Future Caring and Paradigm Shifts in Education: The Educational Mission Under Complex Thinking
摘要
This chapter explores the concept of “future caring” as a transformative framework for understanding education’s role in preparing humanity for an uncertain and complex future. Drawing from Edgar Morin’s call for transformative education, the authors examine how educational paradigms must shift from traditional past-oriented approaches to embrace spatio-temporal interpenetration and complex thinking. The chapter establishes future caring as both an attitude and methodology, emphasising the ethical dimensions of care that connect past, present, and future generations. Through a multidimensional analysis, the authors investigate fundamental questions about the nature of the future itself, drawing upon the ethics of caring to demonstrate how caring creates reciprocal relationships that transcend temporal boundaries. The authors argue that educational transformation requires moving from schooling to pervasive education, from past orientation to spatio-temporal interpenetration, from technological dominance to meaning-making, from reductionism to complex thinking, and from structural determinism to autonomous choice. The chapter presents future caring as essential for developing future literacy, and this involves moving beyond traditional knowledge acquisition to embrace action learning that acknowledges uncertainty while maintaining ethical commitment to human well-being and environmental sustainability. The authors conclude that education for future caring offers a paradigm shift enabling humanity to address current global challenges.