Future Learning Design Podcast

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/

In this insightful conversation, Dr. Ida Rose Florez, a transformative leader in education and author, challenges the myth of neutral schooling. She discusses how traditional education often conditions students rather than nurtures them. Ida shares her vision for regenerative learning, highlighting innovative communities that prioritize cooperation over competition and embrace complexity. The discussion emphasizes a shift toward adaptive learning models, fostering curiosity and agency in students while rethinking the relationship between education and community for a sustainable future.

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

Dr. James Mannion, Director of Rethinking Education and an expert in self-regulated learning, discusses the complexities of implementing change in education. He emphasizes that change requires more than just leadership; it demands collaboration and shared learning. James outlines practical strategies from his recent book, focusing on the ethical use of behavioral science and the importance of transparency. He advocates for leveraging dissenting voices, enhancing meeting facilitation, and adopting innovative group dynamics to drive effective educational reform.

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/

Manish Jain is a visionary educator and co-founder of Shikshantar and Swaraj University in India, dedicated to transforming traditional educational paradigms. He discusses the necessity of unlearning systemic biases ingrained in education and advocates for fostering independent, community-oriented learning. Jain highlights innovative concepts like Ecoversities, which celebrate local knowledge and emphasize experiential learning. He also urges a shift away from conventional schooling methods that undermine self-worth and creativity, promoting a more holistic approach to education.

Join Vanessa Terschluse, a sustainability advocate, Nolita Mvunelo, a champion for youth empowerment, and Matías Lara, a systems change expert from Argentina, as they dive into the vital role of young people in driving systemic change. They discuss the power of community collaboration and the necessity of educational reform to equip youth for today's challenges. The trio also highlights storytelling's impact in connecting individuals to urgent issues, and they inspire a collective youth movement toward meaningful transformation.

Alex Beard, Senior Director at Teach For All, explores the complexities of education worldwide, stressing the need for alignment with community values. He discusses the tension between structured and project-based learning, advocating for diverse educational approaches to foster collaboration over competition. Beard delves into lifelong learning, emphasizing how relational dynamics shape meaningful outcomes. He also reflects on the implications of AI in education, cautioning against its use without a shared vision for purposeful integration.