Futures Past and Present: How a Multigenerational Class Is Changing Perspectives on Technology and Society

This past semester I had nearly as many retirees as undergrad students in my discussion class on tech and the future. And it's been amazing!

A small slice of the participants in ASU’s Pizza and a Slice of Future class

One of my abiding memories of elementary school is listening to an occasional visitor recounting her experiences of living through the blitz in the second world war. She was elderly (at least to my eyes) and rather free with her language (to the consternation of my teacher) — and I was transfixed.

I must have been four or five at the time. There was a small group of us clustered around her in the library as she recounted in vivid (and occasionally expletive-filled) detail what it was like to listen to doodlebugs sputtering across the sky, and knowing that when the sound stopped, you could be the next one to be caught in the flying bomb’s blast as it dropped.

I was quite startlingly reminded of this in class recently as I listened to another account from past years. This time though, I was the teacher, and the speaker was one of my students. But the impact was the same.

We were discussing the possibility of airships having a resurgence as a mode of transportation in the future. To my surprise one of my students recalled how, as a child, she used to lie in the grass in New Jersey and watch, awed, as massive airships floated overhead.

As you may suspect, that student wasn’t a 20 year old undergrad. Rather, they were from Mirabella at ASU — a unique retirement community affiliated with Arizona State University where residents get to attend classes and mingle with younger students.

The class was part of my rather quirkily titled “Pizza and a Slice of Future” course. This is a blended class that’s focused on emerging tech and the future where around two thirds of those who turn up are taking it for credit, and the rest are there for the company, the conversation, and the topics we dive into.

And, of course, the pizza.¹

The pizza is important as it establishes the class as a space where we share ideas and food as friends and colleagues — even where there are differences of opinion.

When I created the class it was very explicitly intended as a safe space for undergrads to explore new ideas together. And so I was somewhat taken aback this past semester when sixteen residents from Mirabella asked if they could enroll. What made this all the more challenging is that the class only has 25 slots for for-credit students!

We ended up reserving the for-credit slots for ASU undergrads, but encouraged Mirabella residents — as well as any other students who were interested — to drop in whenever they fancied.

And they did!

The first class of the semester I nearly had a panic attack. In a class that was designed to be small, intimate, and a space where undergraduate students felt comfortable sharing with others, we had an almost 50/50 split between undergrads and seniors.

I had visions of a student rebellion!

I needn’t of worried though. Each week undergrads and seniors alike kept coming back. And the reason? Once the discussions got going, the diversity of the participants only enhanced what has emerged as a unique learning environment — and one that I’ve been humbled and inspired by every week this semester.

Taking a break between discussing the future of airships and grabbing a slice of pizza!

Just in case I was missing something here, I asked one of our students — Erin Burgard (an environmental engineering student) — about her experiences in the class after our airship discussion.

This is what she wrote:

I had no idea what to expect on my first day of  "Pizza and a Slice of the Future" class. To my surprise, I walked into a room filled with couches rather than the typical hard, plastic school desks I was used to. Soon, I would learn the couches were not the only non-traditional thing about the class. People of all ages started filing through the door. Half of our class are Mirabella (ASU Retirement Home) residents, and the other half are undergraduate students at ASU from all different spans of majors. 

My dad always played NPR or The Moth radio for background noise in our long car rides. Being in "Pizza and a Slice of the Future" is just like being at an in-person podcast. Our professor skillfully guides the conversation from the student's opinions to historical events, ideas and projections, economic and ethical implications, and much more. There is no way to predict the way a conversation in that class will go. 

In our introductions to the class on the first day, I learned one of the Mirabella resident's was called Bill Gates. Of course, I had to shake his hand after class so I could technically say "I met Bill Gates". What started as a silly thing to do, ended in a meaningful friendship. Bill Gates and his wife Bobbie Reed have taken me and my fellow classmate out to dinner multiple times, and we have gotten to share each other's stories and future goals. They have supported my small business, and even connected me with one of my past scholarship founders (who they knew from Mirabella!). It has been a valuable connection I've had the opportunity to make due to this inter-generational environment.

Perhaps what makes the class so existential to me is that we are an inter-generational group speaking about the inevitable and unknown future. Half of us have already lived into their generation's "future", and it is one that they could have never fathomed in their youth. I have no doubt I am in the same position as a youth now. I like to imagine what the future could hold, and I think it's important we as humans do that so that we are well-equipped to handle it when it comes. However, I also know that I cannot know what the future holds, both in terms of my own life course as well as how developing technology will shape it. Like how the Mirabella residents could have never guessed they would be holding personal cell phones that they can look up any piece of information on at any time! I am okay with not knowing, and I can't wait to look back on this class in 50 years and see if airships really have replaced airplanes.

Bill emailed me in response to Erin’s thoughts that this “has been one of the pleasures of "Pizza" — getting a glimpse into the minds of bright people who will be creating the future.  They're not only going to be fine, they'll be great.”

Erin’s reflections and Bill’s response re-enforce what I’ve observed over the past several weeks — far from creating challenges, the generational diversity in this class has allowed us to create a learning environment that’s unlike any other I’ve experienced — apart perhaps from that early memory from my childhood.

This, of course, wasn’t completely serendipitous. As Erin mentioned above, the physical space we meet in is purpose-designed to encourage community building and conversation. And I am very intentional in how I set up and guide the discussion each week.

But I’m still amazed by how rich this learning environment has become — especially as we’re exploring future possibilities that are likely to unfold in such different ways for each person in the room.

Of course multigenerational learning is far from a new idea — as my early childhood memory shows. It’s long been leveraged in K-12 education, and is a mainstay in lifelong learning. There’s even global network of universities that aim to shape how we live and work by increasing educational opportunities across the life span — the Age-Friendly University Global Network — which ASU is currently the secretariat of.

But what stands out to me with this semester’s Pizza and a Slice of Future is that multigenerational learning was never a specific goal for us.

We didn’t sit down and intentionally engineer a curriculum and activities that would foster education that spanned generations. Rather, we set out to create an environment where anyone happy to abide by the class’ community norms was welcome — norms that include obsessive curiosity, radical creativity, respectful inclusivity, grounded exuberance, and catalytic serendipity.

From this, intergenerational learning that has led to participants thinking differently about technology and society was an unexpected — but a very welcome — outcome.

And this leads to what are possibly two of my biggest takeaways from this “natural experiment” — that community, space, and expectations, are critical to fostering environments where learning is an inevitable outcome rather than a forced result; and that something special happens when both community and space are infused with people that span generations as well as ideas.

As long, that is, as there’s pizza.

1. I should point out here that we are extremely lucky to be able to provide pizza with every class — this is not normal, nor is it financially sustainable at scale. Rather, this class is part of ASU’s Future of Being Human initiative which aims to foster environments where diverse, serendipitous and life-changing conversations happen.

With seed funding from ASU’s President we are able to use food to catalyze these conversations amongst undergrads (and, as it turns out seniors — who knew that pizza was such an intergenerational leveler!).

And while this is only possible because we are quite a small community, I am amazed each week at how profoundly impactful such a seemingly small thing as ordering in pizza is in fostering a transformative learning environment.