education I name education here to represent and signify change, because it is to do with the idea of intervention (the idea of the educational paradox of restricting individual freedom, free will by educationally modificating the individual by influencing the learner) by Western philosophical Kantian terms (Schaffar 2013/2014, 5), which refers to change. For trying to explain future (something going to be happening) I will have to view backwards to past, because without past there cannot be future.
The present is in a continuous state of change, since it soon becomes the past. The Present anticipates the future. By planning and preparing designs and solutions for the future, the future is being already made in the present. Education in itself is directed to the future, it tries and aims to foretell via evaluation of the learned entities while the learning process is still ongoing. There are different philosophical theories on how to define the future. I choose the many futures view with many possible continuations of the present and the causal power interpretation about the open future with alternative possibilities according to which our present actions can have an impact on the future.
These I have chosen because to my mind they support the creativity and individuality in education and learning, offering choices and models to act responsibly and personalized. Planning of events which will be maybe happening or maybe not be happening in future have to be multiplied, there have to be multiple plans existing to gain possibilities for variabilities. Future can be predicted, which is a subjective supposition, it can be forecasted which is to do with something that is likely to happen based on previously stated facts and statistics, and future can be estimated, to be guessed or approximated, and future can be foretold to be assumed by a procedure or a source of information of what is going to happen in the future, also future can be anticipated which is to imagine or expect that something will happen; to take action in preparation for something that you think will happen; to imagine or expect that something will happen, sometimes taking action in preparationfor it. The viewpoints of teaching and learning skills and theories are based on foretelling methods and tools.
In music education futures are foretold via learning the rules, procedures and styles of various musics, their histories and the past and prevailing music cultures. In this sense the music education is very wide ranging in its futuristic perspectives. Also, music education anticipates, it is learned via example cases, preparing for future musical situations and for solving them and it is predicted via master courses by subjective cases by bringing together all the subject areas so far learned and learning to apply the skills, theory, cultures and histories. Music education estimates and anticipates by imagining futures via creativity by improvising, and learning to improvise, this requires practicing, ie. anticipating the possibilities of the tools used, the musical instruments and the skills mastering them.
1.3 On defining universal(s) and creativity in historical and future (music) education
Philosophically, there is a generality account expected explaining original resemblance of qualitative similarity. Universal(s), which according to Plato are repeatables, non-individuals and immaterial “explain relations of qualitative identity and resemblance among individuals”. The common quality of an item results from sharing a universal, which if two items are with the same quality at the same time, the universal must be in two places at once. This makes universals to be different from individuals, non-repeatables, which are singular and can only exist in one place at a time, and as such they are considered controversial in philosophy. This might be “correctable” by particular(s), distinctive qualities, which I think is supported by the creativity in education.According to the Strong Realism claim universal is wholly present in each place where it exists; it is a common place (“Universals” in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy).
Our common place of universals in this is creativity for the future education. In music there are universals in the theories histories and cultures of music, and the similarities can be grouped under various topics having with distinctive qualities. Music in itself could be claimed as universal since there has been music for almost as long as humanity has existed, but if music is seen as an integral part of culture then universalities appear in the cultures. The musics are universalities inside the cultures and part of universalities in music. Yet according to an academic survey most musicologists consider that music is rather shaped by the culture than universal human nature .
Creativity is seen here as an originating, inventive, imaginative action, making of an original, or original, new ideas and things, also in the 18th century referring to productivity, “providing the cause or occasion”. In the beginning of the 18th century saying something expressively was to express oneself outwardly, creaturely or creatively, extroverted. In the 19th century creativity was related to experience, expertise, geniousness and anticipating the future. It was concerned with taking care of the things important in the society, the general laws of established society. Changes or reforms were expected to be done creatively by an experienced or by a genius person, since they were non-reversable matters. In an ideal world the creativity feeds the change which in turn is inclined to innovation that is a sign of future, and future education in its best forwards this motion towards solutions.
2. Global and Glocal Lines of Precision Education Governance as Universal
Precision education governance brings together globality, commercialization, digitalization, behavioural and life sciences as grounding for managing future education (Mertanen, Vainio & Brunila 2022). This provides many possibilities but equally causes some issues. These elements as put together may aim molding and constructing individuality. That is to structure an ideal learner individual. This can happen positively and negatively because they are setting outlines and provide impact in the results of handling education, knowledge, information, data processing, and reasoning. They also transform the way we see the world and act in it.
Some of these highly futuristic ideas already affect among us, but some are yet to come. The digital phase as an ongoing process contains opportunities. It may also take away from our creativity, which should be taken into account when making plans for future education. I am in a quest for studying how to preserve and enhance artistic skills; social skills, creativity, innovativeness and problem solving in the era of futuristically inclined education and behavioural models. I am interested in creativity, since it contains most of these other skills, which are required to in various levels surviving processes in human phases of lives. We have learned utilizing intelligent technology, digital tools and environments, but at the same time we should avoid automatizing our thinking. We should harness the smart technology for helping to create sustainably constructed creative solutions for future education and its environments.
How to avoid planning future from being used for creating hindrances and unattainable aims? How to equably bring education available to the fellow travellers not yet entered to the time-machine in journey to the “future”? And how to help those struggling with issues caused by the technological tools and the incapabilities to enter into the future without causing agonies and complications?Even if education tends to foretell and predict be focused in the future “what may never happen” instead of living in the existing present (Anderson 2010, 779)?
Technological tools if used as such; and not as an intrinsic value, since they do not “think”, even if being “smart”; might help us in solving our future issues in facing the incoming challenges. We are now in the middle of a situation in which our innovations tend to be in a continuous race with time as we are and should probably be trying to keep up with the enormous partly unknown changes of our physical and natural world and environments. We know that this is vital to be recognized by us, because there is no choice for moving into another planet which could be comparable to our world into which escape. Therefore globalization has a concrete and final impact and truth for all of us. Everything affects all of us and everything here on earth, so it has become a glocalization, a response to the idea of the constant financial and economic growth, opposing regulated sources of commercial power of multinational corporational centres. Local spaces and identities being formed out via interconnectedness to global issues and globalization seen multidimensional, ie. economically-politically-socially-culturally and universally connected state of affairs (Robertson2015, 3).
The worldwide concerns with health, climate and maintaining peace concerns have become part of the whole awarenessness of the humanity, general humanitarian education. Humanitarianism likewise education strategical planning also has been criticized to have come to a threshold requiring new perspectives because of having lost its original idea of “spiritedness” and empathy while being in between old and new ethical principles (Cardoso & Ramos 2022, 4). We need creative thinking and new ideas to solve the issues we are facing and in this future education can help to be in an important role, as educating the future citizens, which should not be merely an extension for robots but capable for solving problems and creating individual, unique, original ideasand solutions sustainably and ecologically.
2.1 Thinking Creatively
The field of study of semiotics sees creativity as processes of innovation creations. These can be extracted for example into market research to describe and guide how to predict an impact of a new art form to a particular public. According to Leone, semiotics can be utilized for understanding and implementing innovation processes. Also, semiotics can be utilized to create new theories, by exploring similarities between distant theories and ways of thinking. To Leone semiotics is a key for learning creativity and innovation, because it is not only focused on studying meaning, but also studies meaning as conveyed through specific combinations of expressive patterns of all the senses. (Leone 2022, 71). Semiotics might be of help in studying the educational futures and their possible worlds and impacts. Likewise Leone, Kronfeldner mentions that there are many cognitive processes involved in operating forming out an insight by creative thinking. The processes making up creativity are perception, visual imagery, diverse cognitive heuristics such as distortion, repetition, omission and mixing parts f concepts and images, constraint relaxation, associatin likage, conceptual combination, analogical reasoning, abstraction, use of metaphors, conceptual expansion memory retrieval etc. (Kronfeldner 2017, 224).
Though in creativity psychological novelty is more crucial to that of a cultural novelty. Spontaneity(an unpremeditated fact) and originality (a relation) are the ingredients of creativity. Creativity is related to serendipity, which by the Oxford English Dictionary is: “The faculty of making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident”, which means that creativity is uncontrollable. Serendipity is not to do with problem solving but recognizes something as a solution to a problem. Creativity is independent and free. Plato saw creativity as something extraordinary, owing supra-natural powers (exceptionalist concept of creativity). Knowledge and routine are not part of creativity, so by Kant´s view (an obscurantist concept of creativity) scientists and philosophers are not creative, but intelligent, creation happens with the imagination, science with methods. (Kronfeldner 2017, 215-16). According to Darwinian blind variation model, creativity refers to an unconscious, special cognitive process, a hidden chaos, happening as part of a directed production of novelty (ibid., 222). Creativity is formed out of complex, multiple, high-speed cognitive processes, which interact with each other (ibid., 224).
Cross shows how the creativity thinking based and student-centered teaching and learning approach has changed the music education. Student empowering open-ended, exploratory learning experience encourages to develop composing and improvising skills and develops mental flexibility and disposition. The open-ended, exploratory learning offers teachers a tool for helping students take ownership of the creative decision. (Cross 2019, 29).
Cross grounds exploratory learning in the music education and outlines practical strategies for the exploration approach as a creative imagination process by manipulating sound into new ideasgiven. He utilizes Webster´s model (1990) of the four stages of creative thinking: preparation(planning the ideas), Time away (Processing of the ideas), Working through (editing), Verification (final polishing). The students move through the stages non-linearly, using divergentthinking, a multidirectional development of many ideas, and convergent thinking, developing single specific problem. This requires particular musical skills (dynamics, tempo, pitch) and to think of original or unusual ideas. The students use a developmental model by Kratus (1995) for generating musical ideas memorized from earlier performance, modifying melodic or harmonic ideas, exploring spatial and timbral qualities of instruments and sounds rather than focusing on an organized coherent musical product, instead of starting with a ready tonally set short patterns, which were used previously in teaching improvisation. Exploratory learning is based on open-ended learning aims, problem-based questions, student choice sounds and instruments, supportive learning environment, where students succeed or fail without penalty while exploring their musical ideas, extensive time without rushing, teacher guidance emphasizing exploring rather than organizing of sounds. (ibid., 31).The teacher is there to guide and help students develop their creative musical thinking (ibid., 36).
2.2 Ethical models of future planning
Robertson sets out to study the planned imagined futures by international organizations UNESCO and OECD. He divides the future processings into two views of the future: the philosophy of the future, representing common-sense, which is to do with modernization as part of economic and social development, and the science of the future representing knowledge by probability, universality and objectivity, which is to do with economical thinking, managing risks by calculations, predicting futures by using statistical model. Robertson reflects her philosophy and science future model to Appadurai´s binary ethics model, the ethics of possibility (increasing hope,alternative choices, publicly available, UNESCO) and probability (using statistics, measuring, seemingly objective, universality, concealed, OECD). (Robertson 2022, 190).
Robertson examines the competing futures of world society versus economic modernization, how the various governing structures and their deployment of philosophical versus science of the future anticipatory strategies, mediate their (competing) claims to authoritatively imagined and legitimately realized education futures. After the WWII there was an urge to find solutions to sustainable peace which produced utopistic projects in the atmosphere of future philosophies for internationalization of the world via the ideas of the world citizenship, world society and the idea of one world by UNESCO, that contained the ideas of transnational science and scientific internationalism among other things for establishing a new kind of citizenship, new kind of international subjectivity, but it did not get realized. (Ibid., 191).
Lingard discusses the challenges and risks caused by transformations of the digital learning assessments, system monitoring and suggests possible strategies for the issues and the danger of datafication, ie. the data and digitalization and the digital tools and assessment taking power over the teachers and students, likewise later here I refer to the Chaplin´s critique of the automaticationof the society. Teachers should be heard, there should be also provided the opportunity to develop their skills involved in analysing (Heck, Lingard, Wyatt-Smith 2019, 4) and “turning data into pedagogical action” instead of leading and taking over the teaching and learning (ibid., 2).
The digitalization should not rule the teaching and learning but digital tools should be aiming to help learning and teaching instead of governing the education. Also, there are dangers of surveillance and control through data so the data privacy and safety should be guaranteed. Teacher´s role as an expert of her / his field of studies becomes more centred in guiding students in the digitally-oriented learning environments. Digitalization gives opportunities for education and equalizing societies by it, but also as Lingard mentioned they are to do with negative thigs likewise monefication and profit orientation, competitive thinking. The state of enhancing creativity, creative thinking and making by hand typed of skills are also needed and to be preserved by future education, while enhancing computational side and capacities.
2.3 Thinking Projectingly: measuring learning
According to Ratner, the Danish national measurement of assessment results of school childrenpredicts risk groups of students of non-European background and their screening in order to improve learning results in the longer period of time (Ratner 2020, 213). In my opinion, before performing national level comparisons, it should be taken into account that students with non-native language backgrounds have a learned language skills instead of built-in language skills, like native-speaking students have. In order to evaluate the students’ competence level more thoroughly, it should be taken into account that students with a non-native language background may superficially know the spoken and written language and perhaps perform well on easier tasks and parts of the tests, but when it comes to a more thorough evaluation requiring of higher level language skills land deep linguistic competence, then perhaps different measurementscales would be needed to find out and evaluate their realistic competence levels. For this reason, we cannot be sure whether the measurements will give a correct and equal final resultsand whether it measures the actual level of competence, or only linguistic deficiencies that can be corrected with language studies.
Does the national assessment test measure linguistic abilities instead of the entire level of competence of the whole age group? Deep linguistic knowledge is a complex issue. If comparing the testing results with unequal groups, maybe also many dropout groups appear, even though the students’ language levels may not be sufficient for the testing, then at the same time distorted information might be created about the students’ overall competence levels. Of course, the age of a child or young person always affects the level of the language comprehension and expression.
3. A case: On my research ethics, universals in music, readings of music histories and artistic examples of ideas of future societies
3.1 On my research ethics and universals in music
In my research I have pondered moral questions which might not be considered as such from the start with but still to my mind can be considered to be ethically sensible issues in their context. I will try to open my thoughts of these by an example taken from my past experience as a scholar in my field participating at an international conference.
Once at an international conference after I had given my paper presentation, a colleague reached out to me, and told me that the composer I was studying was actually quite a “copyist”. She was convinced about this because the composer had taken many of his best loved themes from other composers and had also copied himself, taken parts of his own compositions into his new works, so the colleague thought that there was nothing new in his music to be found but the composer owed almost everything he had accomplished to other composers of his time, and as a result of this there was nothing or very little to study for. I replied to the colleague, that yes, I was aware of this, but I did not agree with her, because I saw this not as any hindrance to study the composer´s works.Since he had done it individually recognizable, so that the musical material he worked with was utilized by him as having showed his musical source data, which in fact was a proof of his wide-ranging musical literacy and dedication to his time´s masters of his field, to his art. Also it was hisway to show his skills, abilities, and knowledge of the field, his full education. this was a custom at that time, a sign of civility and respect for the masters of their field. And all the molding of his source data material had been done so that it had his individual label in it, it was done by his way, which is not the way by which nowadays composers work because of the copyright.
To my mind this might be some sort of a rudimentary question of universals. There is something in common in everything we do, and there are things we wish to get to know, explore and find out, a curiosity which takes us to learn and find new things and ideas and do research on things. We see things as somethings, we tend to find and give purpose to phenomena and things in the world. We do it because I think mostly because we wish to be in balance with ourselves and in control of our lives, and to explain what is there around in the world and in our lives and how to deal with these things for to have a purposeful life. Also we are always in between somethings old and new, in transition and balancing these, so life is a constant learning process, building into our existing knowledge and skills somethings new. This I have also encountered in my research in the field in the fields of music and music research, especially historical musicology. Because it is my specialization sphere of part of the “universals”, I will give examples through it, since I know it the best, and I continuously wish to get to know more about it and add my understanding on it.
3.2 Galant as a future educative feature in my research
While having introduced myself into an exciting world of some central German 18th century music treatises, I have encountered interesting pedagogical references to the future of music. This does not surprise me as a historical musicologist, since the 18th Century musical spheres were in a moderate transition phase towards some new ideas in music. The fact which actually does surprise me, though, is that still until now there have been doubts about these new ideas maybe not having reached the doers, the artists, performers and composers of the time, as if the new ideas and changes in music and making music back then might have been somehow separated into differing zones of theoretics, creators and performers. Even if it is very well-known that the theoretics, and creators of music also performed and created their music to the particular performers, which means that what was done, and how it was done acted synchronized, ie. back in the 18th Century composers wrote music and then taught how to perform it to the musicians so there was no other without the other.
What this has to do with new features appearing in education, especially with the future of education? To my mind it is related, since 18th Century was an era dealing with novelities and interests in many things. In the field of music, Johann Mattheson, an 18th Century German musician, composer, diplomat, music theoretician, wished to stay updated in his field of interests. He wrote often about a new style in music which was back then called as “Galant”, which referred to good manners, pleasant lovable behaviour and to just and noble characters (Hobbes 1651 Part I. Chap.15., 91).
3.3 On some artistic future gallantries and opponents of future societies
Alike the 17th century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, the 20th century filmmaker Sir Charles Chaplin had justice, nobleness and virtue in his mind when he performed the powerful final speech of his pacifistic political satire feature film “The Great Dictator” (1940) in which he opposed strongly to automatized society, accused society based on automation for cruelty and initiates a demanded for a more just society:
.. Don’t give yourselves to these…machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! … Let us fight for a new world – a decent world that will give men a chance to work – that will give youth a future and old age a security…
In another Chaplin´s film, a romantic satire, “Modern Times” (1936), a futuristic automatic feeder is introduced to the factory management. The machine is supposed to increase the efficiency by saving the working time from the lunch hour by feeding the workers fast automatically. The presenters of the feeding machine choose randomly one of the factory workers, Chaplin as a victim to be attached to the feeder to demonstrate the modern functions of the machine. At first things seem to be fluent but suddenly without any warning the machine goes out of order becoming dangerously hyperactivated and violent in its functions. The presenters try to fix the machine but they totally ignore Chaplin who is abused by the machine gone totally wild of which he cannot detach himself and would need help in doing so. No-one seems to care what is happening to him but the device designers are only concerned with the machine, what might be wrong with it, and how to fix it.
Also Mattheson saw in Galant something noble and new. According to Mattheson, a composer who is accomplished and skillful and knows the theoretical rules of composing music, is allowed to and capable to go beyond the formal instructions in order to create something new and innovative; this creation process and a composer finding new ways of musical expression, Mattheson calls as a Galant or the new forms of expression in music as gallantries. So, in Matthesonian terms, Galant is to be understood as innovative, breaking the rules with good taste, knowing to be doing so for a reason, and seen as an explorative and clever mind, that is able to see the new possibilities in music and is acting upon it:
man sieht indessen/ daβ/ wenn ein
geschickter Einfall kommt / keine
Regul ein Evangelium sey. (Mattheson O1, P.II Cap.III, §.18.p.137-138).
Also, he mentions:
Zum Beschluβ dieses Capitels möchte noch überhaupt angemerckt werden / daβ / da man sonst zu einer bereits verfertigten Composition nur die zwey Stücke / nemlich: Melodiam & Harmoniam erfordert / man bey jetzigen Zeiten sehr schlecht bestehen würde / wofern man nicht das dritte Stück / nemlich die Galanterie hinzu fügte / welche sich dennoch auf keine Weise erlernen noch in Reguln verfassen läst / sondern bloβ durch einen guten goutund gesundes Judicium acquiriret wird. (Ibid. p. 138).
Likewise Mattheson wrote back in 18th Century, I think we need a healthy judgment while being in a transition phase situation now in education systems and governance needing for a change. While being in between somethings old and new, we should have the future education to benefit and widen the social possibilities. Instead of creating social gaps educational future should be considered enhancing justice and equality, and leading to well-being and bringing education available to everyone. Is it something we could maybe have impact on by ourselves? Or might it remain unreachable for us still likewise the American singer and actor Doris Day sang in the title song Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be) of the Alfred Hitchcock film The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956):
…Que será, será
Whatever will be, will be
The future’s not ours to seeQue será, será
What will be, will be…
As it is stated in the lyrics of the song, one could not possibly foretell the future. Of course it is impossible to completely predict the future or the possible issues it may bring, but some guidelines can be planned, prepared and anticipated though.
Also, for Mattheson the future education in music was the third element, Galant. Galant has been considered in music as a transition style from Baroque to Viennese Classicism, if given a rough example, it could be described as a transition from Johann Sebastian Bach to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart´s styled of music. Yet, it can be described as something much more. As a transition from older styled into a newer style in music and in musical thinking. It symbolises something innovative in us which cannot be simply taught but which is created via education and skill and which is constructed out of both of these. It is all the things learned, together with insights and deeper learning gained via education and skills constructed with the ability to create new ideas and new knowledge. In this essay I am seeking that third element, the “universal Galant“ (by Matthesonianterms), the means to preserve it, how to secure enhancing creativity, the common impact of innovation in future education and its planning and changes of this futurization process. The term galant incorporates the both concepts planning and impact, educational future and creativity, since they a closely knit together. Education and learning already contain the ideas of future and impact, planning and creativity.
Concluding Words
For me the digital sources and databases and digital era have opened up a whole pandora´s box full of possibilities more than ever before. I am able to find and read digitally old books, manuscripts, sheet music, scores and articles, which previously were available for me only if I travelled to visit the library to find and see the sources there in Hamburg, London, Cambridge, Rome and Paris. Also, finding musical recordings and music videos from the internet has made it possible for me to introduce myself with wide-range of materials, which is wonderful, since it is a great help for a scholar to find research material, sources and references.
I have updated my skills in seeking research digital materials and sources, and after having done this, there is almost unlimited amount of research material available for me. Previously, before the digitalized era, the only possibility was to travel for to find physically research materials. I also learned new things back then. The research travels offered both social and explorative transnational academic experiences, which are very valuable. I met and discussed with colleagues in personwhich developed my social and organizational academic skills and adaptability, also giving live paper presentations gave me confidence to continue my academic research. Also, if I might have the possibility to be teaching in future, I think digitality has given more choices for me for that too. I would be interested in giving an online course in my field of studies in the future. I have learned some more about it over these past two years, so I think it might be great to be able to test the skills I have learned and learn some more of it in the future, in this sense I am already living in future.
Likewise UNESCOs imaginative idea of the one world and world citizenship of peaceful future (Robertson 2022, 191), Lingard´s disrupted data challenges for future (Heck, Lingard & Wyatt-Smith 2019, 2), according to Anderson “future is disclosed and related to practices that render specific futures present” and guided to actions required, likewise bombs dropped, bird tracked based on things which may never happen (Anderson 2010, 780); in policy making time and future are cyclic arranged according to policymaking behaviour, policy making time and for to get to knoto future it has to be anticipated based on evidence and information (Strassheim 2016, 155); for Bush (1945) furture was scientifically proven and future of science determined by educational policy making, ie. future was considered by him as education, in change of rising the overall educational level, also OECD declared after the WWII that the future social and economicdevelopment should be built on education (Tröhler 2014, 3); the national and international testing of students and comparing the schools and their impacts is due to the OECD´s after war declaration as part of the policy to produce and ensure participants in European future knowledge-economy.
A Brasilian philosopher and politician Roberto Mangabeira Unger has written a report to the OECD of the knowledge economy. He has specialized in future theories and has published a book on “The Religion of the Future“ (2014) in which he claims that humanity is in need of a religious revolution expanding individual and collective human empowerment by condition of a deep freedom by which he refers to creative life of risk, experiment, and meaningful personal connection protected by social and political structures. Unger writes in his report on knowledge economy:
If only we could find a path from these insular vanguards to socially inclusive ones we would have built a powerful motor of economic growth. We would also have supplied an antidote to inequality far more forceful than the after-the-fact correction, by progressive taxation and redistributive social spending, of inequalities generated in established market regimes. The true character and potential of the new practice of production remain disguised: by virtue of being insular, the knowledge economy is also undeveloped. The technologies with which it is most recently associated, such as robots and artificial intelligence, have riveted worldwide attention. Nevertheless, we have barely begun to grasp its significance for economic and social life or gained insight into its possible futures. (Unger, 3).
Unger criticizes the unrealized possible futures promised by the knowledge economical forecasts by the OECD. He thinks that the future could have been modificated better in case if policy making would have taken the right direction. According to Unger, it is not sufficient to advert technological innovations if we cannot understand the meanings of the futures they could bring for us. In this sense he is an utopian, but since he is a well meaning utopian there might be truth found from his report.
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