Futures Literacy
Practice-based Futures Literacy online course
For educators working with teenagers
What is Futures Literacy
Futures are multiple and uncertain, and the more fast and diverse is the world we live in, the more meaningless are any direct predictions.
But some future will definitely come, either with our help or without it. And if we are unable to create our own desired futures images and turn them into workable strategies, if we are lacking cooperation and co-creation skills, chances are high that we wouldn't like it.

Possibility of desired futures starts with synchronized intention.
Synchronized inteniton starts with capability to collectively dream of what in valuable and cooperatively turn this dream into a scenario.

Futures Literacy (or futures thinking) is a key literacy for fast and uncertain world. It is a complex skill that includes:
- skill of productive dreaming,
- skill to imply own strengths in every situation,
- skill to think strategically and innovatively,
- skill to cooperate to create common greater good.

But it's most important component is a skill to choose consciously on the basis of own core values, place bids to what is really important inspite of what is habitual, and use the power of imagination to create images worth being embodied.

Education is a system for managing the future; moreover, it is a system for designing the future. It is directly responsible for what kind of people, in what relationship and with what goals and values will act in the world in 10, 15, 20 years - which means in what system of meanings, projects and products we will live then.

In a complex and changing world, every educator should become a bearer and practitioner of futures thinking and be able to pass this practice on to their students, thereby empowering them to be co-creators of the world in which they live and which they are responsible for.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand
Albert Einstein
For whom is this course?
1. For you, core teachers and elective teachers, school psychologists and facilitators, tutors and navigators, for all of you who work with teenagers and know well that education becomes attractive when it is filled with meaning and empowerement.
For you who know that meaning and empowerment appear when:
- a person has an image of desired lifestyle,
- where one can find places for all their talents, potentials and interests,
- and when this life journey is accompanied by soulmates with whom it is possible to enjoy life and make the world a better place.

2. For your students, who deserve to feel themselves meaningful and valuable for this world, recognize and experience their capability to influence its development since their childhood, as it is that sense of importance of their perosnalities that is responsible for sustainable motivation and energy to develop.

Our course is practice-based, so you will bring all tools and methods we test here to your students right after our webinars to witness how their attitudes and thinking change in the course of your study, and how your relationships improve.
How do we study?
Live webinars
Each week we meet to test different practices and get a bit of background behind them =) We move through "Practice - reflection - background" or "Background - pratice - reflection" depending on the transparency of certain topic. Sometimes we meet twice a week upon request, if the topic is catching or tricky =)
Shared research
По теме развития futures literacy написано множество материалов. Исследовать их вслепую - это гарантированно утонуть. Мы будем изучать все это в структурированном виде и в режиме sharing studies - когда части группы берут разные материалы и потом делятся с другими своим резюме.
Real-time support
We have a chat - no, THE CHAT =) It is constantly filled with interesting tips and reads, it boils with discussion, it keep you connected with the people no matter where they are phisycally, it serves as first-line support when you are practicing with your students and as a laboratory to design new practices and tools. We are really together during the whole course.
Non-stop conference
Conference is the place (or time in our case) where people who start practicing futures thinking meet those who already have experience in it. Each week we get a guest practitioner who uses futures practices in game design, science learning, professional orientation, etc. to gain more confidence on how we can apply futures literacy tools to our own courses and programs.
Interactive tasks
Each week we will test a couple of formats and get even more similar in descriptions. The regular hometask is to get to our students and have a lesson using one of them. /formats or practices are different in types, including self, peer, group formats which allows you to choose the most appropriate for your particular situation.
Personal project mentoring
For those who are willing to construct their own courses on FL or future-based subject courses we organize personal and peer mentorship which allows to go through all design steps and end up with ready-to-use and tested product. If you currently don't have your own students to probe your course, we wlii find a testing group for you to get practice and feedback.
Activities
FL Practitioner
FL Master
Webinars
Conference
Study materials
Interactive tasks
Project/product mentoring
Personal sessions
Choose your package
Futures Literacy Practitioner
Basic FL course, 6 weeks
My outcomes
  • Know what is "Futures Literacy" as competence
  • Possess a package of group and individual practices to help teens develop Futures Literacy
  • Able to find and verify new FL practices for my specific tasks and certain groups I work with
  • Gained facilitation and collective thinking skills suitable to work with teens
  • Able to find and structure reading materials and research papers on FL for my work
  • Able to conduct individual and group rpospection and reflection sessions


95 eur
Apply
Feedback: why it is important to use FL in education
In study, work, upbringing and education, the strategy of "doing as you have always done" no longer works. You need to ask yourself all the time "Why am I doing this?", "Why this and not that?", "What do I want to get as a result?".
But questions alone are not enough. To find answers filled with energy, meaning and a sense of belonging to the world, you must first understand exactly how you want to see this very world.
And the practice of working with the future is a great tool to figure it out.
Anna Kozlova
navigator, designer of self-directed learning journeys
Person's educational efforts are always connected with the image of the future - own or someone else's and not very conscious. For those who work in education, it is useful to realize this and act in this field.
Alyona Surikova
Sociologist, psychologist
The main concern of our parents and adolescents is that they do not see the clear way to go. Parents hardly can say something relevant from their past experience, and the present often scares them. Children cannot rely neither on them, or on teachers who are also about the past, nor on smart articles about "human competencies of the 21st century", because these tips are often also just refurbished past... Therefore, it is very necessary to learn and teach differently, staarting the strategies and discources from the desired futures - it not only gives wings, it illuminates the path!
Nadezhda Emilfarb
Principal of Dukley Academy private school
When the Image of the Desired Future is described, at least at the level of value attitudes (sometimes the image is far beyond the life span), strategies allowing to reach it evolve organically and help to create something that contributes to its achievement, even regardless of my participation at some stages. Moreover, strategies can be chosen based on personal willingness to influence the desired image - the sphere, the scale, the style, etc.
Sergey Zorin
Co-founder of makingfuture.today
Our experts
Lika Chekalova
Course developer and lead expert
Specializes in innovative and experimental education since 1997, educational strategist, methodologist, educational programs architect, mentor of educational projects, futurist.

Develops and adapts futures thinking practices since 2016, works with private and state schools on making futures literacy part of curriculum, supports schools transformation into futures-oriented learning communities.

Co-founder of Navigators School
Maria Staroverova
Edtech entrepreneur and mentor, metaverses specialist, Theory U practitioner
Svetlana Holtzer
Chief research officer in "Fir" Edupark" private school, developer of futures practices
Julia Brodsky
Former NASA instructor, founder of international science learning project "Art of Inquiry"
Catherine Shubert
Co-founder of "FutureToday" career orientation company, trainer and facilitator for buisness and NGO companies
Mikhail Zabelin
Serious games developer, sociotechlogy specialist, designer of thinking development practices
Marina Stepkina
Educational scientist, head of the Laboratory of Evidence-Based Pedagogy, philosopher (PhD)
Our experience in implementing of FL practices
Futures Labs 2019
International wave of intergenerational collective futures thinking labs on independent sites in 30 cities
Futures Labs 2020-2021
A wave of collective futures thinking labs in schools, uniting learners teachers and parents to collaboratively work out futures-oriented schools strategies
"Me-project" Summer Schools
Project-based summer schools for teens, where learners chreate their own futures-based change strategies and projects
Educational events
Educational festivals where youth learn new skills based on their desired futures images and unite in teams to create futures-based change projects
Educational games
A series of board games and LARP games for different ages where participants start with defining their terminal values (or desired futures images) and go through different situations to make them possible
Self-orientation programs
Implementation of futures practices into electives in self-determination, professional orientation make courses more meaningful and allow students to gain agency in their learning
Ask your question here
or contact Lika Chekalova on TG/WA +79213394666
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