Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 June 2015
The children we teach in school now will spend most of their lives in the 21st century. Those leaving school in the 1990s will become the parents, voters, workers, business people and visionaries of tomorrow. If all education is for the future, where is the future in education? How are we preparing the students for those responsibilities? How are we helping them to think more critically and creatively about the future?
My argument is that as educators, and particularly as environmental educators, we need to engage in the task of ‘reclaiming the future’. I will illustrate this with reference to: i) the approaching millenium; ii) the need to educate more explicitly for the future; iii) the importance of being able to envision more just and sustainable futures; and iv) some thoughts on moving forwards.