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A Message from David Kessler

I was privileged to co-author two books with the legendary, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, as well as adapt her well-respected stages of dying for those in grief. As expected, the stages would present themselves differently in grief. In our book, On Grief and Grieving we present the adapted stages in the much needed area of grief. The stages have evolved since their introduction and have been very misunderstood over the past four decades. They were never meant to help tuck messy emotions into neat packages. They are responses to loss that many people have, but there is not a typical response to loss as there is no typical loss.

The five stages, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance are a part of the framework that makes up our learning to live with the one we lost. They are tools to help us frame and identify what we may be feeling. But they are not stops on some linear timeline in grief. Not everyone goes through all of them or in a prescribed order. Our hope is that with these stages comes the knowledge of grief 's terrain, making us better equipped to cope with life and loss. At times, people in grief will often report more stages. Just remember your grief is an unique as you are.

NEW BOOK

Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief

In this groundbreaking new work, David Kessler-an expert on grief and the coauthor with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross of the iconic On Grief and Grieving-journeys beyond the classic five stages to discover a sixth stage: meaning.

In this book, Kessler gives readers a roadmap to remembering those who have died with more love than pain; he shows us how to move forward in a way that honors our loved ones. Kessler's insight is both professional and intensely personal. His journey with grief began when, as a child, he witnessed a mass shooting at the same time his mother was dying. For most of his life, Kessler taught physicians, nurses, counselors, police, and first responders about end of life, trauma, and grief, as well as leading talks and retreats for those experiencing grief. Despite his knowledge, his life was upended by the sudden death of his twenty-one-year-old son.

How does the grief expert handle such a tragic loss? He knew he had to find a way through this unexpected, devastating loss, a way that would honor his son. That, ultimately, was the sixth state of grief-meaning. In Finding Meaning, Kessler shares the insights, collective wisdom, and powerful tools that will help those experiencing loss. Read More

Denial is the first of the five stages of grief™️. It helps us to survive the loss. In this stage, the world becomes meaningless and overwhelming. Life makes no sense. We are in a state of shock and denial. We go numb. We wonder how we can go on, if we can go on, why we should go on. We try to find a way to simply get through each day. Denial and shock help us to cope and make survival possible. Denial helps us to pace our feelings of grief. There is a grace in denial. It is nature's way of letting in only as much as we can handle. As you accept the reality of the loss and start to ask yourself questions, you are unknowingly beginning the healing process. You are becoming stronger, and the denial is beginning to fade. But as you proceed, all the feelings you were denying begin to surface.

Anger is a necessary stage of the healing process. Be willing to feel your anger, even though it may seem endless. The more you truly feel it, the more it will begin to dissipate and the more you will heal. There are many other emotions under the anger and you will get to them in time, but anger is the emotion we are most used to managing. The truth is that anger has no limits. It can extend not only to your friends, the doctors, your family, yourself and your loved one who died, but also to God. You may ask, "Where is God in this? Underneath anger is pain, your pain. It is natural to feel deserted and abandoned, but we live in a society that fears anger. Anger is strength and it can be an anchor, giving temporary structure to the nothingness of loss. At first grief feels like being lost at sea: no connection to anything. Then you get angry at someone, maybe a person who didn't attend the funeral, maybe a person who isn't around, maybe a person who is different now that your loved one has died. Suddenly you have a structure - - your anger toward them. The anger becomes a bridge over the open sea, a connection from you to them. It is something to hold onto; and a connection made from the strength of anger feels better than nothing.We usually know more about suppressing anger than feeling it. The anger is just another indication of the intensity of your love.

BARGAINING Before a loss, it seems like you will do anything if only your loved one would be spared. "Please God, " you bargain, "I will never be angry at my wife again if you'll just let her live." After a loss, bargaining may take the form of a temporary truce. "What if I devote the rest of my life to helping others. Then can I wake up and realize this has all been a bad dream?" We become lost in a maze of "If only..." or "What if..." statements. We want life returned to what is was; we want our loved one restored. We want to go back in time: find the tumor sooner, recognize the illness more quickly, stop the accident from happening...if only, if only, if only. Guilt is often bargaining's companion. The "if onlys" cause us to find fault in ourselves and what we "think" we could have done differently. We may even bargain with the pain. We will do anything not to feel the pain of this loss. We remain in the past, trying to negotiate our way out of the hurt. People often think of the stages as lasting weeks or months. They forget that the stages are responses to feelings that can last for minutes or hours as we flip in and out of one and then another. We do not enter and leave each individual stage in a linear fashion. We may feel one, then another and back again to the first one.

DEPRESSION After bargaining, our attention moves squarely into the present. Empty feelings present themselves, and grief enters our lives on a deeper level, deeper than we ever imagined. This depressive stage feels as though it will last forever. It's important to understand that this depression is not a sign of mental illness. It is the appropriate response to a great loss. We withdraw from life, left in a fog of intense sadness, wondering, perhaps, if there is any point in going on alone? Why go on at all? Depression after a loss is too often seen as unnatural: a state to be fixed, something to snap out of. The first question to ask yourself is whether or not the situation you're in is actually depressing. The loss of a loved one is a very depressing situation, and depression is a normal and appropriate response. To not experience depression after a loved one dies would be unusual. When a loss fully settles in your soul, the realization that your loved one didn't get better this time and is not coming back is understandably depressing. If grief is a process of healing, then depression is one of the many necessary steps along the way.

ACCEPTANCE Acceptance is often confused with the notion of being "all right" or "OK" with what has happened. This is not the case. Most people don't ever feel OK or all right about the loss of a loved one. This stage is about accepting the reality that our loved one is physically gone and recognizing that this new reality is the permanent reality. We will never like this reality or make it OK, but eventually we accept it. We learn to live with it. It is the new norm with which we must learn to live. We must try to live now in a world where our loved one is missing. In resisting this new norm, at first many people want to maintain life as it was before a loved one died. In time, through bits and pieces of acceptance, however, we see that we cannot maintain the past intact. It has been forever changed and we must readjust. We must learn to reorganize roles, re-assign them to others or take them on ourselves. Finding acceptance may be just having more good days than bad ones. As we begin to live again and enjoy our life, we often feel that in doing so, we are betraying our loved one. We can never replace what has been lost, but we can make new connections, new meaningful relationships, new inter-dependencies. Instead of denying our feelings, we listen to our needs; we move, we change, we grow, we evolve. We may start to reach out to others and become involved in their lives. We invest in our friendships and in our relationship with ourselves. We begin to live again, but we cannot do so until we have given grief its time.

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Five Stages of Grief by Elisabeth Kubler Ross & David Kessler

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I was privileged to co-author two books with the legendary, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, as well as adapt her well-respected stages of dying for those in grief. As expected, the stages would present themselves differently in grief. In our book, On Grief and Grieving we present the adapted stages in the much needed area of grief.

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Why is teamwork important? Well it's one thing to create a team, but quite another to create teamwork.

Just as it's one thing to join a team, but quite another to perform as a team member. To put it simply, teams don't work without teamwork. On this page you'll find 8 good reasons why teamwork is important.

Are you studying or looking for student resources to answer this question?
Student Resources

What is teamwork? There are several ways to define teamwork but for some colour why not think of it as the French do. The French language has an excellent expression to describe it: esprit de corps.

This means a sense of unity, of enthusiasm for common interests and responsibilities, as developed among a group of persons closely associated in a task, cause, enterprise, etc.

Teamwork can be likened to two compounds, almost essential to modern life. It's the glue which keeps a team together, a bond which promotes strength, unity, reliability and support.

Teamwork is also the oil that makes the team work. It can enable smoother movement towards targets, can prolong forward momentum, and can help teams to overcome obstacles.

Teamwork has the potential to underpin so much of what is valuable in work. In fact, the benefits to be gained from teamwork synergies are essential for the effective management of resources.

Why is Teamwork Important? 8 Good Reasons!

What a difference teamwork makes. Teams and teamwork have become a central part of our work life. Why is teamwork important? Because:

Teamwork:

1. Creates synergy - where the sum is greater than the parts.

2. Supports a more empowered way of working, removing constraints which may prevent someone doing their job properly.

3. Promotes flatter and leaner structures, with less hierarchy.

4. Encourages multi-disciplinary work where teams cut across organizational divides.

5. Fosters flexibility and responsiveness, especially the ability to respond to change.

6. Pleases customers who like working with good teams (sometimes the customer may be part of the team).

7. Promotes the sense of achievement, equity and camaraderie, essential for a motivated workplace.

8. When managed properly, teamwork is a better way to work!

Why is teamwork important? It doesn't mean everybody doing the same thing or everybody being able to do each other's jobs. It's more a means to a synergistic way of working, where the sum is greater than the parts. Properly managed, teamwork maximizes strengths, bringing out the best in each team member, a key theme on this site. These specific, possibly unique individual strengths are then complimented by the strengths of others, or of the team as a unit.

The value of teamwork is regularly seen in sports. How often do we see teams made up of expensive star players outperformed by teams with players who may be individually less talented. Assuming transfer price tags really are an indicator of talent! The answer lies in two things. The synergistic value of teamwork (our glue and oil), and in the crucial role of the manager.

Are you studying or looking for student resources on this topic?

Need more information to help you explain or expand on the importance of teamwork?

For links to related blogs, academic articles, other websites and some of our own pages, just follow this link.

Here you'll find some excellent resources on each of these 8 topics:

Student resources

Why is Teamwork Important? Ask a Company of Friends...

From the Happy Manager perspective teamwork can support crucial social networks which encourage happiness and performance.

Why is Teamwork Important?

In: What Makes a Happy Company we discussed the value of a good manager. In particular we've noted the experiences of Hal Rosenbluth who built a small, family-owned travel business into one of the largest retail travel chains in the United States.

He described his initial experience of working in the family business, observing that it seemed to be "full of unhappy people producing unhappy service and deteriorating profitability."

Rosenbluth's own business philosophy evolved from two things. Firstly, his experience of bad management. He joined the family business after leaving college at the age of 22, and "wandered around the company working for one lousy manager after another.

Each added to a growing list of negative role models with whom I had come in contact over the years. Fortunately, I learned a lot from these negative role models".

Secondly, the recognition that it was his friends who came to his aid, and stayed with him, during the trying times.

"Friends never let friends down. This realization led to my plan to build a company of friends. First, I had to create and sustain an environment that would breed friendships. Second, I would only hire nice people."

UK entrepreneur, Richard Branson, echoes some of Rosenbluth's points:

"What matters is working with a few close friends, people you respect, knowing that if times did turn bad these people would hold together."

Read our new book:

Uncommon Leadership: how to build competitive edge by thinking differently

Not all teams are made up of friends. Nor, for that matter, do they need to be, in order for them to be effective.

Teamwork does however, have the potential to foster a fulfilling, meaningful way of working together.

It's not necessarily an easy option, nor a panacea for all organisational ills. However, working with a group of people, on a worthwhile activity, with a common goal, can be one of the most rewarding and enjoyable aspects of work.

What next?

Try combining the insights from this article with the 9 great tools in our e-guide: Build a Better Team .....

Tools:

Setting direction and sharing your vision

Establishing team goals

Aligning individuals to team goals

Setting SMART goals

Defining teamwork workshop activity

Determining the benefits of teamwork workshop activity

Checklist for leading a team activity

Guide to achieving synergy

Team performance assessment

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Just as it's one thing to join a team, but quite another to perform as a team member. To put it simply, teams don't work without teamwork. On this page you'll find 8 good reasons why teamwork is important. Are you studying or looking for student resources to answer this question?

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It has finally happened, you guys. We have witnessed a historic moment. Well, we witnessed many historic moments, but Leonardo DiCaprio winning an Oscar for the first time just felt like a victory for all of us, you know? DiCaprio has been nominated for an Oscar so many times, only to go home empty-handed, that it has reached meme levels. So to see him finally stand on that stage with a golden statue in his hand was just so heartwarming. Unsurprisingly, when you look at the transcript of DiCaprio's Oscar acceptance speech (which he must surely have been planning for the last 10 years), you see how it's not just thanking people and then breezing off the stage. No, the 41-year-old actor took a moment to speak about a cause that's very close to his heart: environmentalism and climate change.

I mean, don't get me wrong. DiCaprio did thank a lot of people, some of them collectively. (Like his friends. "You know who you are.") But working on The Revenant highlighted a cause that DiCaprio supports when the cameras stop rolling, and he wasn't going to let that go unmentioned in his speech. Not when he finally had the eyes of the world upon him for more than just making Sad Leo at the Oscars GIFs. Reading his speech should be enough to inspire fans to give environmentalism the same attention that we've given to DiCaprio's numerous losses over the years. However, even if it doesn't, the fact that he would draw attention away from himself and toward a good cause is just so DiCaprio that it really makes me feel like he deserved this award for more than one reason.

You can watch the video of the speech here. Check out his full speech below:

Thank you all so very much. Thank you to the Academy. Thank you to all of you in this room. I have to congratulate the other incredible nominees this year. The Revenant was the product of the tireless efforts of an unbelievable cast and crew. First off, to my brother in this endeavor, Mr. Tom Hardy. Tom, your talent on screen can only be surpassed by your friendship off screen ... thank you for creating a transcendent cinematic experience. Thank you to everybody at Fox and New Regency ... my entire team. I have to thank everyone from the very onset of my career ... To my parents; none of this would be possible without you. And to my friends, I love you dearly; you know who you are.

And lastly, I just want to say this: Making The Revenant was about man's relationship to the natural world. A world that we collectively felt in 2015 as the hottest year in recorded history. Our production needed to move to the southern tip of this planet just to be able to find snow. Climate change is real, it is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating. We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters, but who speak for all of humanity, for the indigenous people of the world, for the billions and billions of underprivileged people out there who would be most affected by this. For our children's children, and for those people out there whose voices have been drowned out by the politics of greed. I thank you all for this amazing award tonight. Let us not take this planet for granted. I do not take tonight for granted. Thank you so very much.

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Leo's Oscars Acceptance Speech Gets Political

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It has finally happened, you guys. We have witnessed a historic moment. Well, we witnessed many historic moments, but Leonardo DiCaprio winning an Oscar for the first time just felt like a victory for all of us, you know? DiCaprio has been nominated ...

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On September 23, 2014 Leonardo DiCaprio addressed one of the largest gatherings of government, business and civil society leaders in history, at the United Nations Climate Summit. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Leonardo to serve as a United Nations Messenger of Peace for Climate, calling the actor a "new voice for climate advocacy."

The Sunday, both both Ban Ki-moon and Leonardo participated in the 400,000-strong People's Climate March through the streets of New York City, drawing renewed public attention to the escalating climate crisis.

The speech garnered a record-breaking 1.6 million views on the United Nations channel and was echoed in over 45,000 news articles across the globe. Below is the full text of the speech:
Thank you, Mr. Secretary-General, your excellencies, ladies and gentleman, and distinguished guests. I'm honored to be here today, I stand before you not as an expert but as a concerned citizen, one of the 400,000 people who marched in the streets of New York on Sunday, and the billions of others around the world who want to solve our climate crisis. As an actor I pretend for a living. I play fictitious characters often solving fictitious problems. I believe mankind has looked at climate change in that same way: as if it were a fiction, as if pretending that climate change wasn't real would somehow make it go away. But I think we know better than that. Every week , we're seeing new and undeniable climate events, evidence that accelerated climate change is here right now. Droughts are intensifying, our oceans are acidifying, with methane plumes rising up from the ocean floor. We are seeing extreme weather events, and the West Antarctic and Greenland ice-sheets melting at unprecedented rates, decades ahead of scientific projections. None of this is rhetoric, and none of it is hysteria. It is fact. The scientific community knows it, industry knows it, governments know it, even the United States military knows it. The Chief of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Command, Admiral Samuel Locklear, recently said that climate change is our single greatest security threat. My Friends, this body - perhaps more than any other gathering in human history - now faces this difficult, but achievable task. You can make history... or be vilified by it. To be clear, this is not about telling people to change their light bulbs or buy a hybrid car. This disaster has grown BEYOND the choices that individuals make. This is now about our industries, and governments around the world taking decisive, large-scale action. Now must be our moment for action. We need to put a pricetag on carbon emissions, and eliminate government subsidies for oil, coal and gas companies. We need to end the free ride that industrial polluters have been given in the name of a free-market economy, they do not deserve our tax dollars, they deserve our scrutiny. For the economy itself will die if our eco-systems collapse. The good news is that renewable energy is not only achievable but good economic policy. This is not a partisan debate; it is a human one. Clean air and a livable climate are inalienable human rights. And solving this crisis is not a question of politics, it is a question of our own survival. This is the most urgent of times, and the most urgent of messages. Honored delegates, leaders of the world, I pretend for a living. But you do not. The people made their voices heard on Sunday around the world and the momentum will not stop. But now it is YOUR turn, the time to answer humankind's greatest challenge is now. We beg of you to face it with courage. And honesty. Thank you.

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Leonardo delivers landmark speech at the United Nations climate summit

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On September 23, 2014 Leonardo DiCaprio addressed one of the largest gatherings of government, business and civil society leaders in history, at the United Nations Climate Summit. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Leonardo to serve as a United Nations Messenger of Peace for Climate, calling the actor a "new voice for climate advocacy."

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A front page photograph in the New York Times on Thursday, October 21, depicted fourth grade students from San Francisco's Alamo Elementary School huddled under their desks as part the annual earthquake drill that the state of California has dubbed the Great California Shakeout.

This photograph brought to mind the Civil Defense "Duck and Cover" drills conducted by schools and communities in the 1950s and 1960s, and I went in search of information.

How did safety experts come to feel that hiding under a desk or in a hallway with one's hands over one's head might safeguard against being injured in an earthquake (now) or protect against nuclear catastrophe ( the '50s and '60s)?
What Were They Thinking?
Protecting normal citizens from the possibility of attack became a concern in World War I but the fear was vastly heightened by World War II as British citizens regularly had to cope with the threat of bombings by seeking protection in underground rail stations. The fear that at some point, America might be attacked on native soil began to worry both U.S. citizens and the U.S. government.

While there were American emergency councils as early as 1917, there was no major government focus on civil defense until the early 1950s. In 1949 the Soviets successfully detonated their own atomic bomb, robbing the United States of their brief status of being the only country with nuclear weapons. Because U.S.-Soviet relations were tense, the United States became concerned about the possibility of nuclear attack and created the Federal Civil Defense Administration in 1951.

Partly because Congress did not provide a robust budget, the emphasis of the FCDA was on disseminating information to teach communities how to protect themselves. Schools were the logical focal point for this training as they already had tentacles into most parts of the community.

The "Duck and Cover" philosophy began at this time. Little was known about radioactive fallout, and many experts believed that the danger from a nuclear blast was from the effect of the blast (glass and debris flying through the air), the heat, and only to some extent, radioactivity. They were aware that people would not be able to escape a blast, so protecting against flying debris (duck) and heat (cover to minimize head or neck burns) made a certain degree of sense.

A poster that was used in Concord, New Hampshire read:
When you see a flash of light brighter than the sun-
Don't run; there isn't time.
Fall flat on your face.
Get Down Fast!
The recommendation in most of the literature at that time was to stay down for "at least a minute."

During 1952 the Civil Defense Administration created a convoy of ten trucks and trailers that toured with civil defense dioramas and posters showing ways to "beat the bomb." An estimated 1.1 million people visited the convoy, and more saw the film, "Duck and Cover," which was screened in schools and aired over television airwaves. The film featured a pith helmet-wearing turtle named Bert who shows what needs to be done as soon as an American sees a "flash of light brighter than the sun." Check out this short clip.
1954: A Pivotal Year for Knowledge
Ivy Mike, the code name given to the first nuclear test of a fusion device, made it clear that children huddled under coats in hallways (a recommendation at some schools) was not adequate against a weapon that created a crater 6, 240 feet (1.9 km wide and 164 feet (50 meters) deep. The fireball from Ivy Mike was approximately 3.25 miles wide and the mushroom cloud rose to 57,000 feet.

On the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands an additional test, known as Castle Bravo, was also conducted in 1954. This test clearly revealed the dangers of radioactive fallout, something the scientists had felt was not an issue when bombs were detonated via air fusion. The residents of the atoll who returned after the test were sickened by the radiation, and radioactive particles were deposited across 7,000 miles, poisoning some Japanese fishermen who were thought to be well out of the range of the test area.

Despite this information, the Civil Defense Administration continued to encourage "Duck and Cover" drills. The Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 brought fear of the unknown to even greater heights.

In addition to "Duck and Cover" the government also went through various periods where they encouraged communities or individual families to build bomb shelters. Those without a bomb shelter were still to have on hand a four-day supply of food and water and a first-aid kit. Then: Go inside the house, draw the blinds but stay away from windows, and read the pamphlet, "Protection from Atomic Attack." (I presume people were actually supposed to read the pamphlet in advance of an attack.)

Why did they continue on with what was clearly inadequate advice?

Even then, safety experts were well aware that providing reassuring advice lessened the likelihood of panic. As we all know, heightened fear can be paralyzing, and this enhances the danger for the person and all those around him or her. (The world witnessed this in action during 9-11. Maintaining calm and marching down what must have seemed like a dizzyingly endless series of stairs in the World Trade Center was life-saving.)

In addition, studies during World War II showed that lightly trained (40 hours or less) civilians could be organized into teams and perform 95 percent of the emergency measures needed immediately following a catastrophe.

It must have been with these thoughts in mind that the Civil Defense program continued despite experts' rapid realization that "Duck and Cover" would very likely be inadequate.
Earthquake Prep: Drop Cover and Hold On?
The fact that "Duck and Cover" would have been woefully inadequate in case of a nuclear attack made me suspicious of the advice given to the California school children obediently ducking under their desks rehearsing for the possibility of an earthquake. To my surprise, my reading told me otherwise.

When it comes to earthquakes, this isn't bad advice. In areas of the United States that are prone to earthquakes, community building codes require a certain level of sturdiness to the structures themselves, so American citizens would be less likely to experience toppled or caved in buildings. However, two possible incidents over which building codes can have no control remain dangers: During a quake, random items including glass from shattered windows, may well fly through the air, and therefore "covering" is a good idea. In addition, the most frequent injury during earthqu akes is usually broken bones when people are knocked off balance while trying to escape from wherever they are.

For these reasons, "Drop, Cover, and Hold On" is actually wise advice. Good to know.

What are your memories of "Duck and Cover" drills?

And if you'd like to read some happier stories about schools of 50-60 years ago (remember Home Ec and Woodshop?), send an e-mail with "School" in the subject line. I'll send out my free e-letter on the subject. [email protected]

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Remember Duck & Cover? - America Comes Alive

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A front page photograph in the New York Times on Thursday, October 21, depicted fourth grade students from San Francisco's Alamo Elementary School huddled under their desks as part the annual earthquake drill that the state of California has dubbed the Great California Shakeout.

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A gunman tried to break into a remote Northern California elementary school on Tuesday but officials say, the quick action of school officials "saved countless lives and children."

The building went on lockdown, a teacher rushed to block a classroom's door with a computer and students ducked under their desks. Those responses have become the new normal as more schools are being forced to adapt to more elaborate safety measures.

Two thirds of schools in the US conduct active-shooter exercises and nearly all of them have a plan if a shooter comes into the school, the Government Accountability Office found in a recent survey of schools.

"I think everybody, no matter where you are, needs to think about this. If you're in a school, in a college, if you go to the movies we should all be thinking about what are we going to do if a crisis breaks out right here," said Christopher Combs, FBI special agent in charge, after last week's church massacre in Texas.

This year, there has been about one mass shooting every single day, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit that tracks gun-related violence in the US.

'You might lock down, you might try to escape'

Sara Rounds and her colleagues recently took part in a series of simulated active-shooter scenarios at their western Indiana school.

"When I did enter teaching, you know, this was not a thought in my head. But this is where we are now," Rounds, a first grade teacher at Jackson Township Elementary in Clay County, Indiana told CNN affiliate WTHI.

Through training programs like ALICE -- Alert, lockdown, inform, counter and evacuate -- Rounds and other teachers are learning how to barricade doors with desks and chairs, run away from gunfire and throw everything from pencils to staplers at a potential shooter.

"It's not really defense techniques, it's not martial arts of any kind. It basically just gives them options," Jeffrey Fritz, the Indiana school's superintendent told CNN affiliate WTHI.

"You might alert, you might lock down, you might try to escape, it just depends on the situation," he added.

But training teachers is just the first step. The school plans to teach students how to make choices during an active shooter situation.

"We are going to teach this to the kids in a very kind way, not using harsh words, kid friendly, so I think our kids will really grasp on to this," Rounds said. "This is nothing new here to society, it's in the news a lot. They understand what our world is going through unfortunately."

Don't freeze, have a plan

Those who plan for an active shooting situation are more likely to react quickly rather than freeze, said Katherine Schweit, a former senior FBI official and an active shooter expert.

"We're not talking about making a decision on what to make for dinner. We're making a decision on how to survive," she said.

During the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 and the 9/11 attacks at the World Trade Center in New York, people delayed evacuations or denied the possible danger rather than respond, according to a 2013 report released by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"People freeze. And if you train yourself to work past freezing, past the moment of hesitation, you save your life. Or you save a life of another," Schweit added.

It is recommended that if possible, Schweit said, that victims caught in shootings run as fast and far as possible.

"I'm a total believer in run, run, run if you can (to) safety. Because you can't get killed if you're not there. But if you have to hide or fight, you have to be prepared to do that," she added.

Other security measures

Active shooter training is relatively new in some schools across the US. For years, schools have employed school safety officers, lockdown drills and implemented security systems that require visitors to sign-in and produce photo IDs.

After the Columbine shooting in 1999, schools installed metal detectors and shifted restrooms away from entryways. While just a few weeks ago, a private school in Florida began selling bulletproof panels for its students' backpacks.

Schools across the country have also created "threat-assessment teams" to prevent shootings by identifying behaviors like mental illness, drug abuse and disruptive conduct in students.

Initially, all Virginia public schools were required by law to create those task forces. But now, dozens of schools across the country have adopted the practice.

In 2002, Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas created the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) in partnership with several Central Texas law enforcement agencies to address the need for active shooter training.

Since its creation, more than 85,000 law enforcement officers have been trained through the program.

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how active shooters are changing school security - cnn

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How active shooters are changing school security

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A gunman tried to break into a remote Northern California elementary school on Tuesday but officials say, the quick action of school officials "saved countless lives and children." The building went on lockdown, a teacher rushed to block a classroom's door with a computer and students ducked under their desks.

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There are over 870 million people in the world who are hungry right now. I'm not talking about could use a snack before lunch hungry, not even didn't have time for breakfast hungry, but truly, continually, hungry.

Of these 870 million people, it's been estimated by the World Food Programme that 98% live in developing countries, countries that perversely produce most of the world's food stocks. So why is this the case?

Here we look at the top 10 worst affected countries and see what obstacles are making them hungry and why:
1.Burundi Image: Imgur 73.4% of the population is believed to be undernourished.
Sitting between Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania, Burundi is a landlocked country, which means that on average it will experience 6% less economic growth than non landlocked countries, mainly due to the cost of transport for import and export transactions.

Over half of Burundi's 9.85 million citizens live below the poverty line, with an estimated 35% of the population being out of work.

The main problem with Burundi is not that it can't produce food, but that due to overpopulation, soil erosion, climate change, high food prices and an ongoing civil war, the country has to import more than they are exporting. In the last few years alone due to these factors, and the increase of internally displaced citizens who can't produce their own food, the subsistence economy of Burundi has contracted by 25%.

Looking at the current economic and political climate of Burundi it is clear to see that poverty alone isn't the cause of hunger, but that many external factors contribute to the hardship being endured.
2. Eritrea 65.4% of population have been classified as undernourished.
Eritrea, which is located in the Horn of Africa, has experienced considerable growth to its economy in recent years, but unfortunately the effect of this hasn't trickled down to its citizens or the food chain.

In 2004, agriculture employed nearly 80 percent of the population but accounted for only 12.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). The agricultural sector has improved with the use of modern farming equipment and techniques; however, it is still compromised by a lack of financial services and investment.

Another big problem facing Eritrea is that, as a result of the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia, almost a quarter of the country's most productive land remains unused. This can be attributed to a number of issues, but it's largely because of the displacement of nearly 1 million Eritreans during the 1998-2000 Eritrean Ethiopian war, which left the country with a lack of skilled agricultural workers, and because of the widespread presence of land mines on the ground meaning that the plots are ruined.
3. Comoros 70% of the population are estimated to be undernourished.
Comoros, which is made up of 3 tiny islands of the coast of Mozambique, has a population of just 800,000 people. Around half of the population live below the poverty line.

The reason for such high numbers of poverty and undernourishment are varied. One of the biggest problems is that although there is a rapidly increasing young population entering into the agricultural workforce, their low educational levels mean that innovation and economic growth aren't in correlation.

Because of these factors it is essential that Comoros continues to receive foreign support in order to develop the right educational and economic infrastructures to be able to drive levels of poverty and undernourishment down.
4. Timor Leste 38% of the population in Timor-Leste are undernourished.
Sitting between Indonesia and Australia Timor-Leste is a small island with a population of just over 1 million people.

It continues to suffer the after-effects of a decades-long struggle for independence against Indonesian occupation, which severely damaged the country's infrastructure.

Private sector development has lagged due to human capital shortages, infrastructure weakness, an incomplete legal system, and an inefficient regulatory environment.

Because of this nearly half of the population suffer from undernourishment, with Timor famously suffering through 'hunger season' between November and March when old stores have run out and new crops haven't been harvested.
5. Sudan Around 25% of Sudan's population is undernourished and hunger is on the rise.
Hunger is rife because Sudan suffers from several challenges, for much of Sudan's history the nation has suffered from rampant ethnic strife and has been plagued by internal conflicts including two civil wars and the War in the Darfur region.

Another reason that Sudan is suffering is because of the extreme climate conditions that the country suffers from, which is something that is unfortunately out of their control.
6. Chad 33.4% of population of the population in Chad are undernourished.
Poverty in Chad has been aggravated by numerous conflicts during its 50 years of independence. Tensions between the country's northern and southern ethnic groups have further contributed to political and economic instability, and Chad's landlocked location and desert climate in the north inhibit economic development. The Sahelian zone (central and eastern Chad) is particularly affected by chronic food deficits. Moreover, Chad is subject to spill-over effects from crises in neighboring Sudan and the Central African Republic. It is estimated that there are 330,000 refugees in Chad, which puts additional pressure on the limited resources of the already highly vulnerable local population.

Chad relies heavily on external assistance for its food security, especially in the Sahelian zone. Cereal production is heavily affected by erratic rains, cyclical droughts, locust infestations and poor farming practices. The 2011 drought, which resulted in a 30 percent deficit in the population's cereal needs, was then followed by a severe food and nutrition crisis in 2012.
7.Yemen Republic Undernourished: 32.4% of population
Yemen has had an extreme change in it's food security over the last 10 years. Because of large-scale displacement, civil conflict, political instability, high food prices, endemic poverty and influxes of refugee and migrants. In 2013, the World Food Programme is aiming to provide almost 5 million people in 16 governorates with food assistance and is working to build communities' resilience. In 2013, WFP conducted an Updated Food Security Monitoring Survey which found that 43 percent (10.5 million people) of the population is food insecure. Some 4.5 million of those people were found to be severely food insecure, unable to buy or produce the food they need, and 6 million are moderately food insecure.

Child malnutrition rates are among the highest in the world with close to half of Yemen's children under 5 years, that is two million children, stunted and one million acutely malnourished.
8. Ethiopia In Ethiopia an alarming 40.2% of population are undernourished.
The 2011 Horn of Africa drought left 4.5 million people in Ethiopia in need of emergency food assistance. Pastoralist areas in southern and south-eastern Ethiopia were most severely affected by the drought. At the same time, cereal markets experienced a supply shock, and food prices rose substantially, resulting in high food insecurity among poor people. By the beginning of 2012, the overall food security situation had stabilized thanks to the start of the Meher harvest after the June-to-September rains -- resulting in improved market supply -- and to sustained humanitarian assistance. While the number of new arrivals in refugee camps has decreased significantly since the height of the Horn of Africa crisis, Ethiopia still continues to receive refugees from Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan.

The Humanitarian Requirements Document issued by the government and humanitarian partners in September 2012 estimates that 3.76 million people require relief food assistance from August to December 2012. The total net emergency food and non-food requirement amounts to US$189,433,303.

Ethiopia remains one of the world's least developed countries, ranked 174 out of 187 in the 2011 UNDP Human Development Index.
9. Madagascar 33.4% of the population of Madagascar are undernourished.
The country is prone to natural disasters such as cyclones, flooding and drought. In 2013, the island faced its worst ever locust plague, which hampered agricultural production and threatened food security.

The increasing fragility of the ecosystem, due to deforestation and poor land management, is a major cause of the increased vulnerability to shocks and related food insecurity. Deforestation has become a major concern: 85 percent of its rainforests have been lost due to the use of wood and charcoal for cooking, and slash and burn agricultural practices.

Approximately 28 percent of rural households suffer from food insecurity - of which 2.7 percent are severely food insecure and nearly 25 percent moderately food insecure. In total, about four million people are facing hunger in 2013. The food security of a further 9.6 million people could deteriorate as food prices increase during the lean season,when crops are planted but not yet harvested. Also of concern is the cyclone season, which runs from November to March.
10. Zambia 47.4% of the population are under nourished
Numerous challenges burden the country, including high rates of malnutrition, poverty, food insecurity, HIV and AIDS and malaria. While Zambia has reduced the rate of extreme poverty from 58 percent (1991) to 42.7 percent (2010), extreme poverty continues to be much higher in rural areas (57 percent) compared to urban areas (13 percent ). Zambia's food security challenges are worsened by a high dependence on rain-fed agriculture and the absence of market incentives to encourage a fundamental shift from subsistence farming.

Consequently, access to food is a challenge for many. According to the Zambia Vulnerability Assessment Committee, the number of people at risk of food insecurity is up from about 63,000 in 2012 to about 209,000 in 2013. This is attributed to localized poor crop production due to poor weather conditions in some parts of the country.

It calculated a 'global hunger' score for countries by looking at the percentage of the population that is undernourished, children younger than five who are underweight, and the percentage of children dying before the age of five.

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There are over 870 million people in the world who are hungry right now. I'm not talking about could use a snack before lunch hungry, not even didn't have time for breakfast hungry, but truly, continually, hungry.

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The United Nations has set a goal of eradicating hunger and malnutrition by 2030. Although the prevalence of hunger has declined in recent years, the lack of access to adequate and nutritious food remains an insatiable challenge across the globe.

As World Hunger Day is observed on Sunday, here's a look at what's behind the continuing prevalence of hunger around the world.

1 in 9 people go to bed hungry each night

That's 795 million people on the planet who suffer from chronic hunger, according to the United Nations World Food Program The U.N. forecasts that an additional 2 billion people will be lacking food by 2050. In addition, 1 in 3 people suffer from some form of malnutrition, which means they lack sufficient vitamins and minerals in their diet, which can lead to health issues such as stunted growth in children. Most of the world's hungry people live in developing countries, with Asia as the continent with the most hungry people - about 526 million - according to U.N. data. Each year, poor nutrition kills 3.1 million children under the age of 5.

Hunger is not merely due to a lack of food

The world produces enough food to feed the planet's 7 billion-plus people, so why are so many going hungry? It's mainly because most hungry people don't have the resources to grow or buy food, according to experts.

Chronic hunger goes hand in hand with poverty. It occurs "when people lack the opportunity to earn enough income, to be educated and gain skills, to meet basic health needs and have a voice in the decisions that affect their community," according to the Hunger Project, a global nonprofit committed to the sustainable end of world hunger.

But there are several "hidden" causes of hunger, the group said. They include climate change, with severe drought and flooding having devastated crop yields and decimated livestock; the lack of education, which prevents people from getting good jobs; and child marriage and gender inequality, which keep females suppressed and poor. Conflict has also displaced millions of people, preventing them from cultivating their land.

In addition, 1.4 billion people have no access to electricity worldwide, and this "energy poverty ... is a fundamental barrier to reducing hunger and ensuring that the world can produce enough food to meet future demand," according to the U.N.

1.3 billion tons of the food produced worldwide never gets eaten

The figure equates to about one-third of the food produced in the world for human consumption, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

Sometimes the food is simply lost or wasted. According to the global humanitarian aid agency Mercy Corps, factors responsible for food loss include inefficient farming techniques, lack of storage for crops after they have been harvested, and poor management and market connections.

Food loss and waste amounts to about $680 billion in industrialized countries and $310 billion in developing countries, according to the U.N. Every year, consumers in wealthy nations waste almost as much food (222 million tons) as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa (230 million tons), the agency reported. And food wasted in Europe could feed 200 million people.

Hunger bites - even in the world's largest economy

At $18 trillion, America's economy represents close to a quarter of the entire global economy, according to World Bank data. But that hasn't kept a substantial portion of the nation - where an estimated 72 billion pounds of food goes to waste each year - from going hungry,

More than 42 million people in the United States face hunger, including nearly 13 million children and more than 5 million seniors, according to Feeding America, a nationwide nonprofit organization that feeds more than 46 million Americans through pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, and other community outlets.

Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama and Kentucky are the states with the highest rates of food insecurity in households - meaning people do not have reliable access to enough affordable and nutritious food - according to Feeding America.

Women are a key ingredient to eliminating hunger

As mothers, farmers, teachers and entrepreneurs, women can play a crucial role in defeating hunger, experts say.

According to the U.N. World Food Program, women and girls comprise more than 50% of the world's agricultural workers and "serve as the backbone of food production systems in many low-income countries."

Evidence has shown that when women are empowered with financing, access to land and resources for farming, their yields increase, they earn more money and they are able to improve the level of their family's nutrition, according the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

Given the opportunity, women could slash the number of hungry people in the world by up to 150 million people, U.N. experts say.
ann.simmons@latimes.com For more on global development news, see our Global Development Watch page, and follow me @AMSimmons1 on Twitter

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On World Hunger Day, a look at why so many people don't get enough food

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The United Nations has set a goal of eradicating hunger and malnutrition by 2030. Although the prevalence of hunger has declined in recent years, the lack of access to adequate and nutritious food remains an insatiable challenge across the globe.

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Goal 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere

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Globally, the number of people living in extreme poverty declined from 36 per cent in 1990 to 10 per cent in 2015. But the pace of change is decelerating and the COVID-19 crisis risks reversing decades of progress

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This part of the globalissues.org web site presents some of the hard hitting facts and statistics on poverty.

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Center for Poverty and Inequality Research

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What is the current poverty rate in the United States? - Center for Poverty and Inequality Research

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Current estimates on poverty in the U.S.

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Naisbitt believes that the future can best be predicted from a careful analysis and understanding of present grass roots trends. This best-selling and widely influential book presents ten important changes which are occurring and which hold the key to understanding the future information and service society which is evolving out of the industrial society.

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Future Shock by Alvin Toffler was a huge sensation when it was published in 1970. The book perfectly captured the angst of that time and prepared society for more changes to come. Toffler died on Monday at the age of 87. This story originally aired on July 26, 2010, on All Things Considered.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Writer and futurist Alvin Toffler has died. He was 87. Toffler wrote the book "Future Shock." It came out in 1970, and it envisioned a world in which rapid change made people go insane. The idea struck a nerve, and the book became a huge success.

In remembrance of Toffler, who died on Monday, we're going to revisit a profile that we aired in 2010. NPR's Martin Kaste was marking the 40th anniversary of Toffler's best-selling book.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

MARTIN KASTE, BYLINE: In the early '70s, America was gripped by "Future Shock." There was the book, which was a huge bestseller, and the idea, explained here by none other than Orson Welles.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FUTURE SHOCK")

ORSON WELLES: Future shock is a sickness which comes from too much change in too short a time. It's the feeling that nothing is permanent anymore.

KASTE: That's from the now long-forgotten movie version of "Future Shock." The movie opens with a young couple walking through a park. It's an idyllic scene, but it's intercut with glimpses of dystopia, urban riots, weird technology and then...

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FUTURE SHOCK")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As Character, screaming).

KASTE: We see the young couple are actually wearing metal masks. Or maybe they're robots or something. Regardless, it's a pretty horrible vision. But here in 2010, things don't seem that bad, at least not at this cafe on Sunset Boulevard, a favorite hangout of futurist Alvin Toffler.

ALVIN TOFFLER: I'll have the Cobb salad.

KASTE: When you're having lunch with an elderly futurist, you just have to ask what surprises him most about how things have turned out.

A. TOFFLER: Us (laughter).

KASTE: By us, Toffler means himself and his wife, Heidi Toffler, and the fact that, well, they ended up rich. The book sold more than 5 million copies just in the U.S. At the Toffler's house, there's a whole bookcase dedicated to the success of "Future Shock."

HEIDI TOFFLER: We sort of ran out of space, so they're doubled up.

KASTE: Heidi Toffler shows off editions of the book from around the world. She's a chain-smoking New Yorker who finishes Alvin's sentences for him. She fondly recalls the days of their media stardom.

H. TOFFLER: We were on a lot of talk shows. Who...

KASTE: Johnny Carson.

H. TOFFLER: ...Was the interviewer - Johnny Carson. And he read the book.

KASTE: The success of "Future Shock" led to consulting gigs with big corporations and then more bestsellers. By the 1980s, the futurism business had allowed them to buy this house in a swanky neighborhood of Los Angeles. The style is kind of mid-century Jetsons, floor to ceiling windows and wall-to-wall white carpeting.

H. TOFFLER: And we put an elevator in. As futurists, we look ahead, and we said someday we're not going to be able to climb the stairs.

KASTE: Arriving up in Alvin Toffler's office, things seem up to date. There's a newish laptop, a printer and two brand-new iPads, a gift for their 60th wedding anniversary, says Heidi. But they're still in their boxes.

H. TOFFLER: I printed out the instruction book from the Internet. I mean, it's just, you know...

KASTE: So you haven't tried it out yet?

H. TOFFLER: No, I haven't cracked it, yeah.

KASTE: Her reluctance to tackle the iPad echoes one of the predictions in the book, the notion of information overload, a concept explained once again in that 1972 movie with Mr. Orson Welles.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FUTURE SHOCK")

WELLES: Computers combine things to make new knowledge at such high speed that we cannot absorb it.

KASTE: Clattering computers generating too much information for us to absorb - it sounds amusingly retro, but when you think about it, it's also kind of prescient.

STUART CANDY: We haven't adapted to rapid change particularly well.

KASTE: Stuart Candy is a latter-day futurist. He discovered "Future Shock" when he was 15. He bought it used at a yard sale. The book had its flaws, he says, but it also challenged people's understanding of what used to be called progress.

CANDY: What "Future Shock" got right is that it made a compelling argument for taking the acceleration of change seriously.

KASTE: The value of the book, he says, was to teach people that the best defense against the future is to think about it, to imagine different scenarios and to try to avoid being taken by surprise. And that's what the Tofflers are still doing even into their 80s.

A. TOFFLER: I'm curious.

H. TOFFLER: Yeah.

A. TOFFLER: I want to know what's going to be out there just for the heck of it.

KASTE: What's he most curious about when it comes to the future that's still to come? He says he'd like to find out if medicine will find a way to extend the human lifespan by an extra 50 or a hundred years.

A. TOFFLER: Because if you have lived a long time in the face of radical changes taking place all around you, you see the world differently.

KASTE: Whether it would be good or bad for a future society to have people that old hanging around is something Toffler says is impossible to predict, but it's certainly something he'd like to find out. Martin Kaste, NPR News.

SIEGEL: That was Martin's profile of Alvin Toffler. A version of that story first aired in 2010. Toffler died on Monday at the age of 87.

Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.

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Future Shock by Alvin Toffler was a huge sensation when it was published in 1970. The book perfectly captured the angst of that time and prepared society for more changes to come. Toffler died on Monday at the age of 87. This story originally aired on July 26, 2010, on All Things Considered.

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Kim Jae-Hwan/Getty Images

Futurist Alvin Toffler's death on June 27 at age 87 has brought out the usual obituaries, marveling at the way his self-educated intellect grappled with the complex intertwining of technological and social change and created best-seller buzz around his predictions. The account of his life in the New York Times follows a familiar arc: from child of immigrants, to self-made man, to adviser to some of the most powerful men on the planet. His books, especially Future Shock (1970) and The Third Wave (1980), achieved required reading status among a certain set, apparently including politicians as diverse as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Chinese Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang.

Future Shock sounds like a sensational exclamation. It was, however, a sober diagnosis of the fear, alienation, and anomie with which people responded to the combination of rapid technological change and what Toffler saw as its disruptive social consequences. Looking back on the quarter-century since the end of World War II, Toffler observed major technological innovations-including television, the birth control pill and travel by jet aircraft-and the cresting of the transformative "wave" from an industrial to a post-industrial society in which brain work was dominant over physical labor. Looking forward, Toffler saw more and more rapid innovation, and greater social dislocation. In response, Toffler suggested, we needed to develop a more "anticipatory democracy" as a cure.

In a more eulogistic piece in the Times, Farhad Manjoo (a former writer and author of the Times ' "State of the Art" column) writes that though Toffler's "diagnosis [of future shock] has largely panned out ... futurism has fallen out of favor." Manjoo describes how hardworking futurists have few colleagues, governments fail to invest in infrastructure, and high-tech colossi stand astride the political-economic landscape, commanding tribute from markets and governments alike.

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Manjoo describes how Toffler was overtaken by hucksters riding his own wave of popularity. Furthermore, the partisan politics that arose in the 1980s put an end to an institutionalized version of futurism, the congressional Office of Technology Assessment, which was sacrificed in 1995, ironically, to Gingrich's Republican Revolution. With almost every major area of technology in revolutionary foment- artificial intelligence winning at Go, genetic engineers plotting to synthesize the human genome, commercial space firms aiming at Mars -we have never, according to Manjoo, been more in need of futurism.

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My high school Latin teacher taught me the ethic of de mortuis nil nisi bonum: Say nothing but good about the dead. But Toffler's brand of futurism will not get us out of what future shock-related symptoms we may suffer. His current irrelevance stems from many causes, not the least of which is that Toffler misunderstood the underlying etiology of future shock and therefore offered the wrong prescription.

While "anticipatory democracy" sounds salubrious, Toffler defined it very specifically: "Anticipatory" meant making use of long-term forecasting techniques, especially the computer-based modeling of economic, demographic, and other trends that were just coming into vogue in the late 1960s and early 1970s; "democracy" meant the kind of intimate town halls of Norman Rockwell mythology that would restore to individual citizens a modicum of control over their careening, caroming lives.

Toffler made three mistakes that worked against the progress of his project. First, while it may be real, future shock is not the consequence of technology's disruptive force on society because society also exerts force on technology. Or, rather, though it can appear as if technology is causing something to happen in society, people actually make the decisions in the conception, design, manufacture, and deployment of technology. The sense of this phenomenon can be inferred from Winston Churchill's aphorism about architecture: "We shape our buildings; thereafter, they shape us." Contemporary scholars of such complex phenomena refer to socio-technical systems to describe what Toffler took as a simple relationship of the impact of technology on society.

Toffler's brand of futurism will not get us out of what future shock-related symptoms we may suffer.

Second, Toffler placed an inordinate trust in the expertise embodied in predictive models. His version of anticipatory was more aligned with identifying a current trend and extrapolating it to a future state, much the way that Ray Kurzweil and others use Moore's Law to predict future computing capacity and the coming " singularity " of super-intelligent machines. But prediction, especially across complex socio-technical systems, is illusory. Greek myths narrate the failure of prediction: For the Trojan prophetess Cassandra, those in power found ways to ignore even her perfect prophecy. For the seer Tiresias, prophecy set in motion precisely those events that fulfilled the prophecy itself, as in the Oedipus story. The oracle at Delphi articulated a prediction bound to be self-servingly misinterpreted beforehand, only to be understood properly in retrospect.

While we moderns have largely disposed of the concept of fate that competed with prophecy in the Greek world, we can all imagine contemporary issues (e.g., climate change) that exhibit precisely these dynamics. No less a modernist than Isaac Asimov-inventor of the fictional predictive social science of psychohistory in his Foundation trilogy-said "if we could use the tenets of psychohistory to guide ourselves we might avoid a great many troubles. But on the other hand, it might create troubles. It's impossible to tell in advance."

Toffler's third error follows from these two. Small-scale, directly democratic town halls are virtuous. They will not function to reduce future shock, however, if they are connected only to the misguided disposition of predicting the future. Democratic values and priorities expressed in town halls, alas, do not constitute relevant data in predictive models. Moreover, if the model of socio-technical change has room for only one direction of influence, as Toffler's does, then even an anticipatory democracy is likely to fall short of being able to influence the technological trajectory for its citizens' benefit. They will not see the people with power who hide behind the glimmer of technologies as having an impact on society.

The alternative is to establish an agenda based on a more authentic and realistic meaning of "anticipation" which is, etymologically speaking, not about a technical capacity to describe or say something before it happens (predict) or observe the future (foresee), but instead is to build a capacity for something prior to when it is needed. Building anticipatory-rather than predictive-capacity into our social relationships with technology begins to create conditions in which broader groups of people can self-consciously reflect on the values that go into technology, so that the resulting innovations might more readily reflect those values and create less future shock.

My colleagues at Arizona State University, University of Wisconsin, and Georgia Tech and I have pioneered something of a reboot of anticipatory democracy that we call " anticipatory governance." (Disclosure: ASU is a partner with and New America in Future Tense.) While we, like Toffler, hope to reinvigorate intimate democratic engagement, we focus on two-way conversations with experts, creating a participatory technology assessment that the Office of Technology Assessment never managed. Our assessments involve scores or hundreds of ordinary citizens engaged in informed discussion about such issues as space missions we have done for NASA, or the global climate and energy nexus conducted by the Danish Board of Technology Foundation.

We join engagement to a more nuanced and balanced understanding of expertise by emphasizing integration across disciplines. The Socio-Technical Integration Research project embeds social scientists and ethicists in science and engineering laboratories, to encourage researchers to reflect more deeply on the choices they make in the laboratory that have ramifications for those of us on the outside. Others are also promoting socio-technical integration like scholars studying the flexible nature of expertise in the Communities of Integration project and art-science collaborations like LASER and DASER.

We don't attempt to predict the future or estimate probabilities and risks for certain occurrences. Instead, we explore plausible scenarios and other methods for generating anticipatory knowledge and a greater anticipatory capacity among broader publics. Such less technocratic forms of futurism are practiced by the Oxford Futures Forum, which connects scenario development to other disciplines like design, and the nonprofit Institute for the Future, which develops and disseminates innovative, future-oriented tools like " Artifacts From the Future" and collaborative forecasting games.

At ASU, we have also established a new School for the Future of Innovation in Society. While we are not training futurists, per se, our students are learning across these tools of engagement, integration, and anticipation to plan for the kinds of futures that we will want to inhabit. And they are learning to frame innovative efforts as part of a larger social fabric that informs both wants and needs about our common futures.

We owe a debt to Alvin Toffler, but it is more inspirational and heuristic than methodological and programmatic. By deeply engaging ordinary citizens, integrating knowledge across disciplines, and cultivating a broadly anticipatory disposition, we can lessen the shock of the future.
This article is part of Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and . Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.

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The Muddled Legacy of Legendary Futurist Alvin Toffler

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Futurist Alvin Toffler's death on June 27 at age 87 has brought out the usual obituaries, marveling at the way his self-educated intellect grappled with the complex intertwining of technological and social change and created best-seller buzz around his predictions.

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