Talking autonomy, accountability and agency with Jon Barnes

In the episode with Jon Barnes we explore his ideas on education and work. He shares his thoughts on the way we've been schooled and how it has impacted on the way we work. We're all brought up told exactly how things are: what to wear, where to sit and when to speak. Schooling is something done to us rather than for us. We're not given autonomy, and so we don't learn accountability and so lose our sense of agency. This has repercussions on our sense of freedom and our ability to act independently or entrepreneurially as adults. He tells the story of the changes he saw in his son, Ivor, when they took a family adventure to Costa Rica and enrolled him in Casa Sula, a school that promotes independent learning. Talking about Ivor's shift from needing to told what to do to becoming more self driven and motivated starts our conversation about Jon's own work and why he considers himself an activist trying to change the restrictive systems that exist in the workplace.