As an assistant professor, one needs a research program, an agenda of work that is planned and can be expected to further a theory, extend understanding or lead to something valuable. When I was an elementary school teacher, I thought it would be possible to plan and carry out exercises that would show how to improve education. By the time I had earned a doctorate in research methods, statistics and measurement, I had a better understanding of science and education. I came to the conclusion that many people in many different disciplines had a very good understanding of the human mind and did not need scientific proof of ways to communicate, advise, coach and promote learning and growth. It became clear over time that I needed to have some professional credentials if I wanted to be promoted.
I did want to be, so I looked around for some areas to work in. The American Educational Research Association (AREA) has many divisions and subgroups, more than 80 at the time. They relate to nearly any conceivable aspect of education and human learning, a very broad subject for sure.
In 1972, the book Limits to Growth came out. My friend, a history professor and I talked about its dire predictions of pollution, overpopulation, dearth of natural resources and a generally dark future by the year 2025. He wished for a list of sources on the "history of the future", meaning various predictions from the prophets of Biblical times through Nostradamus to Arthur Clarke. He and I and a professor of the College of Natural Resources planned and began a course simply called "Futures". Our idea was to assemble the best insights into the future we could and present them in the course, while introducing famous predictions of the past with some information on how accurate the predictions were. It worked satisfactorily but we found that the entire future of everything for all time was a bit much to handle.
We also found that many predictions were vague and without deadlines that would enable knowing when the prediction had failed to be correct. I realized that the future is a good place for scoundrels and snake oil salespersons. "The world will end in 2 weeks and the only way to save yourself is to become my servant" or "...to take daily doses of my patented elixir". We found that the story of Chicken Little and his dire warning of the sky falling is a succinct model of much comment about the future.
Still, I am beholden to the future for giving me both professional presentations and professional credentials, not to mention some experience dealing with people's thoughts on the future.
