Noel Gough, professor at La Trobe University, was invited by the Institute of Curriculum and Instruction to give a lecture to the teachers and students of the College of Education on March 2nd, 2012. The topic of this lecture was “Anticipating Futures For Educational Sciences——Transnational perspectives and local implications”. The main content can be divided into three parts: a distinguished lecture of Professor Allan Luke, a brief “outsider” reflection on Chinese education and futures in education revisited.
By introducing professor Allan Luke’s ideas about the limits of educational science and sharing his opinions about education sciences, standardization and the market, he discussed potentially damaging effects of policy crossing borders on local educational traditions.
Then, Professor Gough cited the arguments extracted from Schooling for Sustainable Development in Chinese Communities, to express a reflection on Chinese education as an outsider. In addition, he asked that what forms of educational science might help to produce a high-quality and high-equity educational future.
Finally, Professor Gough shared his principles for exploring futures in educational studies based on his own paper Futures in education revisited. The foremost point of view that futures are here and now was emphasized by Professor Gough. On the basis of that opinion, he put forward five different principles about futures in education science: anticipating a plurality of futures, an eclectic approach to sources and methods, rehearsal of surprise, uses and critique of SF, critique and negotiation of meanings. He also showed us Gage’s scenarios for the “paradigm wars and their aftermath” and compared Gage’s practice with his principles. Finally, he regarded Gage’s scenarios as a failure of anticipation because of Gage’s ignoring post-structuralism.
The staff and students raised questions and comments actively after his presentation. His memorable presentation inspired more alternative educational studies and research from more creative perspectives.
 

                                                                                                                                                              Liu Jialiang, Zhang Wenjun
                                                                                                                         Institute of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education