Classroom Connection: Future Stories with David Christian

A college professor teaching Kant gave me the frame I've used ever since: there are only three clear times in our life: yesterday, today, and tomorrow. We learn from yesterday to act today, so we're in a good position to succeed tomorrow.

What it unlocks in the classroom is modeling. If we can find comparable historical moments, we can start to make educated predictions,  pattern recognition grounded in evidence. A lesson on Rome or the Industrial Revolution stops being about the past and starts being about now.

My students are living this. Their community is facing a real water shortage. Jobs they're training for may not exist when they graduate. These aren't hypotheticals, but they're urgent. So when we study how industrialization displaced skilled trades, or how Rome managed resource scarcity at the edges of empire, the question isn't "why does this matter?" They already know why. The question becomes: what did people do, what worked, and what can we try?

History becomes a modeling tool. That's what teaching the future actually looks like.

I love this Drew.  It brings lots of cool discussions.  The effect of bias,  when leaders get obsessed with avoiding certain outcomes, when unprecedented events happen.  Kids often say the reason for studying history is so it not repeated, I caution that we should looks for patterns because it is often hard to find events that are exact matches.  

Becca Horowitz I teach the Future unit, and it consistently becomes one of my students’ favorite parts of the course. At first, they are surprised when I tell them we are going to “learn about the future” — How is that possible in a history class? But once we begin exploring it, they become deeply engaged.

Two of the main skills we focus on are continuity and change, and claim testing. I use many of the OER resources — videos, articles, and activities — and I also incorporate The Martian through the lenses of Big History.

What I love most about teaching this unit is how it circles back to the very beginning of the course, when we explored the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics. Suddenly, everything connects and makes sense.

We just finished the Little Big History Projects, and they reminded me once again how holistic this course truly is. It is not only about history — it is about understanding history at a cosmic scale, something I believe is fundamental in the era humanity is living through today.

As an educator, I consider this course instrumental in helping students develop the mindset of cosmic citizens.

Beautifully written, Drew Fortune , and such a great way to approach the teaching of history.  Thank you.

 Becca Horowitz my students are presenting their last group project on the future. I can say without hesitation that this is one of their favorite units in Big History. They enjoy learning about the middle and deep future, and imagine possible scenarios for the near future.

I use and adaptation of the threshold activity. My students presenting topics related to terraforming Mars or the future in the age of AI. Here are some pics. 

I am a ginormous fan of the Origins podcasts. I have even listened to them while running in the morning.  There are no others running along my path, so no one hears me say "What?  That is crazy?"  LOL  For me, it is using CCOT and looking for patterns as a way to make predictions.