The trendwatching.com site, that has spotters all over the world, found people have looked at current conditions:
- immigration
- refugee crisis
- job automation
- depressed wages
- uneven recovery
- generational divide
- racial divide
- fear of terrorism
- Global citizens open to an interconnected world, where people learn to understand their changing relationships to neighborhoods, cities, and nations
- Nation nurturers who seek comfort in the familiar
Dealing with change, especially rapid change, is not easy. It is understandable that some want to wall themselves off from foreigners; to pretend technology is going to slow down and manufacturing jobs, as we have known them, are going to return; to listen only to broadcasts that agree with them; and to cling to traditional families where a man works and an uneducated woman stays at home with the children. But you only need look at one example of the future - shopping malls and stores empty of consumers of all kinds who have switched over to ordering their needs and wants online - to see change is impossible to escape. (Could these empty stores be converted to on-going world fairs where "shoppers" could go to experience and learn new technologies?)
Like it or not, children are going to live in a world of global citizens. Parents and teachers need to prepare to help them feel at home there.
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