Sue Grieshaber (PhD)

Chair Professor and Head, Department of Early

Childhood Education
Hong Kong Institute of Education

My background
Early childhood and primary classroom

teacher for 13 years

Teacher educator and academic since 1990
Now Chair Professor and Head, Department of
Early Childhood Education, Hong Kong
Institute of Education

Overview
Human capital theory
Postdevelopmentalism
Futures education
4 questions about futures education and

ECED
Conclusion

Human capital theory

Human capital

theorists support
investing in the early
years because of the
perceived benefits to
society later e.g.:
better educated

people; which means

higher rates of
employment and
fewer families living in
poverty

However, human

capital theorists are

not concerned with
social justice and
equity: poverty is
only a problem when
it generates
additional costs that
could be avoided
(Penn, 2010, p. 53)

Post-developmentalism
Western child

development
theories have
colonized ECE in
many countries in
the world
Western ways are
not necessarily the
best for all children
everywhere

Post-

developmentalism:
ideas and practices
that question and
challenge child
development
discourses in ECE
(Blaise, 2010)

Futures:
thinking
about the
past and
present

Close your eyes for

a moment: imagine
that the future does
not exist; only the
past and present
Was this easy or
hard? Why?
We anticipate future
events and talk
about them because
it is a way of
ordering the
present and giving
meanings to the
past (McHale,
1978, p. 5)

Thinking about the

future
When we imagine the

future, we think about

what we would like
and what we would
not like to happen
Think about your
preferred possibilities
for ECE in your local
area: what would you
really like to happen?

Is
introducing
the future
to ECE
justifiable?
Yes, because we
cannot have
more of the
same

Capitalism,

industrialization,
imperialism, colonization
have brought progress
but also done much
damage to the planet and
produced human suffering
Aim: ecological
sustainability and peaceful
coexistence

Futures education
Aims to help

students think more

critically and
creatively about the
future
Increases
understanding of
economic, social,
political and cultural
influences which
shape peoples ideas
about personal, local
and global futures

Develops skills,

attitudes and values

which encourage
foresight and enable
pupils to identify
probable and
preferable futures
Works towards a more
just and sustainable
future where welfare
of people and planet
are of equal
importance. (Hicks,
2014)

Futures
education
Enables pupils to
understand links
between their own
lives in the present
and those of
others in the past
and future (Hicks,
2014)
Where have we
been; where are
we going; where
do we want to go
in ECE?

3 important
thinking points
for futures
education
What could

be? (possible)
What is likely
to be?
(probable)
What ought to
be?(preferable)
(Bell, 2012, p.
73)

2 questions
For the world they have
What futures
inherited, children need
contents are
relational and collective
appropriate for
dispositions, not
ECE?
individualistic ones
(Taylor, 2013, p. 117) (not
What approach
developmental
is appropriate
psychology)
to teach and
Emphasize childrens
raise young
relations with others in
children about
their worlds: human and
the future?
more-than-human

Relational
and
educators
and children
collective
investigating their
inquiry
inherited worlds
(human and morethan-human),
including where they
are, who and what is
there with them, how
they all got to be
there, the different
kinds of lives that are
lived and stories that
are told there, and
where they and others
fit within these
interconnected lives
and stories (Taylor,
2013, p. 123)

Ethically,
collective
pedagogical
inquiry
involves

Educators exploring with

children the everyday and longer

term challenges of inheritance
and coexistence (Taylor, 2013,
pp. 123-4)
Children and educators acting

together with the others with

whom they share these worlds,
to collectively create the best
possible enmeshed future
(Taylor, 2013, p. 124)

What is needed
for ECED; for
academics,
researchers,
educators,
teachers and
parents to be
responsive to the
future
which/whose
future should be
responded to?

Curriculum decisions are

proactive and identify

possible, probable and
preferable futures
Plan curriculum
according to identified
preferable futures

Indonesian
ECE
curriculum: a
based on national
centre
education objectives,
the vision and
approach

Flexible: changes are possible

in accordance with current

conditions (i.e., emergent
mission of an
curriculum) (p. 64).
ECE/ECD institution,
Adaptable: The curriculum can
the parents
expectations, and the
be adapted to local cultures
childrens needs. The
and conditions (p. 64).
curriculum is
Links to childrens lives:
prepared by
learning must be meaningful
educators as a
reference for the
and must support the childrens
learning process
lives (p. 64).
(SEAMEO INNOTECH,
n.d., p. 64).

Content and
learning areas
Content/learning areas
for Indonesian ECED
are socio-emotional,
cognitive, language,
soft and gross motor,
and religious/moral
values
Aesthetic/creative and
technological areas are
not named: these are
important aspects of
learning (Kalantzis &
Cope, 2012)

However, early childhood

centres Paud Istiqlal

(Jakarta) and Paud Alam
Pelopor (Bandung, West
Java), have arts and
creativity centres and both
use educational toys made
from natural and
recyclable materials
(SEAMEO INNOPTECH,
n.d., pp. 65-66)

Conclusion
Futures education is important because
Children can learn about how to live peacefully
in a world that is troubled and characterized by
difference; and about how to preserve and
restore a damaged planet
In this context, what is
Possible for ECE in your local area
Probable for ECE in your local area
Preferable for ECE in your local area
And what is the best way to proceed?

References
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Human science for a new era (Vol. 1). New Brunswick NJ: Transaction Publishers.
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Hicks, D. W. (2014). Teaching for a better world: Learning for sustainability.
Accessed 12 April 2014 from
http://www.teaching4abetterworld.co.uk/futures.html
Kalantzis, M. & Cope, B. (2012). New learning: Elements of a science of
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McHale, J. (1976). The emergence of futures research. In J. Fowles (Ed.),
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Educational Program. Accessed 25 March 2014 from
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