Future Learning Design Podcast Rewilding Education - A Conversation with Prof. Hilary Cremin
Nov 15, 2025
Professor Hilary Cremin, Head of the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge, explores the concept of rewilding education. She discusses children's disconnection from nature and outdoor play, critiquing how standardized schooling suppresses creativity. Hilary argues for holistic, learner-centered education and contrasts it with industrialized models. She emphasizes the importance of inner peace, relational learning, and arts-based dialogue. Hilary also examines AI's dual potential in education—both as an opportunity and a risk.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Childhood In Woods Shaped Her
- Hilary Cremin describes growing up playing in woods and learning from trees, which shaped her deeply.
- She notes those woods now host adults, not children, and questions why we deny young people unsupervised nature spaces.
Education Worsens Inequality
- Cremin argues education exacerbates inequality by promising social mobility it doesn't deliver.
- She shows attainment gaps widen drastically across primary and secondary schooling.
Metaphysics Of Mastery Limits Thinking
- The 'metaphysics of mastery' frames curricula that celebrate lone innovators and dominion over nature.
- Cremin links this mindset to harms from modernity and neglect of emotions, bodies, and other epistemologies.
