Early Futures
Futures Education
Future Sketches from a preschooler
Drawings of some things in the future according to Gregory, age four:
Reaching into Space >>
Some principles of things >>
(Will we be) Riding on Air? >>
Books on Children’s Narratives
Not sure how much one can learn from children? Consider reading a few of these works documenting children’s stories of their experience. The books are a diverse mixture filled with inspiring, surprising accounts of a range of children’s experiences, inner, outer and otherwise.
The Spiritual Life of Children
Robert Coles
Robert Coles is a solid, long-standing figure [...]
Mandala Practices with Children
“The mandala (Sanskrit “circle”) is a basic form which can be found in nature, in the elements of matter, in the plant and animal worlds, as well as in objects and images created by man and his psyche. It portrays a system of order which superimposes itself, so to speak, on the psychic chaos in [...]
Berkeley Adventure Playground
Time to return to the always inspirational adventure playground. We already described the essence of what adventure playgrounds are in other articles, we now turn to the reality and details of a specific adventure playground: the Berkeley adventure playground. How does it work? What does it look like? How does one maintain an adventure playground?
The [...]
Presentations by Children
Finally, here are the highlight clips from children who were giving guided reviews of their work to their peers in the Children’s Think Tank. The videos show the range and diverse set of topics and insight, as well as presentation styles, of the children who were involved.
First is two short clips from five-year-old Abigail. She [...]
Tarot Stories
One of the more fascinating tasks of being with children is learning how to obtain (let alone understand) the narratives and inner stories from young children who can find it difficult to express their complex feelings in simple language. Symbols and myths have long been a part of teaching and encouraging expression with young children, from retelling ancient fairy tales to labeling all things in a childhood classroom with words and pictures. Children learn (and are educated) through symbols.
Spirit Presentation
Below is Warner Brockman’s lecture (age 10), presented at the Children’s Think Tank Show. He created and edited the content and the presentation with minimal digital assistance from our Think Tank research assistant team (be sure to let presentation load).
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Warner’s Life, Death and Reincarnation Presentation on [...]
Research Summaries
The Children’s Think Tank completed their first session in December 2010! In the next month we will be updating their final work, including sharing two fantastic presentations made by a few children during our opening. In the meantime, we’d like to share our “Research Summaries” publication put out for the culminating event at the Maryland [...]
Think Tank Notebook
Each child in the Children’s Think Tank upkeeps a research notebook, filled with mostly drawings.
In this video clip, Lia walks me through what she was thinking during part of her research on mythology, revealing a surprising game her and her 7-year-old friends play.
Children’s Think Tank Meeting 4
Meeting #4
Summary:
Our meeting this week took us out to the library for our first research into external resources to help expand our topics. The children drew and photographed parts of the books that interested them:
(How the universe was made, by Abigail).
(Spencer looking into things that are related to the Earth, i.e. how the Earth was [...]
“I Want To Learn Everything”
Here’s an excerpt from an interview with Abigail, at the Children’s Think Tank.
(video)
Children’s Think Tank / Meeting 3
Meeting #3
(photo: Annika studying astral projection)
Part 1
This week we did not have a lecture or research meeting agenda. We began by exercising our internal visualization skills with “Breathing” and “Mirror” imagination games from the fabulous book, Put Your Mother On The Ceiling, by Richard De Mille. At the end of this exercise we were [...]
Children’s Think Tank / Meeting 2
Meeting Notes, Meeting #2
Part 1
Meet in group to discuss the choice topic (as voted on in previous meeting): Aliens.
Part 2
Short lecture/discussion on the presentation topic: Research Methods (you can view the .pdf of our meeting agenda). In the research methods lecture, we discussed traditional research methods, and alternative research methods.
A brief transcript of topic [...]
Child Speaks on Food Sources
Good example of child-centered alternative education practices – flip the roles, make the child the lecturer:
Narratives with choices
Storytelling is the play and art of children. Children use playful stories and daily narratives to provide insight into their life, psyche, trauma, hopes, fears as well as possibilities. Within that, we have an obligation to help them create narratives that include choices and options, to share with us their ideas! The concept of narratives [...]
Children’s Think Tank / Meeting 1
Meeting 1 Documentation
Our first experimental session of the Children’s Think Tank has begun. It is a research group with children that helps articulate what they are interested in, while exploring future research methods that attend to their concerns and abilities (view gallery on left for photographs from the first meeting). For those of you have [...]
Lost Futures Language, Barcodes?
Futures alternatives can often become obsolete, lost in the landfills, forgotten or replaced by the next ‘new’ thing. However, on that rare occasion you come across an artifact that reveals a lost future, they can be fantastic entrance points for teaching and understanding the inner workings of futures.
Here is a prime example. The Sprites’ Adventures [...]
Found Graffiti
Sign far side of picture: Private Property
Window A: God is Love!
Graffiti: No Future
Window B: Yellow Happy Face
This graffiti I found tagged on the back of a daycare center in Baltimore City.
Alternative Library
My present home city of Baltimore is a very antagonistic, yet at times, very hopeful place to be working. There are a number of institutions and individuals focused on alternatives here, due to the interesting, conflicting fact that there are high volumes of dissent and intense violence due to economic, racial and class conflict. The [...]
2 International Relations Books for Children
The concepts of national relations, global relations, international relations, intergalactic relations etc. are imperative to discuss with children at a young age. These two books are excellent introductions to the topics of nation/state and global/galactic relations. They each touch on topics of colonialism, war, peace, national identity and race relations.
The Butter Battle Book [...]
Teaching the Future
The Journal of Future Studies, an international journal of foresight and futures studies, is putting out a three part symposium of articles on “Teaching the Future.” Early Futures will have an article in the third part on early childhood, to be published in December. Anyone interested in what futures teaching is about should read these [...]
Neuroscience, Meditation and Education
The Neuro Education Initiative Summit at Johns Hopkins University brings together Neuroscientists and Educators to present contemporary research in brain science and how it affects educational functions.
The article reviewing the entire summit is here: Dana Foundation Report.
There were a number of topics, but the one I was most interested in was the affects of Integrated [...]
Children Tell The Future
Futures 2010
(brought to you by the 4-and 5-year-old’s at Bolton Hill Nursery School)
Each year we do a futures unit near the end of their last year of preschool. This year we thought and compared three different futures:
1. What do you wish the future would really be like? (Utopian futures)
2. What do you not want the [...]