The Future: Young Scholars' Inquiry Seminar Meets the Special Needs of Highly Capable 5th Grade Students

by Paula Fraser and Rich Henry

"From the seminar, I have learned about the importance of interconnectedness… I have also learned that there is hope for the future." -- Helen

"Listening to all these different ideas has made me think about new things and change some of my views on things I thought I knew about." -- Jack

"… [this program] really gave me another option of what to be in the future. This showed me possibilities that I can make the world a better place." -- Jessica

This article describes the pilot of a program created to deeply engage students in a study of issues affecting the future of humanity. The program integrates two unique aspects, an effective process—a Community of Inquiry—and crucial content—the future of humanity—into a synergistic whole. Although the pilot was conducted with a class of highly capable fifth graders in the PRISM program at Stevenson Elementary School in Bellevue WA, with minor adjustments the program is appropriate for all populations and all grade levels of students. It is designed to cultivate the intellect of all learners.

The purpose of The Future: Young Scholars' Inquiry program is to meaningfully engage students in thinking about and creating a realistic and hopeful vision of the future through a Community of Inquiry. This Community of Inquiry is based on cultivating the intellect of all students through scholarship; critical, ethical, and creative thinking; dialogue; action; and hope.

Our Human/Earth experience is approaching a fork in the road. Humanity is facing many issues that are on trajectories leading to potential catastrophe. Perhaps even more importantly, many of these issues are global issues; the outcomes will affect all of Earth's inhabitants. At the same time, human creativity is leading to better understanding of intricate interrelationships, and human ingenuity is constantly creating new solutions to complex problems. It is becoming increasingly clear that with many issues we must discern and take decisive action: either create a world that works for all, or find ourselves in a world that works for no one.

If humans are to survive and thrive, we must cultivate responsible, competent, ethical citizens within an interconnected global community. The Future: Young Scholars' Inquiry program is a "call to action" to engage young people in understanding problems and creating positive solutions, contributing to a world and future that works for all.

The Foundation For the Future (FFF) in Bellevue, WA is "dedicated to the increase and diffusion of knowledge concerning the future of humanity." Humanity 3000 is a FFF "program of seminars and symposia designed to convene scholars from diverse backgrounds and challenge them to debate the factors affecting the long-term future of humanity." The Future: Young Scholars' Inquiry is an adapted form of the Humanity 3000 program. (http://www.FutureFoundation.org)

Three questions guide the entire inquiry process:

• What are the factors that are critical to the long-term future of humanity?
• What do we know about the past and present of these factors and their most likely trajectories?
• What are the problems and opportunities associated with these factors as they relate to the long-term future of humanity?

The Future: Young Scholars' Inquiry program is a model for creating a Community of Inquiry—the process—in the classroom to investigate issues of significance to the future of humanity—the content or topic. Although the Community of Inquiry is an approach well-suited to any complex topic, it is especially effective with this topic of the future of humanity. The process and content reinforce each other, creating a synergistic whole that is a powerful learning experience for the students.

This program works very well with middle school students. With minor modifications, it is appropriate for all student populations and grade levels. Depending on curricular obligations, this program will normally be implemented over a time span of several weeks, several months, or up to the entire school year.

The Community of Inquiry serves as the scaffold or framework for the philosophical and methodological foundations for this program. The one-day seminar serves as the "focusing event" around which the other program elements are logistically organized, falling into events: 1) preceding the Seminar, 2) the Seminar itself, and 3) following the Seminar. Both will now be discussed in some detail.

Philosophical and Methodological Foundations: The Community of Inquiry Definition of Community of Inquiry: Within the classroom context, inquirers co-construct meaning through dialogical discernment and decision-making based on informed critical, ethical, and creative reasoning. A Community of Inquiry will exhibit these elements or attributes: Cultivating the intellect of all inquirers - students and teachers alike. Fostering informed, reasoned discernment through critical, ethical, and creative thinking. Critical thinking: The ability to analyze and evaluate your own and others' thinking, using elements of reasoning and standards. Ethical thinking: The acquisition of intellectual dispositions, which ensure fair-mindedness, integrity, empathy, and principled interactions with others. Creative thinking: The facility to think generatively to create original ideas and imagine new possibilities. Achieving high academic standards without standardization. Promoting an interdisciplinary approach, integrating science/technology with the humanities. Making decisions collaboratively around what and how to learn (within curricular requirements) and sharing responsibility for individual and group learning. Strengthening elements of the affective domain, related to motivation, effective social interaction, and courage to think and act with integrity for both self and the common good. Reflecting as an essential process, both individually and as a community.

Creating a Community of Inquiry is a little bit different than teaching a prescribed, set program or content. A famous chef says, "When I'm a cook, I follow the recipe. When I'm a chef, I play with the ingredients." The intention for this program is that teachers view themselves as chefs, not cooks, and "play with" the principles, concepts, and approaches provided, adapting them to their particular students and context.

Preceding the Seminar
Prior to the inquiry focusing specifically on the future, students were adept at functioning within a Community of Inquiry, as we had worked within this pedagogical context the entire school year. To serve as a baseline of student understanding for the particular inquiry about the future, a Pre-Assessment Survey was administered in which students responded in writing to the Foundation For the Future's "Three Essential Questions" highlighted above. In addition, students reflected upon the future conceptually and described their metaphors for the future, as well as their hopes and dreams for the future. Lastly, the teacher/facilitator conducted short video interviews to capture initial thoughts about the future prior to engaging in the actual inquiry.

As an extension of their own inquiry into the future, students were curious about what individuals beyond the classroom thought about the future. Each student sent out five of the above surveys to the greater community--family, friends, and policy makers. In addition to the three questions, students asked respondents to describe personal metaphors for the future and their hopes for the future. Student scholars allowed four weeks turn around time for the surveys to be completed. They used Microsoft Excel to organize and analyze data.

Within the context of the Community of Inquiry, students adapted the critical thinking model of Richard Paul of the Center For Critical Thinking to think through the logic of their upcoming inquiry on the future. For instance, they thought about the inquiry in terms of the critical reasoning elements such as: primary purpose, key questions, significant concepts, relevant perspectives, assumptions, etc. The teacher then used a data projector to work with the whole group to synthesize individual responses into one document. Each student received a copy of the inquiry overview that they placed in their individual research folders for reference as the inquiry progressed.

Among the significant concepts related to the inquiry about the future that students derived from the above discussion were the ideas of: the arrow of time--from cosmological to biological and cultural evolution; the relation of humanity to the past, present and future; thrival and survival of humanity; responsibilities to future generations; trends, patterns, and trajectories; hopes and promises, etc. These identified concepts established a "need to know" within the classroom community of inquiry. When students realized that they possessed "Socratic ignorance" related to many of the concepts that they had uncovered, they immediately set about conducting preliminary research to find information in print, non-print, and website resources that they shared with the whole community. At this stage, experts/classroom mentors were invited to the classroom to share their expertise with the students, including information about the environment, nanotechnology, biotechnology, robotics, information technology, governance, ethics, hunger and poverty, human rights, etc.

After this introductory inquiry, specific research perspectives were assigned to individual students. Students and the teacher worked together to generate a list of approximately thirty relevant perspectives that were grouped into three categories: 1) environment/resources 2) science/technology and 3) society/humanities. This phase of the inquiry process was critical because the list was "community generated," and not one merely assigned by the teacher. It was essential that students worked together to prioritize perspectives and to make sure that significant perspectives were not excluded. Student inquirers became committed to the idea that they were assuming responsibility for sharing their specific research findings with the whole Community of Inquiry at the upcoming seminar; in this way the whole community would benefit from seeing issues related to the future in more complex, interdisciplinary ways.

In addition to the classroom mentors who shared their expertise with the entire community, each student sought individual mentors in the greater community related to his or her specific research perspective. Many student scholars met face-to-face with their mentors, while others discussed related issues in telephone or e-mail conversations. It was particularly gratifying to see how many adult professionals took the time to work with the students; they saw this relationship as one way to give back to the community through the young scholars.

Students proceeded to engage in the independent inquiry/research process. After reviewing general information, student inquirers created query terms and formulated overarching and key sub questions to organize and focus their research. They arranged their resources in an agreed upon annotated bibliography form, with an emphasis on securing a wide range of resources: print, internet, film, interviews, and newspapers. Although students researched individual topics, they were encouraged to share and discuss resources used with other members of the Community of Inquiry.

Students used their key questions to focus and organize ideas and concepts that were gathered from resources in the note-taking phase of the process. The notes were organized into an overall outline using key research questions to organize thoughts in more general categories that would become "chapters" in their research papers. The outline was used as a skeleton upon which to flesh out ideas and synthesize in a written rough draft. After revising and editing the rough draft, students produced a final research paper and abstract containing their research analysis and research findings. It was a high expectation that student scholars demonstrate a nuanced understanding of the complexity and interconnectedness of issues, as well as an understanding of the possible implications of their conclusions.

The Seminar
The evening before the actual Seminar, a reception for parents was held at the Foundation For the Future. Parents had an opportunity to learn about the Foundation, the Foundation's mission, and its role in supporting the Young Scholar's Inquiry program.

In preparation for the seminar, students submitted 250 word biographies and abstracts of their research; these statements were included in a three-ring binder that each seminar participant received.

Because the students were so well-prepared, the day of the actual seminar ran very smoothly. After a brief introduction and orientation by the Director of the Foundation, individual scholars presented their research organized by: 1) descriptive overview and definition, 2) challenges, and 3) promises. Presentations were accompanied by three PowerPoint slides created by each scholar.

Scholars prioritized significant issues facing the future of humanity in small group breakout sessions. They created flip-chart summaries to share with the larger group. In the plenary session, they presented their prioritized list and their rationales. After all groups had presented, individuals used dot voting to determine the top three issues to be discussed later in the day. The top three issues selected by the scholars were: 1) the environment, 2) education, and 3) poverty/hunger. After lunch scholars participated in and observed three "fishbowl" Socratic discussions, each focusing on one of the top three issues.

The day of the seminar ended with a de-briefing discussion and individual sharing of personal reflections. Most students articulated a sense of hope given the challenges facing humanity in the future; they realized that "people cause problems, and people can use their combined wisdom to address and solve problems." They also felt that the issues were very interconnected and required new ways of thinking to systematically and thoughtfully address them.

Following the Seminar
As a final assessment, students wrote reflective essays in which they addressed the three pre-assessment questions along with any other ideas and thoughts that they wanted to explore related to the challenges and promises inherent in the future that they had learned about through their inquiry.

To extend their learning with outreach to the greater world community, student scholars sent their research findings and reflective essays to leading scientists, state, national and international agencies and institutions, as well as private individuals. This educational outreach and advocacy was very well received; many folks took the time to write lengthy responses to the students.

The culminating activity was a presentation and celebration for parents and other members of the community. Students shared their PowerPoint research findings and engaged the adults in a dialogue where students and adults were paired to discuss the most critical issues facing humanity in the future. The evening was topped off with a celebratory ice cream social.

This was a very engaging unit of study for the 5th grade students who participated in the pilot project. It has served as a bookmark in the stories of their own lives, and, for many of the students, has expanded their thinking about their own future possibilities and our collective human possibilities. It has increased commitment and hope. As an intellectual experience, the program set the bar high, and encouraged every student to rise to the challenge. It set an expectation and benchmark of excellence that they successfully attained, and now will not fall back from. They came to understand the interconnectedness of issues facing the future of humanity along with the idea that people cause problems and people can use their combined wisdom to solve problems, thus creating hope for the future.

We are now working to create curricular materials to support replicable and scalable implementation of similar seminar programs for classrooms around the world. The Future: Young Scholars' Inquiry is an experience all students should have.

The Future

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About the authors

Paula Fraser has been a teacher of middle level students for over twenty years. Her mission in the classroom is to assist students in creating a community of inquiry where academic excellence, along with, critical and ethical reasoning are fostered; she has made presentations nationally and internationally and authored articles on this approach. She is the recipient of several educational awards including the Christa McAuliffe Award for Excellence in Education in Washington State and the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Teaching. She may be reached at fraserp@bsd405.org

Rich Henry is founder and president of UnifiedField Associates, a consulting firm dedicated to helping organizations create their best possible futures through appreciative and strength-based approaches. He is especially interested in applying appreciative and strength-based methods for improvement of education. He is a national and international presenter and facilitator. He has taught at every level from 8th grade through graduate school and has significant experience in education administration. He can be contacted at RichHenry@uni-field.com, 425-452-1134, or UnifiedField Associates, 241 130th Ave NE, Bellevue WA 98005.

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©September 2005 New Horizons for Learning

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