Rethinking future uncertainty in the shadow of COVID 19: Education, change, complexity and adaptability

Abstract

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 threw the world into an unexpected turmoil; schools were closed, exams cancelled, and educational systems were forced to react to deep and unexpected changes. In educational policy, however, the idea that we should prepare for an unknown, uncontrollable and risky future has been widely accepted long before the outbreak. Building on insights from complexity theory and the study of dynamic systems, the article critically examines how the standard educational response to future unpredictability, which focuses on enhancing adaptability, fares in a time of crisis. It is argued that the emphasis on adaptability in response to a world that is increasingly becoming volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous is often uncritically embraced in educational policy. We suggest that furthering adaptability through education could be suited for tackling everyday uncertainty, yet is an ill-suited response to crisis situations because it hinders transformative change. The article also points to some additional difficulties with striving to further adaptability. Instead, it is argued that developing a vision might prove to be instrumental in guiding an adequate educational response. It is acknowledged that relying on a vision might raise some difficulties, but it is maintained that these can be, at least partially, avoided.

Keywords:

• Complexity theory
• educational policy
• change
• educational theory
• adaptability
• COVID 19

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of this article for their comments that helped us improve the article and make it clearer.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 We have already discussed in detail elsewhere how the notion of future unpredictability shapes current understandings of skills. For more on the issue see: Authors (2020).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tal Gilead

Tal Gilead is a senior lecturer at the Seymour Fox School of Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research focuses on economic ideas and their influence on educational theory, philosophical dimensions of educational policy, the history of educational ideas and complexity theory and its educational implications.

Gideon Dishon

Gideon Dishon is a lecturer (tenure track) at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He holds a PhD in education from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Master’s and Bachelor’s in philosophy from Tel Aviv University. His research interests lie at the intersection of philosophy of education, the learning sciences, and educational technologies.