Making Space for Democratic Dissensus: Futures Curricula and Speculative World-Building in Education

• In Event: Explorations of Past and Future: Narrative Spaces of Teaching and Learning

Abstract

This paper presents findings from a study that explores how collaborative, future-oriented storytelling can help students articulate their complex feelings about future possibility and uncertainty in the midst of mounting environmental concerns and increasing socio-economic inequity. Working with a secondary-level English class, speculative world building was used to supplement curricula which seldom addresses the future beyond skills development and prospective job acquisition. Using a radically democratic pedagogical model, students were tasked with imagining the future of Toronto together while navigating their differing opinions and perspectives. Findings signal that this approach to collaborative storytelling increases students’ sense of community, and provides a platform through which they can consider future concerns and envision what it means to act responsibly in the present.

Author

• Brittany Tomin, University of Regina