Future Learning Design Podcast

There are lots of reasons why well-intentioned work, trying to do things differently and shift the way that systems currently operate, often struggle and fail. But one of the reasons that I find most interesting is to look at the "dark matter" or deep codes that are built into our current ways of working. These might be things like the way we do contracts, the way insurance functions, and legal precedents. Or the way that value is defined and accounted for, and the way money functions and flows. Most of the time these things are simply constraints that we are told we just have to deal with in our work. But as you might have heard in a previous episode with Indy Johar and Adam Purvis (https://www.goodimpactlabs.com/podcast/indy-johar-and-adam-purvis), organisations like Dark Matter Labs are not accepting this status quo and, in fact, are actively trying to work towards redesigning these deep codes. But then you might say: “Well that's fine for those kinds of organisations who get to do that work, but that's not something that I can get involved with.” My guests this week are  colleagues of Adam and Indy at Dark Matter Labs, but they are taking it one stage further and asking the question, what does it mean to educate for building the capabilities and sensibilities for this kind of work. They are calling it “societal design” and in this conversation you'll hear them reflecting on the Masters programme that they are launching this September, in collaboration with Elisava Barcelona School of Design and Engineering. Applications are open until July 15th 2026. For further information about this and Emily and Martin’s other work, check out the links below.Martin and Emily’s ‘Anti-Brief’ website: https://anti-brief.org/Further links about the Societal Design Master Degree Programme at Elisava, Barcelona at UVic: University of Vic - Central University of Catalonia.https://www.elisava.net/en/masters/master-in-societal-design/ https://anti-brief.org/about/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/societal-design-master-at-elisava/posts/ Martin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drmartinlorenz/ Emily on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-harris-fca-3b381565/ Dark Matter Labs: https://darkmatterlabs.org/Life-Enobling Economics microsite: https://lee.darkmatterlabs.org/Cornerstone Indicators report (2023): https://drive.google.com/file/d/176CNiZYM1v2xcEzDVO4SHuEfRQoosCVL/view Cornerstone Indicators microsite: https://cornerstoneindicators.com/

Collaboration, whether it's between young people in a classroom or between institutions across an educational ecosystem, is often seen as an unquestioned virtue. An assumed aspect of people simply working together on a shared purpose, but without much thought given to how it happens in meaningful and deep ways to generate genuinely expanded possibilities for everyone. Rose A. Dodd and her team at The Education Collaborative have been showing how this is done at a massive scale across Africa, for the last decade. Rose joined me this week to share what she and her network have been learning about how deep radical collaboration can really shift and transform systems across a whole continent. Rose is a strategic leader mobilizing Africa’s higher education sector at a critical moment, when the continent’s youth population is rapidly growing, yet tertiary enrolment remains the lowest in the world. As Executive Director of The Education Collaborative, a pan-African initiative launched by Ashesi University in 2017, Rose leads a peer-driven network that has engaged over 400 institutions across the continent. Under her leadership, the Collaborative is driving transformation in teaching, institutional practices, and graduate outcomes—impacting hundreds of thousands of students, with a goal to reach one million by 2030.With deep expertise in strategy and stakeholder alignment, she develops scalable models for institutional collaboration and system-wide improvement. Rose is driven by a commitment to social innovation and is shaping the future of African higher education by building the systems, networks, and models that enable institutions to lead transformative change at scale.About The Education Collaborative: The Education Collaborative spearheads a collective engagement model that promises to transform higher education outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa. This initiative uses a network approach to build trust and foster collective commitments among higher education leaders and stakeholders to generate sustainable results within the systems they govern and influence. Central to this pioneering movement is a membership model that promotes open engagement, sharing, and community accountability among participating institutions.Website: https://educationcollab.ashesi.edu.ghGiving Voice to Values Africa: https://educationcollab.ashesi.edu.gh/ehub/ecourse/giving-voice-to-values-africaRead our latest Impact Stories Publication: https://educationcollab.ashesi.edu.gh/impact-stories-publication-issue-2LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-education-collaborative-networkYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theeducationcollaborativeReach us via email: [email protected]

How do we as educators respond in times of urgency and conflict? Not just in teaching, but also in exploring potentially transformative ideas and practices; in such moments of great challenge but also lots of opportunity. I had the huge privilege this week to talk with 3 amazing young people who doing just that in the context of the on-going conflict after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine just over 4 years ago. Yuliia Naidych, Marie Teich and Anastasia Tarasova have responded to these questions in deeply inspiring ways to develop what they are calling Third Floor, The Centre for Transformative Research. It's an emergent organisation that I first heard about from Ivo Mensch's article in Perspectiva. They are inquiring into questions about how to prevent the "brain drain" of young inspiring researchers leaving Ukraine for opportunities in other universities around the world, but also how to build bridges between the academic ivory tower and the world of practitioners in entrepreneurship local government and other sectors around Ukraine. And even what does it mean to do research in transformative ways that might support and enable some new ways of being and acting in the world. Third Floor, Centre for Transformative Research Links:Facebook page: facebook.com/profile.php?id=61562317967411 Instagram: instagram.com/third_floooor?igsh=ZWQxano1eW93a2g1&utm_source=qr Summer School website: summerschool-transformativeresearch.com YouTube: www.youtube.com/@Третійповерх Yuliia Naidych: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuliia-naidych-799b39201/ Marie Teich: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marie-teich-4714371b1/ Anastasia Tarasova: MA in Philosophy from V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, co-organiser of the summer school.Ivo Mensch’s article in Perspectiva, ‘The Pedagogy of Urgency’: https://perspecteeva.substack.com/p/the-pedagogy-of-urgency

Educational leadership is a tough challenge at the best of times, with many pressures from all sides. But particularly now, with so much shifting, high levels of uncertainty, and polarising issues at play, it’s arguably an even rougher sea to navigate. In such a context, my guest this week has done an amazing job of gathering vital insights from 67 amazing education leaders around the world, herself included, to bring some collective wisdom to bear on the subject. Jennifer D. Klein is an author and former head of school with extensive international experience and over 30 years in education--including 19 in the classroom. She is a product of experiential project-based education herself, and she lives and breathes the student-centred pedagogies used to educate her. She became a teacher during graduate school in 1990, quickly finding the intersection between her love of writing and her fascination with educational transformation and its potential impact on social change. She spent nineteen years in the classroom, including several years in Costa Rica and eleven in all-girls education, before leaving the classroom to support educators’ professional learning in public, private, and international schools. Motivated by her belief that all children deserve a meaningful, relevant education like the one she experienced herself, and that giving them such an education will catalyze positive change in their communities and beyond, Jennifer strives to inspire educators to shift their practices in schools worldwide.Jennifer has a broad background in global education and global partnership development, student-centered curricular strategies, diversity and inclusivity work, authentic assessment, and experiential, inquiry-driven learning. She has facilitated workshops in English and Spanish on four continents, providing the strategies for high-quality, globally connected project-based learning in all cultural and socioeconomic contexts, with an emphasis on amplifying student voice and shifting school culture to support such practices. She is committed to intersecting global student-centered learning with culturally responsive and anti-racist teaching practices, and her experience includes deep work with schools seeking to address equity, take on brave conversations, build healthier community, and improve identity politics on campus. Jennifer’s first book, The Global Education Guidebook: Humanizing K–12 Classrooms Worldwide Through Equitable Partnerships, was published in 2017, and her second book, The Landscape Model of Learning: Designing Student-Centered Experiences for Cognitive and Cultural Inclusion, was released in 2022. Her third book, Taming the Turbulence in Educational Leadership: Doing Right by Learners without Losing your Job, to be released in September, 2025, is based on interviews with 67 educational leaders around the world who are facing resistance to practices they know are good for learners. Jennifer's experiences as a head of school in Colombia provide a through line as she explores the strategies leaders are using to manage resistance.Jennifer has worked with organizations such as the Buck Institute for Education, the Center for Global Education at the Asia Society, The Institute for International Education, Fulbright Japan, What School Could Be, the Centre for Global Education, TakingITGlobal, and the World Leadership School. Most recently, she served as Head of School at Gimnasio Los Caobos (Bogotá, Colombia) for three years, where she was able to put her educational thinking into practice with profound impact on the quality of student learning and their growth as agents of change.Links:Jennifer’s website: https://www.principledlearning.org/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdeborahklein/

This is the first part of a 4-part series exploring the ways in which artificial intelligence is impacting the lives of teachers and young people around the world, through the lens of Anthropic’s recently announced partnerships. In this episode, I talked with Þórdís Jóna Sigurðardóttir, the Director of the Directorate of Education and School Services in Iceland who is exploring the implications of AI for teachers' workload and working conditions, in partnership with Anthropic, Google and the Icelandic Teachers’ Union (KI). I was struck by how  significant the learning focus of this pilot was, with a genuine openness to be both careful and curious in exploring the implications of AI in a country with diverse learning needs, and contrasting school contexts, both urban and very rural, in a historically very decentralised system. Þórdís Jóna is Director of the Directorate of Education and School Services. The Directorate of Education and School Services, active since April 2024 and taking over from the previous Directorate of Educations, plays a key role in promoting the education system in Iceland and implementing the government’s education policy. Þórdís Jóna holds a BA in Political Science and an MA in Sociology from the University of Iceland, an MBA from Vlerick Business School, and a leadership and policy implementation program from Harvard Business School.Links:https://island.is/s/midstod-menntunar-og-skolathjonustuhttps://www.csee-etuce.org/en/item/4428:icelands-ai-pilot-in-education-what-it-really-means-for-teachershttps://island.is/en/o/directorate-of-education-and-school-services/news/a-turning-point-in-icelandic-schooling https://www.anthropic.com/news/anthropic-and-iceland-announce-one-of-the-world-s-first-national-ai-education-pilots

This is the second part episode in this mini-series looking into the ways in which artificial intelligence is impacting the lives of teachers and young people around the world, through the lens of recently announced partnerships with Anthropic. In this conversation, I explored with Karishma Galani the way that Pratham Education Foundation, one of the largest NGOs in India, is integrating AI capabilities and platforms into its work reaching millions of underserved young people with quality education. They announced a partnership with Anthropic just over a month ago, but that is growing from much deeper roots in the vision of Pratham’s co-founder, Madhav Chavan, that you will hear Karishma talk about.Karishma is the Co-Lead of PraDigi Innovation Centre at Pratham International. She leads a lot of the digital innovation and AI work at Pratham, building on her long career in tech startups, research & development and venture capital. Karishma founded a deeptech company developing educational assessment powered by machine learning out of Singapore and London and she has been an active researcher at the MIT Media Lab. Karishma is also an author of two books, 'Maker Minds' and 'Making A Shift: Social Entrepreneurship in Schools'https://www.anthropic.com/news/bengaluru-office-partnerships-across-india

This is the third episode in this 4-part series exploring the ways in which artificial intelligence is impacting the lives of teachers and young people around the world, through the lens of recently announced partnerships with Anthropic. In this episode, I explored Teach for All’s thoughtful approach to these big questions with Global Head of AI and Edtech, Stephen Jull. How is collective leadership in Teach for All’s 63 country contexts enhanced and extended by the creative use of free frontier AI models (and really dynamic WhatsApp communities!)? And how are they holding critical questions of equity, access and data sovereignty as they build communities of educators across the globe as co-architects of AI pedagogies and of the models themselves.Stephen is the Global Head of AI and Educational Technology at Teach For All. Following an early career teaching in remote communities of Canada’s far north, Stephen earned his PhD at the University of Cambridge as a Commonwealth Trust Scholar and has spent over 15 years building teams and strategic partnerships to deliver educational technology innovations at scale. Stephen was a co-founder of GeoGebra, one of the world's leading provider of dynamic math education software. And he has supported many young entrepreneurs and high-impact, high-growth startups and scaleups in roles such as as Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School and Entrepreneur in Residence with Founders at Cambridge Enterprise.

This is the first part of a 4-part series exploring the ways in which AI tools are impacting the lives of teachers and young people around the world. In this episode, I talked with Kavi Ramburn and Stefan Coetzee from ALX Africa about their amazing work bringing professional foundational competencies programmes to young people across Africa through in-person hubs and online course offerings. They have recently announced a big partnership with Anthropic and the Government of Rwanda, so I was keen to talk with them about how this will boost their mission in introducing “Chidi,” an AI-powered learning companion built to scaffold critical thinking and problem-solving about and with AI, to learners and educators across Africa and beyond.Kavi is Vice President of Learning at ALX Africa. He has an extensive background in learning, research and sustainable development economics, and advocacy for social impact across many sectors.Stefan is AI Innovation Lead at ALX Africa spearheading AI product research and early life cycle product development. He has a huge depth of knowledge as a data scientist, content developer and educator.From the presse release from ALX Africa:“Funding and Partnership Anthropic will cover LLM/API-related costs to support the deployment of Chidi and Claude access.ALX will contribute the training, delivery, and implementation infrastructure, ensuring smooth rollout and educator enablement.The Government of Rwanda—through the Ministries of Education and ICT—will provide policy guidance, institutional support, and access to schools, but will not bear any financial commitments under this partnership.“More info:https://www.linkedin.com/in/kavi-ramburn-57212475/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/designing-learning-millions-vision-kavi-ramburn-alxafrica-7vrvf/ https://www.anthropic.com/news/anthropic-rwanda-mouhttps://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/rwanda-signs-mou-with-us-ai-company-anthropic-across-health-education-public-sectors/3832953https://www.devex.com/news/is-anthropic-building-rwanda-s-ai-future-or-its-dependence-111946https://www.edtechinnovationhub.com/news/anthropic-rwanda-and-alx-roll-out-chidi-ai-learning-companion-across-africa

This week on the podcast we’re time travelling with the fabulous Professor Keri Facer. How we think about the future or futures makes a difference to the decisions we make in schools today, and Keri has been asking critically important questions about educational futures, pasts and presents for the last 20 years, that are still as important today as they were when she published her brilliant 2011 book ‘Learning Futures: Education, Technology and Social Change’.Prof. Keri Facer is Professor of Educational and Social Futures at the University of Bristol, UK where she leads the British Academy ‘Times of a Just Transition’ Programme, which brings together scholars from 6 continents and 14 disciplines, to explore how temporal assumptions, frames and processes structure the possibility of just transitions. She is also Co-investigator on the ESRC Centre for Sociodigital Futures, where she works on the implications of mixed reality tools for collective imagination. Keri is also Professor of Public Education at Black Mountains College, led by recent podcast guest, Ben Rawlence: https://www.goodimpactlabs.com/podcast/ben-rawlence.Keri was previously Zennström Professor in Climate Change Leadership at Uppsala University, expert advisory group member of UNESCO’s Futures of Education Commission and Research Director at Futurelab. Keri is collaborating with the poverty charity, the Joseph Rowntree foundation, on their ‘imagination infrastructure’ programme and is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Futures. Keri is also a co-Investigator of Transforming Education for Sustainable Futures: https://tesf.network/ In 2026, she is consolidating this work in three landmark publications: Chronoberg: a handbook of creative methods for temporal imagination (with Johannes Stripple); ‘Time & Possibility: A Field Guide’ (with Harriet Hand); and Temporal Justice, a Special Issue for the Journal of Global Social Challenges. Keri’s books include ‘Learning Futures: Education, Technology and Social Change’ and ‘Working with Time in Qualitative Research’. She is joint Editor-in-Chief of the Journal ‘Futures’ and she edits the Routledge Book Series on ‘Futures and Anticipation’ with Prof Johan Siebers.Keri’s personal website: https://kerifacer.wordpress.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/keri-facer-2a11b62/https://www.temporalimagination.org/https://www.conversationsociety.org/home https://www.jrf.org.uk/imagination-infrastructures/educating-the-ecological-imagination-the-work-of-black-mountainshttps://www.routledge.com/Learning-Futures-Education-Technology-and-Social-Change/Facer/p/book/9780415581431

I've always been fascinated by questions of religion and spirituality and what they have to offer the educational conversation. Clearly on the big questions of life generally, transformation, meaning, values and purpose they have a lot to say, but educationally we can very quickly find ourselves in the territory of indoctrination. And surely indoctrination is the opposite of good educationThis week I was so happy to chat with Shoukei Matsumoto, a secular Buddhist Monk who is doing amazing work bringing insights from Japanese Buddhist teachings and practices into leadership, economy and organisational development. And in particular his approach integrates a "post-religious" spirituality with practical methodologies for "becoming good ancestors," often mentoring corporate leaders worldwide to create emotionally intelligent and sustainable workplaces.Shoukei is a Buddhist monk, author, and Director of the Living Dharma Centre in Vancouver, Canada, where he is spearheading the revitalization of the organisation as a hub for secular spirituality. He simultaneously serves as a Professor of Practice in the Faculty of Well-being at Musashino University (Tokyo), bridging ancient wisdom and modern society to architect "Ambient Buddhism" – an environmental operating system for a post-religious age.Operating at the intersection of spirituality, technology, and ethics, Shoukei is a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on Leadership (2025-2026) and an alumnus of the Young Global Leaders (2013). In 2025, he was appointed as a Mercator Visiting Professor at the University of Bonn (Germany) to research AI in the human context, and joined the Vatican’s Aurora initiative to shape global frameworks for moral innovation in artificial intelligence.With a unique background holding a BA in Philosophy from The University of Tokyo and an MBA from the Indian School of Business, Matsumoto applies innovative management approaches to traditional Buddhist practices. He is the founder of Interbeing Inc. and has launched initiatives such as the Institute for Temple Management. He is the author of the international bestseller 'A Monk’s Guide to a Clean House and Mind' (translated into over 20 languages). His latest book, 'Work Like a Monk: How to Connect, Lead and Grow in a Noisy World' (2025) https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Work-Like-A-Monk/Shoukei-Matsumoto/9781398551749, offers practical guidance on integrating Buddhist principles – such as mindful listening and interconnectedness – into modern life and work.Shoukei’s work touches on very relevant topics that we explore on this channel:From "Software" to "An-Yo": How we can stop treating young people as machines to be optimized and instead cultivate "habitats" that allow for their natural flourishing.The Grace of Being Wrong (Kuyo): In a world obsessed with "Known" mastery, how the Buddhist practice of Kuyo can liberate us to embrace the unknown.The "True Person" (Shin-nin) in Dialogue: How mindful listening can unfreeze our words and allow our authentic selves to emerge, especially within the rigid structures of formal education.Useful LinksShoukei’s substack: https://www.living-dharma.com/ The Living Dharma Center, Vancouver: https://www.bcc.ca/ldc.html Shoukei’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shoukeim

One of the best things about this job is that I get to find out about and share some of the most exciting new developments in education all over the world, sometimes in the most unexpected places. My guest this week, the writer, human rights activist, turned educational entrepreneur Ben Rawlence and his amazing team are building just that in a small market town called Talgarth in mid-Wales. Black Mountains College is an incredible institution working with young people locally in mid-Wales and from across the UK, set up as an alive and direct response to the climate and ecological emergency to help create a future in which nature and human societies thrive. As you’ll hear Ben describe, the college is part of a tradition of land-based alternative education organisations such as Dartington College in the UK (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dartington_College_of_Arts) and Rabindrath Tagore's Visva-Bharati University in India (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visva-Bharati_University) and is continuing and updating this tradition to become one of the most inspiring examples globally of what is possible and needed in these times. Ben is an award-winning writer, activist, and former speech writer to Sir Menzies Campbell and Charles Kennedy. He was a researcher for Human Rights Watch’s Africa division, worked for the Social Science Research Council in the USA, the Liberal Democrats in the UK and the Civic United Front in Tanzania. His books include The Treeline: The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth and his forthcoming book Think Like a Forest: Letters to my Children from a Changing Planet.BMC website: https://blackmountainscollege.uk/Beth Nawr Festival: https://blackmountainscollege.uk/events/beth-nawr-festival-2026/Ben's Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_RawlenceBen's previous books: https://uk.bookshop.org/beta-search?keywords=Ben+Rawlence

There aren't many things that prompt widespread agreement from people on all sides of the various educational debates. But whatever your educational stripes, young people becoming better critical thinkers usually gets unanimous support. And, arguably, it's being recognised as increasingly important in a world full of AI-generated content and chatbots pretending to be your friend! So I was completely fascinated when I discovered the work of my guests this week, who, as professors of Philosophy, are exploring the often overlooked embodied process of what it feels like to engage in critical thinking and how that process gets shaped by our experiences and inspirations. The fact that thinking comes from somewhere, is very often forgotten in the encouragement of our students to develop their "analytical", "rational" and "logical" skills in pursuit of objectivity. This applies as much in sciences and maths as it does in other humanities subjects like philosophy. And it has major implications for how we teach critical thinking in sophisticated ways aligned with the latest cognitive science, rather than perpetuating the narrow idea that it is simply a dispassionate logical set of computations (which we're clearly seeing the LLMs are much better at than us squishy humans who care about stuff!).Donata Schoeller - https://www.donataschoeller.com/ - is Research Professor, Philosophy, at the University of Iceland, Iceland and Associate Professor at the University of Koblenz. She is a Principal Investigator, and Conceptual Director of “Freedom to make sense: Embodied, experiential Inquiry and Research,” and the Academic Director of the European Erasmus programmes Training Embodied Critical Thinking and Understanding. She has researched and published extensively on embodied thinking, while developing international and interdisciplinary research and training cooperations on the topic. Recent publications: “Thinking at the edge in the context of embodied critical thinking: Finding words for the felt dimension of thinking within research,” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2022, Close Talking: Erleben zu Sprache bringen, 2019, Saying What We Mean, with Ed Casey, 2017, Thinking Thinking, with Vera Saller, 2016.Sigríður (Sigga) Þorgeirsdóttir - https://english.hi.is/staff/sigrthor - is a professor of philosophy at the University of Iceland. She is Principal Investigator of the “Freedom to make sense: Embodied, experiential Inquiry and Research” project, and one of the leaders of the “Training Embodied Critical Thinking and Understanding” training programme. She specialises in the philosophy of the body, the philosophy of the environment, the philosophy of Nietzsche, feminist philosophy, and women in the history of philosophy. She is Chair of the Committee on gender issues of International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP) that sponsors the World Congress of Philosophy.Useful Links:Training Embodied Critical Thinking and Understanding (TECTU) 2024-2026: https://www.trainingect.com/Freedom to Make Sense - Center of embodied, experiential and mindful research and education: https://makesense.hi.is/Practicing Embodied Thinking in Research and LearningEdited By Donata Schoeller, Sigridur Thorgeirsdottir, Greg Walkerden: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003397939/practicing-embodied-thinking-research-learning-donata-schoeller-sigridur-thorgeirsdottir-greg-walkerden

The following conversation is definitely a wild ride*! It's not an argument often made, but I believe that one of the effects of our industrialised education systems is to create the illusion that the world is full of somewhat fixed and ordered things, that don't move or change much. Of course, we teach our children about orbiting planets, the water cycle or change in historical periods. But, for example, in episode 208, Vanessa Andreotti gave a great example of how we name objects in the world, such as trees, in order to teach about them. In doing so, we draw a boundary around a tree that separates it from all non-trees. This sounds kind of philosophical and abstract, but I think the effects of it are very real. Most young people then learn to read the world as a collection of more or less fixed objects, rather than as patterns of relations. My guest this week has been exploring the depths of these questions for a long time through the lens of movement. As you will hear, Professor Thomas Nail started this line of inquiry researching human migration, and went on to develop an entirely new discipline of the philosophy of movement by pulling at the threads of how far our collective obsession with order and stasis goes! And it definitely goes back at least a couple of thousand years!Thomas Nail is a Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Denver and author of numerous books, including The Figure of the Migrant, Theory of the Border, Marx in Motion, Theory of the Image, Theory of the Object, Theory of the Earth, Lucretius I, II, III, Returning to Revolution, and Being and Motion.Some useful links:https://liberalarts.du.edu/about/people/thomas-andrew-nailhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Nail The Philosophy of Movement website: https://philosophy-of-movement.com/'The Birth of Chaos Before Physis': https://youtu.be/c3S4w7C2dGg?si=H-1RlmaK7p3x7C4a The Philosophy of Movement: https://www.youtube.com/live/YQUtX64uqNc?si=EeP3mP4Z-6_4-DK1What is New Materialism paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337351875_WHAT_IS_NEW_MATERIALISM'The Random Walk of the Brain' (article in Salon): https://www.salon.com/2021/08/28/walking-and-spontaneous-fluctuations-brain/ *In the conversation, Thomas uses the word 'cosmogony' which in hindsight I wished I had asked him to define. Simply put it is a theory about how the cosmos or universe originated.

It's pretty clear from the statistics that there is a huge youth demographic bulge on the continent of Africa. 40% of its population is aged 15 or younger (as of 2021). The population of young people aged 15-24 in Africa is projected to reach 500 million in 2080. But as Prof. Kingsley Moghalu from the African School of Governance said at Harvard University’s African Development Conference in April last year, there is no guarantee that this will lead to positive outcomes for individual young people, countries or the continent as a whole. In order to enable all these amazing possibilities education is going to be a key factor in these emerging possibilities and scenarios. There are few researchers, communicators or advocates of education across Africa more brilliant or well-placed than my guest this week to speak to these questions. Dr. Modupe (Mo) Olateju is a fellow with the Center for Universal Education in the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings Institution. She is an international development specialist with expertise in public-private partnership in education with additional research interests in education innovation and foundational learning. She established The Education Partnership (TEP) Centre and led the organization’s pioneering work in applied education research in Nigeria and across Africa for 10 years. She is also Board Chair at the Malala Fund and member of the Executive Board at Fab AI.  Links to Mo's work: https://moolateju.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/mo-adefeso-olateju/https://www.brookings.edu/people/modupe-mo-olateju/https://tepcentre.com/Ref. Africa By 2040: The Future of Africa’s Youth. Keynote Address by Professor Kingsley Moghalu  President, African School of Governance. Harvard University’s African Development Conference 2025, 12 April 2025. https://asg.ac/africa-by-2040-the-future-of-africas-youth/

In the current context of ubiquitous digital tech and runaway generative AI, you'd think that a book calling out our collective delusions about digital tools in relation to learning wouldn't make much of a splash! But Jared Cooney Horvath's latest book 'The Digital Delusion: How Classroom Technology Harms Our Kids’ Learning -- And How To Help Them Thrive Again' (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-digital-delusion-jared-horvath/1148995809?ean=9798218880378) is currently #1 on the Amazon bestseller list in Educational Psychology and has been receiving a lot of love, including from actor and educational activist, Hugh Grant, and author of The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt! Jared is an old friend of the podcast, so I was really happy to invite him back on for a conversation about our shared concerns about the impacts that digital tech is having on our young people, the dubious motivations of Big Tech and the strange and growing alliance that is developing between people of all educational persuasions!Jared Cooney Horvath (PhD, MEd) is a neuroscientist, educator, and best-selling author who specializes in human learning and brain development. He is the creator of The Learning Blueprint, an international award-winning program helping educators and students understand how learning actually works.Jared has conducted research and taught at Harvard University, Harvard Medical School, and the University of Melbourne, and has worked with more than 1,000 schools around the world. He is the author of six books, has published over fifty research articles, and his work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Economist, Harvard Business Review, and ABC’s Catalyst.Jared currently serves as Director of LME Global, an organization dedicated to bringing cutting-edge brain and behavioral science to educators, students, and communities.Jared's website: lmeglobal.comJared's previous books: https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/8069909.Jared_Cooney_Horvath LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jared-cooney-horvath/Previous episode with Jared on the podcast: https://www.goodimpactlabs.com/podcast/dr-jared-cooney-horvath

In this final episode of 2025, you'll hear about some of the most exciting things happening around the world for pathways through the upper end of high school from the voices of the young people involved in them. The final years of high school is often the 'business-end' of formal schooling, where we often demand that young people just knuckle down and suffer the "rigours" of high stakes standardised exams and college entrance tests. But these conversations really show you that alternatives to this are not only possible, but happening! Too often, we can talk a great game of hyperbole and hubris about our apparently "paradigm-shifting" designs, but the young people actually experiencing them are telling a different story. What better way to get at the truth than by hearing from the young people themselves! So in this mini-series (5 episodes), you'll hear from 19 young people about their experiences of the kinds of competencies they feel they are learning and need to learn, what they find energising and enabling, and how they feel about the adults who are very often giving so much heart and hard work into this work, to support and guide them.You'll hear about five empowering high school pathways and curriculum innovations: the International Big Picture Learning Credential in Australia;the Greenstones at Green School Bali in Indonesia; the African Leadership Academy programme in South Africa;the IB Systems Transformation Pathway pilot programme at UWC South East Asia in Singapore and UWC Atlantic College in Wales;and the Global Impact Diploma, being run at a number of schools around the world including American International Schools in Lima, Peru, Budapest, Hungary and Bucharest, Romania.If you know of other innovations that you'd like to see featured on future mini-series, then please do share them with us at goodimpactlabs.com/contact.

In this first episode in this Innovative Student Pathways mini-series, I had the huge pleasure of chatting with Monty, Eliza and Lydia, three amazing graduates of the International Big Picture Learning Credential. There are few, if any, other new pathways and credentials that have been as successful in obtaining university recognition for such radical alternatives to the standardised exam factory system and credential capital monopolies! The phenomenon that is Viv White, the founder of Big Picture Learning Australia has joined me previously on the podcast so you can find out more about what they're up to across Australia in that episode. Previous episode with Viv White AM - https://www.goodimpactlabs.com/podcast/big-picture-learning-australia-a-conversation-with-viv-whiteLinkedIn: @viv-white - ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/viv-white-am-297642142/⁠Instagram: @bigpicture.edu.au - ⁠https://www.instagram.com/bigpicture.edu.au/⁠@bigpiclearning - ⁠https://www.instagram.com/bigpiclearning/⁠ (US)Website: https://www.bigpicture.org.au/

In Episode 2 of this Innovative Student Pathways mini-series, I chatted with Olivia, Farrah and Chrissa, current students at Green School Bali about their learning through their Greenstone projects. Greenstone are a capstone project that is a key part of the ‘living’ curriculum at Green School Bali that is educates young people for sustainability through community-integrated, entrepreneurial learning, The And the projects reflect young people's passion for important causes and desire to make a difference in the world. Greenstone enables students to have authentic, real-world learning experiences, taking ownership of their own learning journeys, and lights in them a fire for being continuous, life-long learners. You can also find a link to the Regen26 Youth conference that Olivia mentions in the shownotes here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScl5iKb64QBmcgS-igtzYHYuj4DJWImL58KCq9HIY3tsJiOpw/viewformhttps://bali.greenschool.org/regeneration26/Greenstone presentations from 2025: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLo3UtBdmnunAvG5Yb5cXtQgAk4TcWK3w&si=mWkYAraCkssRkYbh Website: https://bali.greenschool.org/high-school/ https://www.linkedin.com/posts/greenschoolbali_what-is-greenstone-activity-6876068533479055360-tQ61?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAACJvZTMBEdMREU-F2oP3G7TXlcHKmR1KvnkContact: Benjamin Freud - https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminfreud/

In Episode 3 of this Innovative Student Pathways mini-series, you'll find a fantastic overview of all of the amazing work happening at African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa to build the next generation of young African leaders, innovators, laureates and artists. I had the pleasure of meeting with Ayira, Katleho, Mohamed, Fatima and Maimouna Régina to hear all about the core programme and the broader approach to nurturing passionate Africanist auto-didacts!Website: https://www.africanleadershipacademy.org/ Previous episode with ALA's CEO, Hatim Eltayeb - https://www.goodimpactlabs.com/podcast/hatim-eltayeb

In this fourth episode on exciting global innovations in student pathways, I chatted to Sara, Anisa and Entong from UWC South East Asia and Gabi and Satya, alumni of UWC Atlantic College about their experiences on the new IB Systems Transformation Pathway (STP). This is a really exciting pilot of the IB's 16+ review, pioneered with United World Colleges to enable transformative change, systems leadership and making the world a fairer place for the future. Young people undertake project-based interdisciplinary engagements and systems interventions and are assessed through innovative and collaborative approaches.IB STP website: https://www.ibo.org/programmes/collaborative-review-of-the-dp-and-cp/alternative-assessment-pathway/UWC Atlantic College STP site: https://www.uwcatlantic.org/learning/academic/systems-transformation-pathwayUWCSEA STP site: https://www.uwcsea.edu.sg/ib-systems-transformationContacts: IB - Jenny Gillett (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-gillett-87a19b22/); UWCAC - Marija Uzunova Dang (https://www.linkedin.com/in/marijauzunovadang/); Eivind Lodemel (https://www.linkedin.com/in/eivindlodemel/)

In the last of these 5 mini-series episodes on innovative and emerging student pathways, I chatted with Malna, Nikk and Belen from American International School of Budapest, American International School of Bucharest and American School of Lima respectively. These are 3 of the more than 100 international schools who were represented in the cohort of passionate educators and leaders who co-create the Global Impact Diploma, which is a two-year sequence of courses designed to prepare students to change the world.GID Overview: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1vKbk0F8zLPhNdT7Dx7zY2dOyTA7MUjZY63NEJkepQbg/edit?slide=id.g3009304bdc5_0_5#slide=id.g3009304bdc5_0_5Pathways Summit: https://youtu.be/-75VaXq5rBo?si=mU9ryiqdhATssjrY Contact: Corey Topf - https://www.linkedin.com/in/corey-topf-0a062464/

On 7th November, the OECD published a very significant statement of intent on Education for Human Flourishing (available here: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/education-for-human-flourishing_73d7cb96-en.html). It is a conceptual framework that they say is helping to shape the international conversation about the future of education, national education policymaking, as well as the development of OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), and is the product of a significant collaboration among countries in the High Performing Systems for Tomorrow initiative (https://www.oecd.org/en/about/projects/pisa-high-performing-systems-for-tomorrow-hpst.html) I was very keen to explore this in more detail with the lead author and convenor of this work, Michael Stevenson. So I’m really happy to be able to bring you this episode where Michael and I talk though the development and structure of the framework itself, and explore some of its possibilities and pushbacks. Prior to founding and leading this important OECD initiative, Michael has led education at large global organisations such as the BBC and Cisco Systems, as well as directing major research projects, for example on learning ecosystems in Latin America, Africa and India, with Learning Planet Institute in Paris. He is also leading the creation of a Talent and Innovation Ecosystem in his hometown Doncaster, in the UK.https://www.leadershipforflourishing.com/michael-stevenson https://www.leadershipforflourishing.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-stevenson-044499181/

As we think about systems change, it's all too easy to get caught up the technical design of new institutions and 'system architecture'. But if we are being asked to consider a qualitatively different way governing, convening, educating, distributing resources - all of the fundamentals of society -then perhaps we can start by asking: What has LOVE got to do with any of it? As I share at the start of this episode, it's been clear to me that it's difficult to bring the concept of love into such discussions. So I really wanted to explore this a few courageous and amazing individuals, who I knew would be up for it! In this episode you'll hear from four amazing people working in quite different sectors - from existential risk, climate resilience to cognitive science to leadership and communications to teacher training and education. But all united by the willingness to talk about love as central to their work. Dr. Laura Penn is an expert in leadership communication and the speaking arts. As the Founder of The Leadership Speaking School (https://www.theleadershipspeakingschool.com/), she transforms leaders and teams from the world’s most well-known companies, business schools and organizations into authentic communicators of the digital age. Her clients include the World Economic Forum, International Olympic Committee, United Nations, World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF), IMD Business School, Ebay, Roche, Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH), Nespresso, Salesforce, Logitech, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), EHL Hospitality Business School and many more.With her first career as a conservation biologist, Laura is also a distinguished voice in the sustainability sector, empowering her audiences to communicate sustainability with gravitas.https://www.laurapennspeaker.com/linkedin.com/in/laurapennphdJamie Bristow is a writer linking inner and outer transformation, and a policy advisor on the application of inner development and contemplative practices in public life. His work includes influential reports such as Reconnection: Meeting the Climate Crisis Inside Out and The System Within: Addressing the inner dimension of sustainability and systems transformation. Jamie is currently developing his work in a new direction, supported by a two-year fellowship, and is initiating a yet-to-be-announced project with Professor Rebecca Henderson at Harvard University (https://rebeccahenderson.com/). He is a co-founder of the Life Itself Sensemaking Studio; honorary associate of Bangor University; special advisor to the Inner Development Goals; from 2015 to 2023, Jamie played an instrumental role in the UK's All-Party Parliamentary Group on Mindfulness.https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamiebristow/ https://www.jamiebristow.com/Khadija Shahper Bakhtiar is CEO and Founder of Teach For Pakistan - MPP, University of California, Berkeley; BSc Hons., LUMS; Rozan, Islamabad; UN Women, NYC; Fulbright Alum.https://iteachforpakistan.org/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/khadija-shahper-bakhtiar-045b60122/And Andrea Hiott, who you have heard on the podcast previously in episode 209 (https://www.goodimpactlabs.com/podcast/andrea-hiott) is Andrea is a philosopher, cognitive scientist and writer and host of the Love and Philosophy community and channel: https://lovephilosophy.substack.com/

The idea of rewilding is now a common topic of conversation in response to the depletion of biodiversity and natural habitats for local wildlife and widespread industrialisation and globalisation of food production. What about if we asked the same question in relation to the industrialised and standardised education system? What would it take to rewild education, as my guest this week asks? Professor Hilary Cremin has a vision for rewilded healthy education communities and societies that nurture both human and ecological thriving. She is concerned with big questions about the future of education and peace building, and is author of the recently published 'Rewilding Education: Rethinking the Place of Schools Now and in the Future' (Routledge, 2025) - https://www.routledge.com/Rewilding-Education-Rethinking-the-Place-of-Schools-Now-and-in-the-Future/Cremin/p/book/9781041043157.Hilary is the Head of the Faculty of Education at Cambridge University and researches, writes and teaches about peace education and conflict transformation in schools and communities. Hilary is also the co-founder of and senior advisor to the Cambridge Peace Education Research Group. CPERG (https://www.cperg.org/) offers seminars in Cambridge and online, as well as providing resources on their website for those interested in peace education research and practice. Hilary was former Director of the Social Inclusion and Education for Citizenship Academic Research Group at the School of Education, University of Leicester, UK. She has an interest in arts-based methodologies in educational research including photo-voice, poetry and autoethnography.Hilary continues to be involved in the promotion and delivery of conflict transformation and peace-building work in schools and communities, and has a particular interest in Restorative Approaches. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hilary-cremin-77513724/

As many regular listeners to the podcast know, on this channel we have been exploring the new kinds of educational institutions that are emerging in response to the challenges that our legacy institutions are facing. For the last 250 years we've gotten used to compulsory standardised schooling being provided at scale by either the state, as public government schools, or by the market, as private fee-paying schools. I'm fascinated by the question of what alternatives there might be to this binary choice. Home-schooling networks, religious and intentional communities are certainly examples, but often still very much at the margins. My guest this week, David Bollier, is a global expert in the the way that communities work together to steward shared resources often known as the Commons, rather than relying on the market or the state. So I was very keen to ask him about the implications of reframing education itself as a commons, what would this do to the ways that we provide, fund, and govern education.David is an author, activist, blogger and independent scholar with a primary focus on the commons as a new paradigm of economics, politics and culture. He is the Reinventing the Commons Program Director at the The Schumacher Center for a New Economics https://centerforneweconomics.org/, and co-founder of the Commons Strategies Group, an advocacy/consulting project that assists the international commons movement. David’s work on the commons especially focuses on Internet culture; law and policy; ecological governance; and inter-commoning. David has written and edited many books on the commons, including the revised second edition of Think Like a Commoner: A Short Introduction to the Life of the Commons that was published this year. His other books include: Free, Fair and Alive: The Insurgent Power of the Commons and The Commoner’s Catalog for Changemaking; Think Like a Commoner: A Short Introduction to the Life of the Commons (2014); Green Governance: Ecological Survival, Human Rights and the Commons (2013), co-authored with Burns Weston; and Viral Spiral: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own (2010). With Silke Helfrich, he co-edited two anthologies of original essays, Patterns of Commoning (2015) and The Wealth of the Commons: A World Beyond Market and State (2012).David spent many years in various policy advocacy jobs in Washington, D.C. in the 1970s and 1980s – with a Member of Congress, the auto safety regulatory agency, and public-interest organizations.  From 1985 to 2010, David collaborated with television producer, writer and activist Norman Lear on a wide variety of non-television public affairs and political projects.  In 2001, David co-founded Public Knowledge, a Washington advocacy organization for the public’s stake in the Internet, telecom and copyright policy. David's website and blog: https://www.bollier.org/David's podcast, 'Frontiers of Commoning', with The Schumacher Center for a New Economics: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/frontiers-of-commoning-with-david-bollier/id1501085005David on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-bollier-254129/

There are a lot of people searching right now, including me, including this podcast, searching for different ways in and through many of the global challenges that we are facing. And as many people will conclude, education and learning are central to these questions of how we find our way! How do we learn together, across generations, in communities in ways that will enable the capacities of our youngest humans to thrive long into their futures? It is my huge privilege this week to be able to share this exclusive interview with IB Director General, Olli-Pekka Heinonen, about his new book 'Learning as If Life Depended on It' which is released on November 4th. Alongside many other authors like Paul Kingsnorth, Vanessa Andreotti and Iain McGilchrist, Olli-Pekka's new book powerfully describes the legacies of the modern world that have led us to see the world and each other in very particular, and not always helpful, ways. He describes ten illusions that we have been enculturated into by modernity, such as the illusion of simplicity, control, and competition, then outlines how we might learn our way to seeing passed and beyond these illusions. As he says: "as we view the world differently, the world we view also changes." For me, for this podcast and, of course for Olli-Pekka himself as the Director General of one of the largest education ecosystems in the world, the question that then follows is, what is the role that schools, universities, educators and communities can play enabling this new learning. And it is a learning that is a much broader exploration of what it means to be human and live in relationality and in service of life, rather than the formal school-based experience that we often associate only with the concept of learning. You can find more information about Olli-Pekka and his forthcoming book, 'Learning as If Life Depended on It: Why We Must See the World Anew, and Figure Out What Follows' published by Perspectiva Press, here:https://www.opheinonen.com/Previous podcast episode with Olli-Pekka, 'On Leading a Learning System' (March 2021): https://www.goodimpactlabs.com/podcast/olli-pekka-heinonenLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olli-pekka-heinonen-4748581/

One of our main roles as educators is to support and help our young people figure out who they are and how they want to contribute to the world. Given our current context of rapid technological change with social, technological and ecological challenges, questions about decisions for university, training and future options for young people is becoming increasingly challenging. Similarly, for educators and career and college guidance counsellors too, to be able to continuously navigate this rapidly changing terrain.Back in May, 2023, I had a conversation on the podcast with some young people who were expressing exactly these concerns about decisions and choices they were making in their lives about what courses to choose, and what careers to pursue. Since then I've been really wanting to bring together a group of global experts around this question. So it's a huge pleasure this week to be able to bring them together: Rosa Moreno-Zutautas: Rosa is Global Director - Program Strategy & Partnerships at IC3 Institute. With a background in Clinical Psychology and a graduate degree in Mental Health Psychology, Rosa is dedicated to helping young individuals uncover their potential and purpose in life. Originally from Venezuela, raised in the United States, and currently residing in Canada, Rosa is passionate about IC3's vision of providing career guidance in every school. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosa-moreno-zutautas-278767147/)The 2025 Student Quest Report (that Rosa refers to in the conversation) will be released shortly and available here: https://ic3institute.org/research-and-publications/ Anisa Shaikh: Anisa is an experienced senior career & admissions consultant, customer success program & project manager with 12+ years of experience in ed-tech, SaaS, app marketing & media production. She is skilled in leading diverse teams, building partnerships & scaling operations to enhance customer experience & drive revenue growth in dynamic environments (https://www.linkedin.com/in/anisashaikh/).Kathleen deLaski: Kathleen is an education and workforce designer, as well as an author. She founded the Education Design Lab in 2013 to help colleges begin the journey to reimagine higher education toward the future of work. Kathleen now serves as board chair at EDL and on the board of Credential Engine. She spends time as a senior advisor to the Project on Workforce at Harvard University and teaches human-centered design and higher ed reform as an adjunct professor in the Honors College at George Mason University. Kathleen is the author of ‘Who Needs College Anymore: Imagining a Future Where Degrees Won't Matter’ (https://www.whoneedscollegeanymore.org/). https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathleen-delaski-1089012b/; Anthony Mann: Anthony is a youth career development researcher and policymaker at Critical Transitions, and until recently was Senior Policy Analyst at OECD. Anthony is the author of The State of Global Teenage Career Preparation, OECD, published in May 2025 (https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/the-state-of-global-teenage-career-preparation_d5f8e3f2-en.html). https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-mann-81aaba17/ Shira Woolf Cohen: Shira is a founding partner at Innovageous, an education consulting group focused on ensuring continuity of learning and inclusive opportunities for all children. Prior to founding Innovageous, Shira served as the principal of New Foundations Charter School (2014-2020) and is the recipient of the G. Bernard Gill Award for Urban Service-Learning Leadership. Shira is also the author of ‘Leading Future-Focused Schools: Engaging and Preparing Students for Career Success’ (https://www.amazon.com/Leading-Future-Focused-Schools-Engaging-Preparing/dp/B0F9VWS8Z7)

In 1981, the UN established the International Day of Peace to commemorate and strengthen the ideals of peace. In a time when both the influence of multilateral institutions like the UN is being questioned, and the peace we need is in rapidly shortening supply as violence becomes the norm, my guest this week is doing amazing work with communities to find more peaceful paths through questions of conflict resolution by taking a systemic and complexity-informed approach. How we engage our young people in responding peacefully to the inevitable conflict they experience in their own lives feels like a critical part of what we do as educators, but so is being open to question the way in which violence and harm can also be normalised by the systems in which we live and work. Dr Luke Roberts is the founder and Chief Executive Officer at Resolve Consultants (https://resolveconsultants.com/ ) and the author of ‘Leading Schools and Sustaining Innovation: How to Think Big and Differently in Complex Systems’ (https://www.routledge.com/Leading-Schools-and-Sustaining-Innovation-How-to-Think-Big-and-Differently/Roberts/p/book/9781032015620?utm_source=link&utm_medium=society_association&utm_campaign=B052718_pb1_5ll_6rm_t012_1al_9781032015620). Throughout his career, he has focused on conflict resolution, systems change and sustaining innovation. He completed his PhD at Cambridge in 2020. The focus of his research was the sustainability of innovation in organisations when viewed as socially Complex Adaptive Systems. He is an applied social scientist who uses System Thinking and Complexity Theory to address messy and ambiguous challenges which organisations and society face.He works across the private, and public sector helping leaders to understand their ecosystem and apply creative solutions to ill-defined and systemic issues in policy and practice. His work often involves understanding the creativity within organisations and communities which allows them to thrive. Conversations often focus on points of conflict in the system and what are the ways in this hinders opportunity and benefits.Luke has worked in the policy space with APPGs, Parliamentarians and Ministers, he has also advised policy leaders on multi-departmental working to address system issues. He is presently developming a leadership model which aligns with complex systems.

I've been so looking forward to sharing this conversation as it is an area that I am particularly passionate about. I feel very strongly that the way we think and talk about learning, teaching and education is so rooted in Behaviorism and Cognitivism and the dominant language of training and metaphors of the brain as a computer. And there is a still a widespread lack of awareness of the emerging insights of cognitive science - often called 4E cognitive science, referring to embodied, embedded, extended and enactive cognition. This is the idea that our understanding, thinking and learning in the world happen in our relationships with each other, our environments, the tools we use, and our bodies, not just as abstract representations in our brains.And there is no-one better to be talking about this with than Andrea Hiott who among other fantastic work, is the host of the Love and Philosophy channel and substack.All of her life, Andrea says, she has been motivated towards the same goal: "Finding ways for us to move beyond either/or mindsets, and to explore our multiplicity."Andrea is a philosopher, cognitive scientist and writer and is currently a researcher at numerous universities, she is also the author of various books, including Thinking Small and her latest book ‘Holding Paradox: the navigational approach to mind and consciousness’ is out in 2026.Andrea's website: https://www.andreahiott.net/Andrea's Love and Philosophy channel: https://lovephilosophy.substack.com/Andrea's community philosophy Substack called Waymaking: https://communityphilosophy.substack.com/Just released: Andrea's latest paper on 'Radical Embodied Relation at any Scale, from Remembering to Navigating' - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11245-025-10256-7Useful paper on 'What is 4E Cognitive Science?' by Cameron Alexander: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11097-025-10055-w

To mark the moment and celebrate the release of Vanessa Machado de Oliveira Andreotti's new book 'Outgrowing Modernity: Navigating Complexity, Complicity, and Collapse with Accountability and Compassion', we are so happy to be able to bring you this fantastic episode!It is the sequel to Vanessa's 'Hospicing Modernity', which was published in 2021 and in 4 short years has become one of the most important books of the century. This new book is arguably even better, and Krista Tippett, the award-winning journalist, author, and public intellectual has called it "a moral, intellectual, and spiritual masterpiece." But one of the best things about it is that it is a workbook, full of guidance for the strength, endurance and flexibility training that we need to be doing ourselves and in our communities and organisations to meet the moment we are deeply in. It is not a work that can simply be ingested for its truth-telling, as you will very much hear from Vanessa in the conversation. The book was released, yesterday Tuesday 12 August, so be sure to order your copy soon!In collaboration with Manda Scott and her wonderful Accidental Gods channel, we are so happy to be able to share this fantastic conversation between Vanessa, her daughter Giovanna de Oliveira Andreotti, myself and Manda.Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti is the Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Victoria. She is a former Canada Research Chair in Race, Inequalities and Global Change and a former David Lam Chair in Critical Multicultural Education. Vanessa has worked extensively across sectors internationally in areas of education related to global justice, global citizenship, critical literacies, Indigenous knowledge systems and the climate and nature emergency. Vanessa is the author of Hospicing Modernity: Facing humanity’s wrongs and the implications for social activism, one of the founders of the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures Arts/Research Collective and one of the designers of the course Facing Human Wrongs: Climate Complexity and Relational Accountability, available at UVic through Continuing Studies. Giovanna de Oliveira Andreotti is a Dancer/dance teacher, GTDF member, certified Warm Data Lab host, R4Rs founder, and online course facilitator/co-ordinator. Giovanna has been involuntarily steeped in depth-education from birth (courtesy of her mother, Vanessa Andreotti). Giovanna holds a Bachelor's in Psychology from UBC, postgraduate certifications in Climate Psychology and Embodied Social Justice, and currently coordinates an inquiry that maps pedagogical practices addressing complexity, complicity, collapse, and accountability.If you have more questions about Aiden Cinnamon Tea and the meta-relational approach to AI that we discuss, check out these FAQs: https://burnoutfromhumans.net/anticipated-questionsAnd the Speculative Inquiry into Meta-Relational AI can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KFJIVY9slGTcpWBwoMYQwbeKLfV3rNHo/view?usp=sharingAnd further inquiries can be found here: https://metarelational.ai/projects-and-prototypesLinks:https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/783178/outgrowing-modernity-by-vanessa-machado-de-oliveira/https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/675703/hospicing-modernity-by-vanessa-machado-de-oliveira/https://decolonialfutures.net/https://burnoutfromhumans.net/https://r4rs.org/

What it means to be an educated person or have an educated population as a country is a big part of what informs the decisions around industrial, economic and education policy. But built into these questions are some fundamental assumptions about what it means to make progress or be developed as a society. And beneath that particular values about what it means to know and be in the world.My guests this week have been exploring these precise questions in the context of international development but as you will hear there are so many resonances with the conversations that we are sharing about change in education.  Dr. Uma Pradhan and Dr. Peter Sutoris are the authors of the new book 'Reimagining Development: Bold Directions Towards a Thriving World'.Uma is an Associate Professor at IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society, and Deputy Programme Leader for BA Education, Culture, and Society. She also serves as Inclusion Co-Lead for the Department of Education, Practice and Society (EPS). At UCL, she is part of the Centre for Education and International Development (CEID) and the Centre for the Study of South Asia and the Indian Ocean World. Before joining UCL, she was a Lecturer and Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Oxford. She is author and co-author of many books including, Language Education, Politics and Technology in South Asia; Anthropological Perspectives on Education in Nepal: Educational Transformations and New Avenues of Learning; Rethinking Education in the Context of Post-Pandemic South Asia; Simultaneous Identities: Language, Education and the Nepali Nation.Peter is Associate Professor in Climate and Development in the School of Earth and Environment at Leeds University in the UK. His work bridges anthropology with education, development studies and environmental studies.Prior to this new book with Uma, Peter authored two books, Visions of Development (Oxford University Press, 2016), Educating for the Anthropocene (The MIT Press, 2022), all tackling the central questions about how humanity might be able to imagine its path to survival through the unfolding environmental multi-crisis.Links:The book: https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/development-reimagined/ https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/87070-uma-pradhan/about⁠https://www.petersutoris.com/https://environment.leeds.ac.uk/see

As I explore different aspects of the education transition that we need globally, and is emerging, it is increasingly clear that schools (or what might replacement them) won't be the only thing required. There is a huge amount of possibility and power in a broader ecosystem of organisations and networks taking different roles in enabling a more creative, meaning-rich, relational educational experience for young people and for communities. This week it is a huge privilege to be able to share the story of one such organisation that has been quietly getting on with incredible and impactful work doing precisely this for the last few decades at an absolutely massive scale across India. Ramji Raghavan is Founder Chairman of Agastya International Foundation. Ramji leads the world's largest hands-on Mobile Education Program for economically disadvantaged children and teachers. In 1998, Ramji left his commercial career in banking and finance to create Agastya International Foundation, to provide science education to over 25 million underprivileged children and 250,000 government school teachers across India. During his tenure, Agastya has pioneered many educational innovations at scale, including mobile science labs, lab-on-a-bike and peer-to-peer learning via mega science fairs for underprivileged children. Agastya's 172-acre campus creativity lab houses over fifteen experiential science, art and innovation centers, including the Ramanujan Math Park. With support from the government of Andhra Pradesh, Ramji and his colleagues established a 172-acre campus creativity lab near Bangalore. In 2010 the Government of Karnataka signed a MoU with Agastya International Foundation to establish an ecosystem for hands-on science education in the state. Wisdom of Agastya, an illustrated book authored by Vasant Nayak and Shay Taylor of the MurthyNayak Foundation in Baltimore, USA, chronicles Ramji and his team's journey between 1999 and 2014 in building Agastya International Foundation.In 2021 Agastya announced the creation of Navam Innovation Foundation in partnership with the Pravaha Foundation of Hyderabad.Ramji was a member of the Prime Minister’s National Knowledge Commission (Working Group on attracting children to Science and Math), is a member of the board of Vigyan Prasar, New Delhi, the Karnataka State Innovation Council and Executive Council member of the Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum. In 2009, he was elected a Senior Fellow by Ashoka and in 2011 he was conferred the People’s Hero Award by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) (Southern Zone).https://www.agastya.org/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramji_Raghavan@AgastyaOrg on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/AgastyaOrgThe book: 'The Moving of Mountains: The Remarkable Story of the Agastya International Foundation' by Adhirath Sethi (LID Publications): https://adhirathsethi.com/the-moving-of-mountainsDavid Penburg's article about his time at Agastya, The Owl That Flies Silently: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bEeVpAE8J8LS5JAQJYxtrYEEVX2G6Ju7/view?usp=sharing

If we are going to radically rethink and perhaps replace schools as the dominant institutions of education, what are the first principles questions that we should be asking? And what is the cultural rootedness and traditions that might provide a sense of guidance for these questions? I can't think of a better person to be exploring this with than Dr Kapono Ciotti, whose work in leadership and collaboration across countries, cultures and systems, and across decades, has allowed him to see and participate in these fundamental and urgent questions from many different perspectives.Dr Kapono Ciotti is a globally recognized leader who believes that education is the most profound act of social justice. As CEO of the Pacific American Foundation (https://www.thepaf.org/) in Hawai'i, he builds pilina (deep connections) between people, systems, and ideas to empower and support the transformation of communities. Drawing from his Native Hawaiian heritage, Kapono integrates moʻokūʻauhau (genealogy and legacy) and makawalu (the ability to see from multiple perspectives) into his work, creating innovative solutions rooted in culture, ‘ike kupuna, and sustainability.Kapono’s international credibility spans decades of leadership and collaboration across countries, cultures, and systems. He worked as the Executive Director of What School Could Be. He is the co-author of The Landscape Model of Learning (with Jennifer D. Klein), a groundbreaking framework that reimagines how students engage with knowledge and skills (https://www.solutiontree.com/landscape-model-of-learning.html). A sought-after speaker and facilitator, Kapono has worked with educators, cultural practitioners, philanthropic leaders, and policymakers worldwide to advance deeper learning, authentic assessment, and place-based practices.With a Ph.D. in Indigenous and International Education, a master’s degree in Social Change and Development, and a bachelor’s degree in Language and Cultural Studies, Kapono’s academic journey reflects his commitment to global transformation. His work bridges continents—from the Pacific Islands to West Africa and beyond—bringing Indigenous wisdom to the forefront of modern educational challenges.Whether leading systemic change, sharing his expertise with AI leaders, or paddling Hawaiian outrigger canoes, Kapono embodies the spirit of pilina, connecting people to their purpose, their place, and each other. His passion for education and development continues to inspire leaders around the world.LinksInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/kaponociotti/?hl=enLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-kapono-ciotti-99426746/

In the business of education someone telling you that something doesn't make sense is usually the moment to step in and explain, support and resolve the confusion. Helping young people make sense of the world Is our job isn't it? But what if making sense sometimes gets in the way of making meaning?! What is our job as educators in creating opportunities for young people to cultivate meaning in their lives, however that might happen for them? I absolutely loved this comversation with Sam Crosby this week, as we explored his work around the role of ancient myth, story and elders in responding collectively to the times we're in, that many see as a crisis of meaning.There are so many ways that Sam describes the work he does in the world, so here are a few:– Motivational speaker: Three words have followed him through his journey as a speaker: peace, wisdom and courage. Sam helps people to realise they have everything they need inside them. All it takes is clarity.– Workshop host: After accessing ancient myth (particularly for the first time), there is a rare moment of connection with colleagues, friends, community, and Sam takes heart in holding spaces which have been described as ‘safe enough to share what was really going on for me’.– One-on-one guide: The main body of Sam's work is in groups, but he has always maintained a one-on-one connection with a handful of people. These opportunities to go deeper are always matched by those willing to ‘go there’.– Traditional oral storyteller: founder of Recalling Fire: the organisation bringing the oral tradition back to the modern west. Sam has facilitated immersive weekend-long events, hosted storytelling evenings and been guest speaker on stages and at rallies.– A ‘cryer’: a once guarded and proud man, Sam is now open and willing to model the vulnerability he accessed in coming to terms with the birth of his son with a profound brain disorder.– Well-versed in organisational environments: Sam has worked for over 10 years as a marketing and communications expert, representing agencies around the world before opening my own consultancy.– Sure-foot: He is a wild camper and a trainee mountain leader. He habitually practices ‘nature solos’ as guided by The Bio-Leadership Project, spending 24 hours alone in a wild spot without food, book, phone or anything else to ‘do’ as he focuses his energy on purely ‘being’.– Group guide: Sam has developed and facilitated events to bring the people of organisations and groups closer together, including conservationists with The Wildlife Trusts, activists with Right to Roam and social prescribers with Newquay Orchard.– Mentor, A Band of Brothers: the charity mentoring young men at risk of the justice system.– Fellow: The Bio-Leadership Fellowship.– Alumni: Dartington College of Arts, Dr Martin Shaw’s The Westcountry School of Myth and Advaya’s Rewilding Mythology– TEDx SpeakerSam also has a fantastic podcast called Drop the Map (https://open.spotify.com/show/6U3NnuKxk1zG4BYdMcahZa), and you can find out more about him at https://www.samuelcrosby.com/ and https://www.recallingfire.com. Other links:https://recallingfire.substack.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/campfiresam/

“Are we valuing what we measure or measuring what we value?” It's probably a familiar question to many of you. And this week we're taking a detailed and reflective look at the role of measuring complex competencies in our schools, as this is often a big part of the discussion about what needs to change in formal education. In previous episodes (Ep72 and Ep148), I have chatted with folks from Melbourne Metrics, Rethinking Assessment and Mastery Transcipt Consortium. This week we're particularly pleased to be able bring you this conversation with Michaela Horvathova from Beyond Education. Personally I have some real questions and tensions about this topic, and it was so useful to be able to discuss them in a really open and collaborative way with Michaela, who has deep expertise in this area. She and her team at Beyond Education are being incredibly thoughtful and rigorous about ho w they proceed in bringing these approaches into schools.As the co-founder and Chief Education Officer of Beyond Education and co-founder of Beyond International School in Portugal, Michaela is an international education policy expert focused on the future of education and skills for the digital age and the 4th Industrial Revolution. She has been a policy analyst at the OECD, Education Advisor to the Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic, researcher and curriculum expert at the Center for Curriculum Redesign and worked as a consultant with UNICEF, International Baccalaureate and many other organistions. She has extensive global experience in curriculum design and reform for 21st century skills & competencies, learning outcomes, evaluation & assessment. Links:https://beyondeducation.tech/blog/https://beyondeducation.tech/assessment/https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaela-horvathova-b548378/

This week it is a huge pleasure to be able to bring you this cross-over episode with Kwame Sarfo-Mensah and his fantastic channel, #IdentityTalk4EducatorsLIVE (https://www.identitytalk4educators.com/podcast). Kwame's work is full of insights gained through his own practice as a maths teacher and educational coach and consultant, and through his over 200 conversations with amazing educators and leaders. Kwame Sarfo-Mensah is the founder of Identity Talk Consulting, LLC, a global educational consulting firm that specializes in developing K-12 teachers into identity-affirming educators. Additionally, Identity Talk Consulting, LLC is licensed as a DESE-approved professional development provider and a Minority Owned Enterprise within the Commonwealth for Massachusetts. Prior to starting his firm, he served as a middle school math teacher in Philadelphia, PA and Boston, MA for nine years. Kwame holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics and a Master’s Degree in Elementary Education from Temple University.As a staunch ambassador and advocate for teacher empowerment, Kwame has spoken at numerous national education conferences and worked diligently to support the recruitment and retention of teachers of colour in the education system. In January 2019, he was one of 35 Massachusetts teachers of colour selected by Commissioner Jeff Riley to be in the inaugural cohort of the InSPIRED (In-Service Professionals Increasing Racial and Ethnic Diversity) Fellowship, an initiative organized by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education (DESE) for veteran teachers of colour to recruit students of colour at the high school, undergraduate, and graduate levels to teach in targeted districts within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. As an InSPIRED Teaching Fellow, he facilitated professional development workshops for aspiring teachers at universities such as Boston College, UMass Boston, and Worcester State University and has served as a guest speaker for non-profit teacher pipeline programs such as Teach Western Mass, Generation Teach and Worcester Public Schools’ Future Teachers Academy.Throughout his 17-year education career as a classroom teacher, author, and consultant, Kwame has earned numerous accolades for this work, which include being honored as the 2019 National Member of the Year by Black Educators Rock, Inc. and being recognized as a Top Education Influencer by brightbeam, Inc. in 2021 and 2022. His work has been featured in Education Week, WGBH News, Edutopia, Ed Post, The International Educator (TIE), Teaching Channel, and The Tavis Smiley Show. His latest book, "Learning to Relearn: Supporting Identity in a Culturally Affirming Classroom" (https://learning2relearn.com/), received the 2025 IPPY Awards Gold Medal for Education (https://ippyawards.com/blog/2025-medalists-categories-35-65) and the 2024 Foreword INDIES Award for Education Book of the Year (https://www.forewordreviews.com/awards/finalists/2024/education/)! Kwame has also authored 'From "Inaction" to "In Action": Creating a New Normal for Urban Educators' (2020) and 'Shaping the Teacher Identity: 8 Lessons That Will Help Define the Teacher in You' (2018).Connect with Kwame: https://www.identitytalk4educators.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/kwame-sarfo-mensah/https://www.instagram.com/kwam_the_identity_shaper/

Which places might be the first movers in a radical educational shift? And by radical in this conversation we're not talking about small tweaks in the types of individual competencies and credentials we optimize for in our current version of schools. But a completely different set of logics, values, meaning and purpose for what education could be, set in a broader context of the transformation of systems and radical democratic renewal. This might all sound pretty grand but I believe, like my guests today, that building for this transition is the work we all have to do! I've been a huge admirer of the work of Dark Matter Labs for a long time and so it was an incredible opportunity for me to be able to sit down with Indy Johar and Adam Purvis to explore these massive and important issues.Indy is an architect and co-founder & Mission Steward of Dark Matter Labs. He is also a founding director of open systems lab, seeded WikiHouse (open source housing) and Open Desk (open source furniture company). Indy's work is focused on the strategic design of new super scale civic assets for transition - specifically at the intersection of financing, contracting and governance for deeply democratic futures.Indy is a non-executive international Director of the BloxHub, the Nordic Hub for sustainable urbanization. He is on the advisory board for the Future Observatory and is part of the committee for the London Festival of Architecture. He is also a fellow of the London Interdisciplinary School.Indy was 2016-17 Graham Willis Visiting Professorship at Sheffield University. He was Studio Master at the Architectural Association - 2019-2020, UNDP Innovation Facility Advisory Board Member 2016-20 and RIBA Trustee 2017-20.He has taught & lectured at various institutions from the University of Bath, TU-Berlin; University College London, Princeton, Harvard, MIT and New School.He was awarded the London Design Medal for Innovation in 2022 and an MBE in 2023.Adam Purvis has spent over a decade building mission led movements and networks. His primary role at Dark Matter Labs is holding the team and driving internal clarity. Previously, Adam was cofounder of FutureX, a major influence on how the Scottish Government supported entrepreneurship, startups and innovation. Adam served as the convener of the CAN DO Forum, on the MSc E&I Innovation Board of University of Edinburgh Business School, and the Advisory Board of Napier University Business School.  Since then Adam's focus has moved to the systems in which business and entrepreneurs operate, taking everything he learnt from the greatest doers on the planet who have humanity in their heart, and applying that to the systems that we all operate in today. Links:https://darkmatterlabs.org/⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/indy-johar-b440b010/https://www.linkedin.com/in/adampurvis/

This week, we're diving deep into a conversation that bridges ancient wisdom and modern learning. Joining Tim are two incredible thinkers and practitioners, Satheesh Namasivayam and Bade Kucukoglu. We explore how ancient wisdom practices—from dance, to creative arts, ritual and community performance —can inform and inspire us to create different kinds of spaces in our schools and communities and help us address the growing disconnection young people feel in modern education.Satheesh and Bade left their lucrative careers to pursue their passion to work with adolescent children. Over the last 15 years, they have co-founded two organizations - MindVISA and the Center for AWE (Ancient Wisdom Engagement) - that build adaptive capacities in adolescents to face the uncommon challenges of the fast-evolving world. Exclusively focusing on handholding young people both in embracing their inner selves and in connecting with the outer world, their work draws extensively from wisdom practices of ancient civilizations. Prior to co-founding these organizations, Satheesh advised corporate boards on leadership and governance, across the world. He has spoken at prominent international institutions, and is the co-author of "Leading without Licence". Satheesh holds a Masters degree with a major in leadership from Harvard University's Kennedy School. Bade, after graduating from Brandeis University with a master's degree in sustainable international development, was a development economist working with MIT faculty directing a team of researchers; and was also the Secretary General of Women Entrepreneurship Association of Turkey. To begin their educational experiments, they first traveled in about 40 countries - on a listening tour - learning from the wisdom of local people in varied cultures and civilizations to help young people build adaptive capacities to face their unknown futures. Through their work they pioneered the concepts of "Ancient Wisdom Engagement" (AWE) and "Ways of Seeing".Links: Centre for AWE website: https://www.centerforawe.com/MindVISA website: https://www.mindvisa.com/Article: Opinion | India’s ‘AWE’ Factor: Ancient Wisdom In The Age Of AI: https://www.news18.com/opinion/opinion-indias-awe-factor-ancient-wisdom-in-the-age-of-ai-9238780.html LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bade-kucukoglu-26871110/Email: [email protected]

This week, it's a huge pleasure to welcome Adam Kahane onto the podcast to talk with Tim about the everyday habits and radical engagement that young people as well as educators and leaders, at all levels of our education systems, can learn in order to do the coordinated and constant work of transforming systems.Adam Kahane is a Director at Reos Partners, a global social impact company dedicated to supporting sustainable and equitable progress on humanity's most crucialchallenges. He is an internationally renowned organizer, designer and facilitator of complex and conflictual multi-stakeholder processes through which business, government, and civil society leaders collaborate to address such challenges.Adam has worked in more than fifty countries, with executives and politicians, generals and guerrillas, civil servants and trade unionists, community activists and United Nations officials, clergy and artists. He is also a best-selling author of six books about this work, is a Member of the Order of Canada, and in 2022, he was named a Schwab Foundation Social Innovation Thought Leader of the Year at the World Economic Forum in Davos.Adam is the author of "Power and Love: A Theory and Practice of Social Change," "Transformative Scenario Planning: Working Together to Change the Future," "Collaborating with the Enemy: How to Work with People You Don’t Agree with or Like or Trust," and "Facilitating Breakthrough: How to Remove Obstacles, Bridge Differences, and Move Forward Together." These books are available in more than twenty languages. Nelson Mandela said of Adam's book Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities: “This breakthrough book addresses the central challenge of our time: finding a way to work together to solve the problems we have created.”In April this year, Adam's latest book was published, Everyday Habits for Transforming Systems: The Catalytic Power of Radical EngagementLinks:https://reospartners.com/our-people/[email protected]://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-kahane/

This week we're exploring embodiment science in education with some of the worlds leading embodiment practitioners and cognitive scientists! We believe that this is one of the most important shifts happening in education globally, which is simultaneously so simple, and yet so hard to budge given the depths of the tendencies towards disembodiment, especially in the Western tradition, that we explore. Joining Tim in this fantastic conversation are:Arawana Hayashi heads the creation of Social Presencing Theater (SPT) for the Presencing Institute. Working with Otto Scharmer and colleagues, she brings her background in the arts, meditation, and social justice to creating “social presencing” that makes visible both current reality and emerging future possibilities for individuals and groups. She is currently on the core faculty of the Presencing Institute. Links: https://arawanahayashi.com/https://www.u-school.org/ Book: Social Presencing Theater: The Art of Making a True Move - https://presencing.market/collections/frontpage/products/social-presencing-theater-the-art-of-making-a-true-move Prof. Guy Claxton is a cognitive scientist, education thought leader and prolific author interested in expanding human intelligence through research, writing and education. He has spent most of his working life based in a variety of UK universities including Oxford, Bristol, King’s College London and Winchester. Links: https://www.guyclaxton.net/Recent Deans Lecture Series, University of Melbourne: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGFEswKBnMwBook: Co-authored with Emily Poel, Bodies of Learning: How Embodiment Science Transforms Education will be released soon from Routledge.Dr. Akhil Kumar Singh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Policy at MS Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences. Akhil works at the intersection of Philosophy, Psychology and education, emphasizing the creation of educational policies and innovative curricula based on embodied approaches that drive systemic change. Links: https://akhilksingh.in/https://www.msruas.ac.in/faculty-staff/akhil-kumarBook, Education for the Embodied Human: A Contemporary Understanding on Human Nature for Holistic Education - https://brill.com/display/title/71864Emily Poel has been teaching embodiment in Berlin for over fifteen years. Originally from Michigan and with a degree in contemporary dance performance and history, she's worked internationally as a performer, choreographer and creative advisor. In 2004 she shifted her focus to embodiment training and hasn’t stopped since. Over the last ten years she's developed a large collection of activities using physical awareness tools and movement training to better understand how creativity, learning and thinking actually work. Emily is the co-author with Guy, of the forthcoming book, Bodies of Learning: How Embodiment Science Transforms Education.Links: https://embodimentatwork.co/Move4Schools - https://move4schools.com/Caroline Williams is a UK-based science writer with 20 years’ experience in magazine and radio journalism. She writes regularly for New Scientist magazine. Her work has also appeared in the Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph, BBC Future, BBC Earth and the Boston Globe. ​She is the author of three books: Inner Sense: How the New Science of Interoception Can Transfrom Your Health (2025), Move! The New Science of Body Over Mind (2021) and Override (published as My Plastic Brain in the US, 2018), and the editor of two of New Scientist’s Instant Expert Guides: How Your Brain Works: Inside the most complicated object in the known universe (2017) and Your Conscious Mind: Unravelling the greatest mystery of the human brain (2017).Links: https://www.carolinewilliams.net/Caroline's latest book - https://profilebooks.com/work/inner-sense/Move4Schools - https://move4schools.com/

The idea that schools simply deliver objective and neutral knowledge and skills to our young humans is a complete myth. In fact, with the amount of time that we spend in them over the course of our early lives, schools are incredibly good at conditioning us into particular sets of assumptions about the way the world works. My guest this week, Dr Ida Rose Florez is calling this out in amazing and very grounded ways and we discuss the impacts of what this does to our ability to be comfortable and competent in working with and in complexity (which is pretty much the place we all find ourselves in pretty consistently these days!). Ida Rose tells the full story brilliantly in her new book, The End of Education as We Know It: Regenerative Learning for Complex Times, as well as describing the examples of learning communities that are successfully doing education in whole new ways!Ida Rose Florez, PhD, is a transformative leader in education, dedicated to reshaping learning for a more sustainable future. As the author of The End of Education as We Know It: Regenerative Learning for Complex Times, she challenges traditional education models and advocates for schools that nurture individual growth and ecological responsibility.Ida Rose has spoken at a White House panel on Hispanic education, keynoted the Asian Preschool Education Annual Conference, and presented to leaders such as the governor of Shanghai and the California State Legislature. Over the last decades, Ida Rose has led statewide education initiatives in Arizona and California, was a National Science Foundation Advancing Informal Science Learning Principal Investigator and governing board vice president of the National Association for the Education of Young Children. She served as assessment subject-matter expert with the National Governor’s Association and is a frequent grant reviewer for the National Science Foundation. She has also served on the board of the Human Systems Dynamics Institute. Ida Rose holds a Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Arizona. She has held faculty positions at Penn State University College of Medicine, University of Arizona College of Education, Northern Arizona University College of Education, and Arizona State University Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College. She is a certified Human Systems Dynamics Professional and certified Warm Data Host with the International Bateson Institute. In 2017 she founded a consulting practice serving U.S. and international clients that focuses on regenerative education.If people are interested, here is a blog post from Dave Snowden that touches on his view that we are unable to understand systems as wholes: https://thecynefin.co/regularities-reduction-2-2/And here is a video where Jiddu Krishnamurti talks about thinking itself being the cause of the fragmentation and separation: https://youtu.be/CvL4uNA4U-k?si=bLbWpiSaPHJ4K5-Z&t=1073Ida Rose's website: https://idaroseflorez.com/The book: https://theendofeducationasweknowit.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/idaroseflorez/

After learning about the amazing work of my guest this week, I had an idea that I wanted to test out. Perhaps our current obsession with Large Language Models is revealing of our historic obsession with a narrow cognitivist view of how human learning happens (and, therefore, how schooling is structured)?!Memorise the largest possible bank of static data and then output plausible propositions, in response to prompts from a teacher or a standardised exam! Obviously that's a bit of an unfair caricature of the industrial schooling system, but also not a million miles from the truth! As you will have seen from my explorations over the last few years in episodes on ecological psychology, play, movement, active inference and 4E cognitive science, I believe that there is an emerging understanding of how radically embodied and embedded in place and in relationships human learning is actually is. So that's why I was so excited to learn about a vastly different approach to artificial intelligence that is based on a sensorimotor learning framework and Jeff Hawkin's Thousand Brains theory of the neocortex. Dr Viviane Clay is Executive Director of the Thousand Brains Project and a scientist with years of experience in neuroscience, AI and machine learning. She has a PhD in Cognitive Computing. The Thousand Brains Project grew out of decades of research at Numenta, a leading company in neuroscience-based AI technology, and is developing Monty, a new type of artificial intelligence based on the sensorimotor principles observed in the brain. Numenta's co-founder Jeff Hawkins is Research Advisor and Board Member of the Thousand Brains Project.You can find links to additional information about Monty and the Thousand Brains Project below:https://thousandbrains.org/ https://linktr.ee/1000brainsproj2 page overview: https://thousandbrains.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/TBP_Overview.pdfhttps://www.youtube.com/@thousandbrainsproject

This week, we're thinking about how change happens, or more often doesn't happen in formal education! What are the practical approaches that education leaders and policy-makers sometimes miss when they are initiating change management and innovation processes. This week we welcome back Dr James Mannion to the podcast, in light of the recent publication of his book 'Making Change Stick'. He's done a fabulous job of synthesising the change management literature, including techniques and strategies from many disciplines so that you don't have to. Dr James Mannion is the Director of Rethinking Education, a teacher training organisation dedicated to improving outcomes for children and young people through implementation science, self-regulated learning and practitioner inquiry. He has a Masters in person-centred education from the University of Sussex, and a PhD in self-regulated learning from the University of Cambridge. James is an Associate of Oracy Cambridge: The Hughes Hall Centre for Effective Spoken Communication, through which he provides training and consultancy for schools and other organisations, such as the National Gallery. He is a renowned expert in metacognition, self-regulation and self-regulated learning, and regularly presents on these topics at national and international conferences. James is also the host of the popular Rethinking Education podcast, now in the top 3% globally, which features long-form conversations about how we might reform education to bring about a more harmonious, less hair-raising state of world affairs. With Kate McAllister, James is the co-author of Fear is the Mind Killer: Why Learning to Learn deserves lesson time – and how to make it work for your pupils. He has also more recently published Making Change Stick: A Practical Guide to Implementing School Improvement. James' website: https://www.drjamesmannion.com/Book: www.makingchangestick.co LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-mannion/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjamesmannion/

A huge part of the shifts we want to see in schools and in education more broadly is more agency, choice-making and self direction for young people. There is an increasingly compelling story about why this is important for them, as well as for the kinds of challenges we're facing in local communities and national and global society. But sometimes what isn't highlighted is the impact of not having those things. What toll does it take on youth well-being and mental health? So this week I'm joined by renowned clinical psychologist and educator Dr Naomi Fisher to help me find out.Naomi is a clinical psychologist, author and EMDR-Europe Accredited trainer. She specialises in trauma, autism and alternative ways to learn. She has a doctorate in clinical psychology from Kings College London (Maudsley), a PhD in developmental cognitive psychology also from Kings College (IoPPN), and a degree in Experimental Psychology from the University of Cambridge. Naomi is also an alumni of UWC Atlantic College, Wales.Whilst in the NHS, Naomi worked in primary care and specialist trauma services in London, as well as neurodevelopmental services. She has worked for the Metropolitan Police and third sector organisations. She now works in private practice with adults, adolescents and children. She runs self-help webinars for parents on how to help their children with common mental health difficulties.Naomi is the author of several books on psychology, mental health and alternative education. She is the author of Changing our Minds: How children can take control of their own learning, A Different Way to Learn: Neurodiversity and Self-Directed Education, When The Naughty Step Makes Things Worse, The Teenager’s Guide to Burnout and What Can We Do When School’s Not Working?: An Illustrated Handbook for Professionals (with Abigail Fisher). Most of Naomi's books are beautifully illustrated by Eliza Fricker. Social LinksNaomi's substack, Think Again: https://naomicfisher.substack.com/Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/naomicfisher/?hl=en LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/naomi-fisher-psychologist/Naomi's website: https://naomifisher.co.uk/

This week, we are celebrating 5 years and 193 episodes since going live with Episode 1 in April 2020!You can hear Tim's reflections, as well as clips from previous episodes with Marie Battiste (Ep154), Nora Bateson (Ep116), Roland Kupers (Ep 185), Wakanyi Hoffman (Ep 157), Carl Mika (Ep179), Nolita Mvunelo & Matias Lara (Ep190), Zineb Mouhyi (Ep184) and Zoe Weil (Ep171).Please share your own thoughts and reflections on the podcast guests, topics and future possibilities here: https://forms.gle/4nNEcw3QEopjf1W98Thanks so much for being a great supporter of the podcast... and here's to the next 5 years!

Are we educating young people as consumers? Have educational institutions become service providers in the consumer economy of educational products?  Or are we educating young people as citizens - of their local communities, nations and the planet? If so what does that mean for how we engage them in the  processes of living and working together, making meaningful contributions and learning important things as they go.  I'm not sure that that looks much like what we're currently doing in most schools around the world. Jon Alexander is on a mission to help a new story to emerge about how people all over the world are getting involved in 'citizening' - that is, thinking of citizen as a verb and a local participatory responsibility, rather than citizen as a noun that you claim rights to.Jon began his career with success in advertising, winning the prestigious Big Creative Idea of the Year before making a dramatic change. Driven by a deep need to understand the impact on society of 3,000 commercial messages a day, he gathered three Masters degrees, exploring consumerism and its alternatives from every angle. In 2014, he co-founded the New Citizenship Project, a strategy and innovation consultancy that aims to shift the dominant story of the individual in society from Consumer to Citizen. NCP’s client list includes The Guardian, the European Central Bank, and the European Journalism Centre. They have partnered with the BBC, Amnesty International, National Trust, the British Film Institute, Tate galleries, the National Union of Students, YouGov, the Centre for Public Impact, the Food Standards Agency and the Food Ethics Council. Jon is author of Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us - a book that seeks to reframe the moment in time we're living in as one of huge civic opportunity, not just crisis and collapse, and in doing so opens up a world of possibility for organisations and leaders across sectors and across the world.Links to Jon's work:Citizens (Book): https://www.jonalexander.net/How to Citizen, with Baratunde Thurston: https://stories.howtocitizen.com/formNew Citizenship Project: https://www.newcitizenproject.com/Jon's Four Thought lecture, BBC Radio 4: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04md5b0Jon's NCP article on Three Post Covid Futures: https://medium.com/new-citizenship-project/subject-consumer-or-citizen-three-post-covid-futures-8c3cc469a984Jon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-alexander-11b66345/Baratunde on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/baratunde/

Is it possible to unlearn the conditioning of our minds, that many of us who have had traditional educations have experienced, such that we can think differently about what an education could be? This week's guest has seen both sides of this experience, and is weaving incredible communities and new institutions all over India and the world!Manish Jain is deeply committed to regenerating our diverse local knowledge systems and cultural imaginations and is one of the strong planetary voices for de-schooling our lives. He has served for the past 20 years as coordinator and co-founder of Shikshantar: The Peoples’ Institute for Rethinking Education and Development based in Udaipur, India, and is co-founder of the Swaraj University, Creativity Adda, Learning Societies Unconference, Walkouts-Walkon network, Udaipur as a Learning City, and Families Learning Together network in India. He recently helped launch the global Ecoversities Network and the global Giftival Network. He is a featured speaker / advisory member of the Economics of Happiness network for localization. He has edited several books on vimukt shiksha (liberating learning) on themes such as learning societies, unlearning, gift culture, community media, and tools for deep dialogue. Prior to this, Manish worked as one of the principal team members of the UNESCO Learning Without Frontiers global initiative. He has also been a consultant to UNICEF, World Bank, and USAID in Africa, South Asia, and the former Soviet Union. Manish also worked as an investment banker with Morgan Stanley. He has been trying to unlearn his master’s degree in education from Harvard University and his BA in economics, international development, and political philosophy from Brown University. He and his wife Vidhi have been unschooling themselves with their 15-year-old daughter, Kanku, in Udaipur, Rajasthan. Manish is passionate about urban organic farming, filmmaking, simulation gaming, bicycling, group facilitation, clowning, intercultural dialogue, and slow food cooking.Links to Manish's communities of practice:www.shikshantar.orgwww.ecoversities.orgwww.swarajuniversity.orgwww.udaipurlearningcity.orghttps://complexity.university/ www.jailuniversity.orgwww.farmversities.orgwww.creativityadda.orgwww.creativityconsortium.org

As I often say we radically underestimate young people and what they are capable of. They are asking to be involved in the critical conversations about systems change. And not only that they are also building their own capabilities for and with each other about how to engage with it's systemic issues. So it's a huge pleasure this week to be speaking with Nolita Mvunelo, Matías Lara and Vanessa Terschluse who have taken it upon themselves, as The 50 Percent, to gather a collection of insights to enhance young people's understanding of systems and how they move and change. They have published the amazing 'Young Person's Guide to Systems Change'.Nolita Mvunelo is Co-Director of The 50 Percent and Club of Rome Youth Program Manager: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nolita-thina-mvunelo/Matías Lara is Director of The 50 Percent: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milara14/Vanessa Terschluse is Chief Editor of The 50 Percent: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessa-terschluse-915a5b171/Other links:https://the50percent.org/The Young Person's Guide to Systems Change: https://the50percent.org/young-persons-guide/https://youth-talks.org/https://www.clubofrome.org/

There are very different ways of 'doing' education all around the world and my guest this week has spent many years exploring and deeply understanding many of them. As Alex Beard highlights in this conversation really powerfully, "does the purpose match the how or the process?" And how does this align with the values of the communities involved? When there is so much ideological warfare and polarisation around, we need more wise voices like Alex who are deeply expert and evidence-based but also oriented strongly around values and purpose.After starting out as a teacher in a London comprehensive, Alex did his MA at the IOE before joining Teach For All, a growing network of independent organizations working in sixty countries to ensure that every child has access to an excellent education. while building collective leadership and driving systemic changes from within and outside of the education sector. He is the Senior Director at Teach for All (https://teachforall.org/) and leads the Global Learning Lab supporting a global network of leaders working to drive systemic change in the fields of social innovation, school leadership, teacher training and policy-making. He has written extensively about his experiences in search of the practices that will shape the future of learning in publications such as the Guardian, Financial Times and Wired. He is the author of Natural Born Learners: Our incredible capacity to learn and how we can harness it, published in 2018 and he wrote and presented The Learning Revolution, a three part series on the future of education for BBC Radio 4 (2020). I've also had the privilege of chatting to Wendy Kopp, Alex's colleague and founderand CEO of Teach for All in episode 79 so do also check that one out!Alex's website: https://www.alexbeard.org/The Learning Revolution documentary: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000h93c/episodes/playerThe Missing Piece report: https://teachforall.org/MissingPieceBriefSocial LinksLinkedIn: @alex-beard - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-beard-08901915/

As you will know if you've listened to previous episodes, this podcast is really about the central question of the kind of education (formal and informal) that we need to support and enable us all, but most importantly our young people, to transition effectively through this historical period of massive flux and change. There are many people around the world putting language to these shifts and offering guidance to leaders, and organisations for how to navigate them. But few are doing this as prominently and at such a scale as my guest this week. Otto Scharmer's substantial work with MIT, Theory U and the Presencing Institute for the last few decades has been helping leaders embrace cross-sector systems transformation. To quote his 2007 book on Theory U, his work opens up pathways for "dealing with the resistance of thought, emotion, and will; and intentionally reintegrating the intelligence of the head, the heart, and the hand" in the context of leadership, decision-making, and almost any kind of collaborative work.Otto Scharmer, a Senior Lecturer at MIT and Founding Chair of the Presencing Institute, has dedicated the past 20 years to helping leaders embrace cross-sector systems transformation. Through his bestselling books Theory U and Presence (the latter co-authored with Peter Senge and others), Otto introduced the groundbreaking concept of "presencing" — learning from the emerging future. He also co-authored Leading from the Emerging Future, which outlines eight acupuncture points for transforming our economy from egocentric to ecocentric. His most recent book The Essentials of Theory U (2018) summarizes the core principles and applications of awareness-based systems change. He co-founded the MITx u-lab, which has activated a vibrant worldwide ecosystem of transformational change involving more than 250,000 users from 186 countries. In collaboration with colleagues, he co-created global Action Learning Labs for UN agencies and SDG Leadership Labs for UN Country Teams in 26 countries, which support cross-sector initiatives for addressing urgent humanitarian crises. Born and raised near Hamburg, Germany, Otto’s early experiences on his family farm profoundly shaped his vision. From his father, a pioneer of regenerative farming, Otto learned the significance of the living quality of the soil in organic agriculture, which inspired his thinking about social fields as the grounding condition from which visible transformations emerge. Like a good farmer who cares for the soil, Otto believes responsible leaders must nurture the social field in which they operate. He emphasizes that shifting our economic operating systems from extractive to regenerative requires innovations in leadership support structures for shifting mindsets from ego to eco. Building that infrastructure is the purpose of the u-school for Transformation. Otto earned his diploma and his PhD in economics from Witten/Herdecke University in Germany. He is a member of the UN Learning Advisory Council for the 2030 Agenda, the Club of Rome and the World Future Council. He has won the Jamieson Prize for Teaching Excellence at MIT and the European Leonardo Corporate Learning Award. In 2021, he received the Elevating Humanity Award from the Organizational Development Network. Useful Links:https://ottoscharmer.com/https://youtu.be/6nAagnY_Hq0?si=5CnM5fT0dp4lKQ50https://medium.com/presencing-institute-blog/a-farmer-who-puts-his-hand-to-the-plow-must-look-forward-402e6960a7d9?source=friends_link&sk=b78b2cd3b346324ba70f217b2175b060https://youtu.be/YB25Bqc0yGU?si=UZ1sPNKLo0ynG9eZ