Early Futures
Concepts by Children
About: What do children know and how do they know what they know? Conceptual ideas from children are integral to understand for studying human development, consciousness and futures. Children are given the luxury to play and explore in childhood precisely in order to help us understand what we are about. The gathering of concepts developed with and by children helps identify what they see as valuable, how they relate to the world – and if engaged closely or systematically – illuminates alternative ways of exploring our deepest philosophical and psychological conversations. The articles below show children’s varying kinds of conceptual interests, as well as the process of documenting them.
Imagination Games
It is integral that we purposefully give our child peers tools to keep their imaginations connecting and deconstructing reality and fantasy. When a child can visualize, imagine and challenge the normal understanding of how things work together, they have more control over imagining our future worlds. They also become more comfortable with the diversity of [...]
You Can Talk in the Universe / By Allie
You Can Talk in the Universe / By Allie, age 4 (her twin brother is Nick who wrote “The Universe is Flat”)
“I talk without using my mouth.
I just say it and Nickie, my brother understands me. I send a word when I hum, Nick hears it. It’s a hum in my mind. It sounds like [...]
The Real Future / By Abigail
The Real Future / By Abigail, age 4
“I know something that is going to happen in the future.
It is the Sun gobbling up the Earth.
The only number I can remember about it is that it’s 1000 million months in the future. Maybe I know this because it happened to some other planet and a person [...]
Philosophies of Children
In the past few weeks I’ve been focusing on obtaining orally told stories/philosophies from the children on their ideas of the world, not just specifically on “futures”, but on everything. Their voices are quite profound, as are their drawings from their ideas. Since there are more then one this time, they are being posted all [...]
The Love of Hearts When the Dinosaurs Were Made / By Sylvie
The Love of Hearts When the Dinosaurs Were Made
By Sylvie, age 4
“When there was love here we were happy.
It was the time of the dinosaurs where there was love. The love looked like the future. The love got swallowed by a huge dinosaur, he went off and carried the love to Africa and Africa [...]
The World’s Story / By Alexandra
The World’s Story / By Alexandra, age 4
“The universe is made of tiny round cells and the magic is how our cells join together. There is nothing in the space between the cells. Then they bump together and get stuck together and it continues until
they are tiny animals like jellyfish and plants.
The first people on [...]
I. The Earth is Bright II.Then the Earth Died / By Edward
I. The Earth is Bright / By Edward, age 5
“The smashers of darkness came. The power of darkness tore the people into 7 stone. They were tiny pieces and they broke their brains. More agents came and dived into the brains.
Then A. got knocked.
Lucky Stocking.
The marker came and destroyed the darkness. Because YOU destroyed everything. [...]
I Forgot the Future / By Adrienne
I Forgot the Future / By Adrienne, age 4
“The future was destroyed by all the lies. The lies are straight lines. You have to make a straight line to get to the Earth. Because aliens came down they destroyed the Earth all themselves without even using the power of them. It felt like they were [...]
How Did the Future Get People / By Riva
How Did the Future Get People / By Riva, age 4
“Once upon a future the future was wiggling. The future was sad because the future didn’t have any people inside of it. It didn’t have people inside of it because the people were not grown up yet. They grew up in the nightmare time. There [...]
Little Scenarios
A colleague of mine, Yutaka Houlette, worked with our Pre K students (3-5 years old) this past summer and created, with them, one of the best video projects with children I’ve seen.
Yutaka set up a little blank stage for the children in which they could perform their own silent play. They each were allowed to [...]
The Pass Around Story
Inevitably when I talk about implementing “future studies in early childhood education” most people are curious, but unsure of what it means in reality. Much of future studies is merely facilitating tools to respond to, receive, and create change in a system. There are many really simple tools to help children and humans of all [...]
Future Schools 2009
A big part of future studies at any age is understanding the differences and similarities between actual, preferred and possible futures. In order to introduce the topic of variable futures, a drawing project was set up for a class of my Pre-K students. In the first part of the project they were to draw their [...]
The future is….
Here is a list of what the future is according to a class of 4/5 year olds.
The future is…
many things
a place where you go
something happening now
a world that is like future aliens
somewhere you’ve never been
somewhere I want to be
I forgot
something that is going to happen the next day
a place you’ve never been you want to [...]
Futures by Kids (FSxK) Developments
FSxK is the name of the Futures by Kids study group with children. I had my first development meeting with one of the potential leaders of the group, Spencer David, age 6. Here is a transcript of some of the things he and I discussed.
Spencer David /
FSxK First Meeting/
H: Let’s talk about the future, let’s [...]
An Image of a Future World / Interview with Johns
Direction, Decisions and Design all by Johns, age 5 / Computer Mouse Maneuvering by Heidi, age 25
A brief description of this picture /
You are looking at a future world. The purple gradient is the plane of the world. The object on the left is a lamp attached to a rope that hangs in mid air. [...]
Adventure Playgrounds by Kids / Part I.
After describing Adventure Playgrounds to a group of 4/5 year olds and showing them examples, they decided they wanted to plan a course of action to have their own. We went forward with Part I., in which we draw our ideas of what an Adventure Playground would look like.
Here’s a few examples of what they [...]
The Future of Space / By Fiona
The Future of Space / By Fiona, Age 5
“They built a new future because the future broke down. In January it broke down. The future broke because it was on fire. The big guy made it catch on fire. The construction people built the new future. It was one big building that people walked in. [...]
The Mouth of the Actual / By Neema
The Mouth of the Actual / By Neema, Age 5
“Once upon a time there was a princess and she lived in a magical world. This magical world was in the future. The world is flat and tired, because some war world bad guys shooted some of the Earth down.
The princess moved to a new [...]
The Land of Wonderous Future / By Sophia
The Land of Wonderous Future / By Sophia, Age 5
“One time a future exploded. After the future exploded, they built another in the future. In the past time when there was dead body of the rocky people on the shore pirates came. When the pirates came they turned to deadly skeleton. They fierced and scared [...]
The Future Eats the City World / By Grace
The Future Eats the City World
By Grace, Age 5
“The future begins; there was no people yet and then there were.
They were born before they opened up their eyes. When they opened up their eyes they saw where they were. It was dark and rainy. They said, “Are we on Earth?” The people behind the wall [...]
Grace’s Change Poster
Drawn By Grace, Age 5
This is Grace’s Poster for “Change”. At this time (2005) we were discussing ways you would want to change your country, interesting enough her flag had a picture of a state (Texas) and she said she wanted her poster to say: “I’m not going to do anything in the State.” Pretty [...]
The Future School
Part of the study of the future with young children is having them imagine future worlds and when they might happen. The following are selections of drawings from a series on imagining future schools.
Drawing by Spencer, Age 5.
This is his idea:
“This is the pyramid school. The sun shows into the star above the school and [...]
A Future Story / By Lia
By Lia G. Age 5.
“We should love the trees and plants. If we don’t they’ll all die. Then we would die. The animals will die too.
The book is not for me and my sister, it is for mommies and daddies. I want them to read the book so they know about the future because I’m [...]