Coconut Thinking

How might the stories we tell about the future help us bring about the futures we want?In this episode, I speak with Will Richardson. Will was a guest on the podcast a couple of years ago, and it's fascinating to notice how he his thinking has both shifted and stayed strong. A former public school educator of 22 years, Will has spent the last 18 years developing an international reputation as a leading thinker and writer about the intersection of social online learning networks, education, and systemic change. Most recently, Will is a co-founder of The Big Questions Institute which was created to help educators use "fearless inquiry" to make sense of this complex moment and an uncertain future. We discuss:🥥 Moving from a culture of teaching to a culture of learning;🥥 Telling oral futures, stories of how we imagine we will be in a decade or two and working together toward those stories;🥥 How more and more of us realize we are at a tipping point, opening hope for change toward more education for sustainability (and perhaps regeneration)Check out our website: www.coconut-thinking.com

Cordell Jacks, Co-founder and CEO of Regenerative Capital Group, discusses how capital can create net positive systemic change. They explore the concept of regenerative capital, its distinction from traditional capitalism, and its impact on stakeholders. The chapter also delves into Cordell Jax's journey and the vetting process for selecting entrepreneurs for investment. They emphasize the importance of joy and regenerative pursuits in their work.

How might we approach life from Nature's paradigm rather than from the dominant paradigm?In this episode, I speak with Denise DeLuca. Denise is the founder of Wild Hazel. She is an adjunct faculty and the former Director of MCAD’s Sustainable Design program. She was co-founder of BCI: Biomimicry Creative for Innovation, a network of creative professional change agents driving ecological thinking for radical transformation. Denise is the author of the book Re-Aligning with Nature: Ecological Thinking for Radical Transformation. She also teaches with the Amani Institute.Denise’s previous roles include Education Director for the International Living Future Institute, Project Manager for Swedish Biomimetics 3000, and Outreach Director for The Biomimicry Institute. Denise is a licensed civil engineer (PE) and holds a master’s degree in civil and environmental engineering with a focus on modelling landscape-scale surface and groundwater interactions. In addition, Denise is a Biomimicry Fellow and a member of the Advisory Council of The Biomimicry Institute,  Board Member of the International Society of Sustainability Professionals (ISSP), on the editorial board of the Journal of Bionic Engineering, and anExpert with Katerva.We discuss: 🥥 Emergent abundance as means of cultivating ego-less, curious, and thriving relationships, thinking, and feeling;🥥 How we can learn as Nature, not always from or about Nature, which is a shift in how we respond to the world (away from problem-solution mindsets)🥥 How imagining and describing the world we want to create opens up new possibilities for non-linear thinking and ways of becoming.Check out our website: www.coconut-thinking.comCheck out Wild Hazel: www.wildhazel.net

In this episode, I speak with Stefan Bauschard. Stefan is the Co-founder of educating4ai.com; the Owner of DebateUS.org, the Executive Co-Director of the New York City Urban Debate League and the Debate Coach @ Lakeland Schools. He is also the author of several substance articles that have received a tremendous amount of attention in the way they challenge us to re-think assessment, re-think our ways or learning, and re-think our relationships with evidencing what we can do... all due to AI. We discuss:🥥 How AI will be able to teach learners certain things better than any human ever could;🥥 How AI will end the primacy of single artifact assessments, in favor of more creative, individualized ways to demonstrate understanding;🥥 The notion that educators in the future will be those who care about and enjoy spending time with kids.Check our our website: www.coconut-thinking.comYou can find Stefan's substance articles here: https://stefanbauschard.substack.com/

How might curriculum emerge from specific time and place?In this episode, I speak with Russell John Cailey. Russell is the Managing Director and visionary behind THINK Learning Studio (TLS), which is associated with Think Global School, one of the first traveling high schools. He aims to revolutionize the education industry. Honoured as a Top 100 Global Visionary in Education by GFEL in 2021, Russell is dedicated to positioning TLS as a beacon of innovation and inspiration for educators worldwide, challenging traditional norms. Russell is the Co-founder of the Hakuba Forum, ForesightLab.org and EduVue.ai. We discuss:🥥 The importance of listening to local contexts and not coming in with a pre-made, out of the box solution in education, particularly when it comes to PBL;🥥 The risks and opportunities that come with challenging traditional education;🥥 How collective endeavors might be the next horizon for AI, beyond individual productivity. Check out the Coconut Thinking website: www.coconut-thinking.com

How do we find the courage to move beyond the single story?In this episode, I speak with Sahana Chattopadhyay. Sahana is a Writer, Speaker, Synthesizer, and Transition Catalyst. Through her work, she researches and explores different pathways to civilizational transition towards life-sustaining and decolonial future(s), and counter-hegemonic narratives. She is the Founder and Director of a boutique consulting firm Proteeti, a Sanskrit word meaning "wisdom that transforms." She is also a certified Coach, Facilitator, Learning Designer, and an Organization Development Professional with a focus on Transformational Learning and the Future of Leadership.Sahana is also the author of a series of thought-shifting articles about Wayfinders, which you can find here: https://medium.com/age-of-emergence.We discuss:🥥 How wayfinders are the holding space for organizations that have the courage to listen to voices from the margins and the center, including voices from the more-than-human world, moving so that the centers shift constantly so there is no center;🥥 How we want to go beyond "human-centered" (anthropocentric), which has led us to where we are today and will not get us out;🥥 The problem-solution trap, which is also the "God-trick," and inevitably creates more problems;🥥 Resistance as more than political struggle, as a form of defense and opening up to better futures.Check out the Coconut Thinking website: www.coconut-thinking.com

In this episode, I speak with Fabienne Vailes. Fabienne is the host of the Flourishing Education podcast. She is the author of two books: The Flourishing Student in its 2nd edition (aimed at tutors) and another one co-authored Dr. Dominique Thompson called How to Grow a Grown up (aimed at parents). As an educational expert with over 20 years’ experience in the sector, Fabienne is on a mission to change the face of education—embedding well-being into the curriculum to create an environment where both students and staff flourish and develop the mental agility and resilience to succeed both academically and in the workplace. We discuss:🥥 How maybe we can measure community well-being (qualitatively);🥥 The need to avoid getting stuck with words like "regeneration," which are not silver bullets and represent concepts that go beyond the words;🥥 How change comes one imperfect perfect conversation at a time.Check out our website: www.coconut-thinking.com Check out the Flourishing Education podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/flourishing-education-how-to-become-a-humble/id1519086201?i=1000617730193

In this episode, I speak with Paula DiPerna. Paula is a strategic advisor and consultant, who draws upon a diverse leadership background, having served as the president of the Chicago Climate Exchange International, which pioneered global emissions trading, as well as the president of the Joyce Foundation, a leading US private philanthropy. Prior to these positions, she was vice president of the Cousteau Society for nearly 20 years, and worked with governmental organizations across the globe to establish sustainable business and governmental policies. As a noted public policy analyst, she served as a consultant to the World Bank, LEAD International, The Urban Justice Center, and is currently a Special Advisor to the Carbon Disclosure Project. She is also a widely published author of non-fiction books, a novel and is currently working on a memoir addressed to emerging leaders. We discuss: 🥥 How responding to ecological breakdown will require being able to live with and through ambiguity;🥥 How we can work within existing financial systems to incentivize the non-exploitation of Nature;🥥 How we can work with value to understand the interconnectedness of all living things. Check out our website: www.coconut-thinking.com for articles, resources, and more.

In this episode, I speak with Alexandra Pimor. Alexandra leads on the Nature On The Board project, a pioneering endeavour to expand the scope of Rights of Nature across legal systems, corporate boards, and any decision-making body to foster a global Nature/Earth-based governance praxis. A published scholar with over 20 years’ experience in pedagogical engineering, Ally started her career as a senior law lecturer in the UK. We discuss:🥥 Nature governance as a way to bring back nature consciousness in our decision-making, our ways of doing things, our lives as a collective;🥥 How understanding that we are relational, that we are Nature, would lead us to make different decisions and connect in ways that lead to thriving;🥥 How Nature governance is the cultivation of happiness.Check out our website: www.coconut-thinking.com. You'll find articles and resources there about Emergent LearningThis work is inspired by Nature on the Board, Faith in Nature and Lawyers For Nature.Nature on the School Board: www.natureontheschoolboard.com where we propose to put a proxy for Nature on schools' boards or senior leadership teams.

How can neurodiversity (and ADHD in particular) allow us to cultivate and become attuned to the potential for creativity, courage, connection, and compassion—the ecological 4Cs?In this episode of the Coconut Thinking podcast, I speak with Lennart Hennig. This is part II of our conversation a few weeks ago. Lennart is a founder, teacher, and facilitator. He explores the edges of individual and collective development through the angles of consciousness, embodiment, safety, trauma, metaphysics, philosophy, and deep ecology, using an integral framework of the whole, undivided cosmos. This is a conversation where ADHD is an entry point into understanding our individual and collective selves in different ways. We discuss:🥥 How neurodiversity contributes to the whole society like biodiversity contributes to the whole ecology;🥥 How our civilization is showing the signs that are typically associated with ADHD, through its inability to grapple with and respond to ecological issues;🥥 How cultivating effort is a way to embrace life, to affirm it in all its possibilities.Check us out on www.coconut-thinking.comLennart's website is www.theinstitute.one and his course can be found on www.theinstitute.one/attention