Building Bridges for Systemic Change - A Conversation with Manda Scott
Jan 26, 2025
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Manda Scott, a bestselling novelist and shamanic practitioner, dives deep into creating a sustainable future. She discusses the vital need for systemic change over simple optimization, emphasizing compassion in education. The conversation explores the importance of reconnecting with nature in learning, integrating permaculture into school curriculums. They also tackle the concept of 'warm data' to enhance emotional connections in education, and share insights on transformative initiatives like UWC Atlantic College, encouraging youth to engage with global challenges.
The podcast highlights the necessity of shifting from optimizing existing education frameworks to exploring innovative models that prioritize emotional literacy and engagement.
It addresses the profound eco-anxiety experienced by young people, emphasizing the disconnection from traditional educational content that fails to resonate with their real-world concerns.
The creation of collaborative spaces for youth engagement is essential, as seen in initiatives like the Festival of Hope, fostering agency and inspiring systemic change.
Deep dives
The Importance of Building Bridges
The conversation emphasizes the need to construct a bridge from our current societal state to a more sustainable future. This involves recognizing that optimization, often pursued in various systems, is neither necessary nor helpful. Instead, a focus on alternate models is encouraged, promoting the idea that by understanding our current limitations, we can envision new possibilities for growth and change. Such a shift requires an honest appraisal of the challenges we face, fostering a mindset that welcomes the exploration of different paths forward.
Youth and Eco-Anxiety
Young people today grapple with profound eco-anxiety as they confront uncertainties about their futures, heavily shaped by environmental crises. This anxiety isn't just individual; it reflects a broader disillusionment with traditional success narratives that no longer resonate amidst ongoing societal and ecological collapse. Many young learners feel disconnected from educational content that fails to address the realities they perceive in the world. This disconnect necessitates a reevaluation of educational practices to ensure that they align with the lived experiences and concerns of today's youth.
The Challenges of Institutional Change
Educators often find themselves caught in a cycle of optimizing existing frameworks while facing pressures to maintain standards and accountability. This dynamic can stifle creativity and the capacity for genuine engagement with young learners. As the importance of emotional literacy and connection becomes apparent, schools frequently implement initiatives as add-ons rather than integrating them into the core curriculum. This approach risks reducing such initiatives to mere tokens, lacking the depth required to foster real change in how education is delivered.
Nature-Based Learning and Ecological Awakening
Engaging with nature in meaningful ways is presented as crucial for reconnecting students with themselves and their surroundings. Programs rooted in nature-based education can facilitate a deeper understanding of ecological systems while encouraging young people to develop critical thinking skills. However, practical considerations, such as climate and accessibility, pose significant challenges to implementing such programs universally. The dialogue calls for a collective effort to explore innovative approaches to learning that are sensitive to these realities.
Collaborative Spaces for Young Changemakers
The creation of collaborative spaces where young people can express their ideas and engage in meaningful discussions about pressing global issues is essential for fostering future leaders. Initiatives like the Festival of Hope provide an opportunity for youth to connect, collaborate, and brainstorm around topics that matter to them, such as climate change and social justice. Such gatherings not only enable new forms of engagement but also help cultivate a sense of agency among participants, empowering them to take action within their communities. Encouraging these connections illustrates the potential of participatory practices to inspire hope and drive systemic change.
As Manda Scott's BRILLIANT podcast suggests, "another world is possible… we have the power of gods to destroy our home, but we also have the chance to become something we cannot yet imagine." This week's special episode is a joint podcast with Manda on her Accidental Gods podcast (https://accidentalgods.life/).
In all of her shamanic work, bestselling novel-writing, podcasting and convening, Manda Scott is gathering people around the vital question, how we can create a future that we would be proud to leave to the generations to come?
Manda's new novel 'Any Human Power' is out on May 30th: https://linktr.ee/anyhumanpower
And you can find more of Manda's extensive and amazing work on her website here: https://mandascott.co.uk/
BlueSky - https://bsky.app/profile/mandascott.bsky.socialandMastodon - https://mastodon.scot/@Eceni
Or you can write to Manda here: https://mandascott.co.uk/contact/
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