children-the hymn Our Great Unchanging Friend was sung often-·yet their images and ideas expressed capacity to understand change, and cope with; it. Throughout the duration of the gruppo futuro, films, slide-tapes, videotapes, poems, etc. made by "sub-normal" or "difficult" children revealed the same creative change as those made by "normal" children. These projects serve to disma.ntle myths which are commonly held concerning the capacities of "privileged" or "disadvantaged" children. Most "futures projects" with children tend to select "gifte'clt children" as participants (seen as potential 'leaders, only these children are allowed to propose alternatives). This practice, like the segregation of "subnormal" children into "special schools" is the antithesis of participation in futures, which should be continuous, integrated into real-life situations and inclusive of everyonJc:, not just an "elite." If children's participation in alternative futures co.ufd be a part of life and not confined to projects like gruppo futuro and similar interventions, then what transformations would occur politically-socially- culturally? First, in an atmosphere of greater free expression and cooperation, children's ideas and images of futures are radically different than those of adults. Children in gruppo futuro have proposed, discussed, designed, projected with slide/tape such projects as: • "instead of TV, a theater 50 km wide in which everyone • acts; • the possibility of civil war and the subsequent destruction of all food sources except the roots. We should go into the country to talk with farmers today about it; • to repopulate the countryside (rural areas); • children and old peopl~ working together; • hot air balloons, pocket size (rechargeable) flying saucers, horses, cable cars as transport; • communication by multi-way TV or drums." These futures are at present limited; that is, they are ideas that most adults think "cute" and unrealizable. Nevertheless, the extension of futures participation in space and time implies - I December 1979 RAIN Page 21 a great change in adults' perceptions of children. Children become cultural innovators and protagonists in a society in··· which their voices, words and images are as valid as those of 1 adults. Learn·ing and cultural.flow become no longer one-way • from adult to child but instead are multi-directional: the young can "teach" the middle-aged, the very old and the young, and so forth in infinite directions and combinations. The·outward nature of children's participation in futures seems to indicate the'slow dissolution of the school as the fundamental center for learning and "information," and its replacement by the community. Learning thus becomes integrated with living and theory with practice. Learning and cultural flow become multi-directional: the you·ng can ✓'teach" the midd(e-aged, the very Qld the young, and so forth . . . , Finally, the process of participation in futures expands critical consciousness, awareness, and (subsequently) real choices and changes. Changes are seen as possible through working together: everyone participates-in envisioning and building new futures, utopias which are desired and worked towards and which themselves transform continually in the process. This supposes a new conc,eption of politics (i.e., political consciousness) which is contrary to all the present proposals by major political parties in Italy and the U.K. That is, their manifestos are out of date. Would children invent a H~rrisburg? "Utopia-non subire il ricatto del'dato, del non realistico, slargare il concetto di possibile fino al limite del nostro 1 desiderio di esistere." r1 • (Utopia-not submitting to the blackmail of a 'given', or a non-reality, expand the concept of the possible to the ve_ry limit of our wish to exist.) - Valeria Frescura . ...... __ ."-.-, ~--- -~-~ Teachers' Seminars on Children's • Utopia-Everyone Has Her Own Cloud The End of Experts; Everyb?dy contributes to the Past, Present, Thinking: A Progress·Report, Bill H~ll, and Future-wifh other species. 56 pp., $2.00 plus $'.50 handling from: the teachers. What a Pandora's box this· though this monograph doesn't begin North Dakota Study Group is! There is an entire educa.tional indus- to detail the results (and perhaps they Box 8039 • try based upon what adults think chil- needn't be detailed since the desired University of North Dakota dren think, and now here are small changes in the way teachers view chilGrand Forks, ND 58202 . groups of teachers who are using tech- dren can only cqme through their direct If my memory serves me well, Bill Hull's niques of observation, recording and involvement with children), it outname appeared often in John Holt's sharing to go beyond the usual determi- lines a met_hod. An interesting beginning, early books. Here .h~1reappears as both nations. The results could easily be an and one that deserves to be watched. an astute observer of children and a honest and real t,mderstanding of chil- When teachers begin to have more trust seminar organizer for ~mall groups of dren's intellectual growth ... and that and understanding of their talents and teachers.·The purpose: "to study chil- could mean a complete rethinking of those of the children they work with, we dren's thinking in the classroom by schools and classrooms and teachers. will all gain immensely .. . especially the sharing specific instances provided by . . . It is an exciting prospect, and : children. -FL
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