Post written by Vibha Deshpande (TTF India HUB director)
When I signed the MOU with Teach the Future, I was thrilled to begin engaging with Indian youth. To kick off the initiative, I shared a post on Facebook about the importance of future thinking and announced a free introductory session for students aged 12 to 18. I also reached out to a few schools with whom I've collaborated in the past to inform them about the program. Initially, I received just two inquiries. While I was prepared to conduct the session for these two students, the number grew by four over the next two days, and I ended up with six students eager to learn more about future thinking.
On May 30, 2024, I hosted the first session on Futures Thinking with students from two vernacular medium schools. The students, ranging from 8th to 10th grade, participated via Google Meet due to the fact that they were from different cities.
During the session, I began by asking the students to imagine where they would be in five years and what they thought they would be doing. They were excited to envision their future. One 10th-grade student mentioned he would be working for an IT company, while another said she would be studying at one of India's top colleges, though she wasn’t sure what course she would be pursuing. Then, I asked them to consider how the world might look five to six years from now. They found this much more challenging. It was easier for them to envision their personal future, but imagining broader changes in the world was harder.
This is when I introduced them to the concept of futures literacy. I first asked them what influenced their visions of the future, and they shared that their personal likes, dislikes, and their exposure to the world shaped their ideas. This led me to introduce them to the concepts of signals and drivers of change and possible futures. The students were fascinated to learn that there is a structured and scientific approach to thinking about the future.
We had an engaging discussion about the changes they had witnessed over the past five years and the changes happening in the present. The session concluded on a positive note, with everyone eager to continue the training every Sunday. I also assigned them the task of looking for signals in their areas of interest as homework.
Since then, we've continued our sessions every Sunday, and it’s been a joy to see the students actively engaging with futures thinking. They have been attending the meetings regularly and on time. We're conducting the sessions in Marathi, and I’m doing my best to translate the content as we go along. However, this approach won't be sustainable long-term, so the next step is to translate the Futures Thinking Playbook into Marathi.
If you would like to support Teach the Future in India to translate the Playbook, please click here and add inn the comment "Translation of Playbook into Marathi" Thanks in advance!
If you want to partner and collaborate with Teach the Future in India, please send an email to vibha@teachtehfuture.org