Future-Focused Leadership: Preparing Schools, Students, and Communities for Tomorrow's Realities

Future-Focused Leadership: Preparing Schools, Students, and Communities for Tomorrow's Realities is a gift that I hope will keep on giving. It is based on the premise that people can come together to create and constantly re-create an even better future for our schools, education systems, and the whole of society. In that spirit, dozens, if not hundreds, of thoughtful professionals in numerous fields joined the team that resulted in this publication.

First, my thanks to the Creating a Future Council of Advisors. The council of 34 individuals is listed at the end of these acknowledgments. They responded to either one or two questionnaires, helping me identify, sort, and expand on issues and trends. On top of that, they provided insights on the leader's role as generalist.

Second, I am grateful to the Educational Research Service. We worked together in 1999 to develop an ERS Schools of the Future Council. ERS then published my book Ten Trends: Educating Children for a Profoundly Different Future in 2000. That book has drawn significant attention to the need for educators to consider the implications of trends for their education systems and their students.

Third, I appreciate the thinking and inspiration of numerous World Future Society colleagues who are constantly stretching my thinking—people such as Marvin Cetron; Joseph Coates; Edward Cornish; Jeff Cornish; Susan Echard; Tim Mack; John Meagher. Graham T. T. Molitor. James Morrison. John Petersen; Herb Rubenstein. Rick Smyre. David Pearce Snyder; Edie Weiner; and Clem Bezold, Marsha Rhea, and Bill Rowley of the Institute for Alternative Futures, to name just a few. Some served as members of the advisory council.

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