Coconut Thinking

In this episode, I speak with Zachary Stein. Zak has published two books: Social Justice and Educational Measurement, which traces the history of standardized testing and its ethical implications, and Education in a Time Between Worlds, which grapples with the relations between schooling and technology more broadly. Zak is a co-founder of The Consilience Project, which is dedicated to improving public sensemaking and building a movement to radically upgrade digital media landscapes. He is a scholar at the Ronin Institute, where he  researches the relations between education, human development, and the evolution of civilizations, and Zak serves as Co-President and Academic Director of the activist think-tank at the Center for Integral Wisdom, where he writes and teaches at the edges of integral meta-theory. We discuss: 🥥 How learning is not a finite journey: the more we learn, the more we are aware of all that we don't know;🥥 How teachers should model the emotional side of being a good learner;🥥 The importance of establishing the legitimacy of the vocabularies that are given to us to tell the stories about ourselves.Check out our website https://coconut-thinking.design, where you'll find our articles, podcasts, conference presentations, resources, and more.You can also find our articles and many wonderful writers and thinkers on IntrepidEd News: www.intrepidednews.com.

In this episode, I speak with Conrad Hughes, Campus and Secondary Principal at the International School of Geneva, La Grande Boissire, the oldest international school in the world. Conrad led two major projects with UNESCO to rethink the guiding principles for learning in the 21st Century and preventing violent extremism through education. He has published three books on different aspects of 21st Century learning. Conrad is a member of the advisory board for the University of the People, senior fellow of UNESCO’s International Bureau of Education and research assistant at the University of Geneva’s department of psychology and education. He is a regular contributor to the World Economic Forum’s Agenda blog and speaks in conferences across the globe. We discuss:🥥 How for us to have an inclusive society, everyone needs to be able to bring their multiple selves and identities to the table;🥥 How the process of becoming is non-linear, mysterious, and about connections;🥥 How capturing learning wherever and whenever it happens tells the whole story of flourishing.Check out our website https://coconut-thinking.design, where you'll find our articles, podcasts, conference presentations, resources, and more.You can also find our articles and many wonderful writers and thinkers on Intrepid Ed News: www.intrepidednews.com.

In this episode, I speak with Jon Ardern, designer, artist and technologist. As Co-Founder and Director of Superflux he develops long term vision and strategy for the Studio alongside constant, and deliberate, prototyping and material investigation. Over the last 14 years Jon has developed pioneering design, technology and foresight projects, projects, and exhibitions receiving critical acclaim, awards, and press internationally. His work has been exhibited at the MoMA New York and V&A London on numerous occasions, and has won prizes from UNESCO and New York’s Social Design Network. Find Superflux's manifesto here. We discuss:🥥 How we shouldn't decide the destination before taking the journey of exploration into design and learning;🥥 How "navigating a predicament" might help us avoid the traps of problem-solution approaches;🥥 How when we think we're designing experiences for others, we end up transformed ourselves.Check out our website https://coconut-thinking.design, where you'll find our articles, podcasts, conference presentations, resources, and more.You can also find our articles and many wonderful writers and thinkers on Intrepid Ed News: www.intrepidednews.com.

In this episode, I speak with Nora Bateson. Nora is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and educator, as well as President of the International Bateson Institute, based in Sweden. Her work asks the question “How we can improve our perception of the complexity we live within, so we may improve our interaction with the world?” Yet Nora opens us up to understanding that we are so much more than any label that binds us. This was a truly inspiring conversation, one that left me humbled, hopeful, and aware. We discuss:🥥 How the gaps in between us are both a blessing and a curse, and these gaps are filled with possibilities;🥥 How sometimes it comes down to the most simple and complex of questions: How can I be a good person?;🥥 How even if we zoom in and zoom out at the same time, we get a different understanding of what is going on and yet one that will never be complete.Check out our website https://coconut-thinking.design, where you'll find our articles, podcasts, conference presentations, resources, and more.You can also find our articles and many wonderful writers and thinkers on Intrepid Ed News: www.intrepidednews.com.

In this episode, I speak with Rachel Musson is an international speaker, educator, facilitator, and thought-leader on regenerative education and wellbeing in schools. Rachel was recently listed as Natwest WISE100 most influential women in social enterprise. She is the Founding Director of ThoughtBox Education CIC and the pioneer behind their award-winning curriculum and training, currently accessed by 5,000+ educators in 76 countries. Rachel is currently working with global industry leaders and education ministers on education reform policy, hosting student workshops, empowering educators through professional development and delivering keynote speeches on transforming education at international conferences. We discuss:🥥 The work in education to help learners care for and thrive in the world we are co-creating;🥥 Whether daydreaming could be part of the "curriculum;" so it's not about doing but about being in the learning space;🥥 The importance of asking courageous questions and listening to responses with your heart.Check out our website https://coconut-thinking.design, where you'll find our articles, podcasts, conference presentations, resources, and more.You can also find our articles and many wonderful writers and thinkers on Intrepid Ed News: www.intrepidednews.com.

In this episode, I speak with Jack Miller. Jack is Professor of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at University of Toronto. Jack's work is focused on holistic education, curriculum and spirituality. He is an author of over 20 books including and his most recent book is Taoism, Teaching and Learning: A Nature Based Approach to Education. In 2009, Jack was one of 24 educators invited to Bhutan for the orientation of Bhutan's educational system towards the goal of Gross National Happiness. We discuss:🥥 How the Tao and nature teach us that if we are quiet, the action(s) that will be helpful will arise, which is particularly necessary in this time of crises;🥥 How being present for another is a show of love, so teachers can cultivate their mindfulness out of love;🥥 How a holistic education requires a curriculum of connectedness.Check out our website https://coconut-thinking.design, where you'll find our articles, podcasts, conference presentations, resources, and more.You can also find our articles and many wonderful writers and thinkers on Intrepid Ed News: www.intrepidednews.com.

In this episode, I speak with Helena Norberg-Hodge. Helena is a linguist, author and film maker, and the founder and director of the international non-profit organization, Local Futures, a pioneer of the new economy movement, and the convener of World Localization Day. She is the author of several books, including ‘Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh’, and, together with a film of the same title, Ancient Futures has been translated into more than 40 languages, and sold half a million copies. Her latest book is ‘Local is Our Future: Steps to an Economics of Happiness’. Other publications include ‘Bringing the Food Economy Home’ and ‘From the Ground Up: Rethinking Industrial Agriculture’. We discuss:🥥 the dangers of imposing a monoculture when everything is always in a state of change;🥥 living in specific natural ecosystems to create an expanded self that is able to become;🥥 shifting from I to We to move the narrative in our heads.Check out our website https://coconut-thinking.design, where you'll find our articles, podcasts, conference presentations, resources, and more.You can also find our articles and many wonderful writers and thinkers on Intrepid Ed News: www.intrepidednews.com.

In this special episode, Charlotte and I introduce the WISR Framework, which was designed to help educators create spaces in which a regenerative world might emerge. It is takes us from that instant where awe is a released and embodied experience to a mindset and paradigm shift where we respect the unique essence of all life. WISR is not meant to be a prescriptive model, rather it is an invitation to take learning deeper through embodied and connected experiences in and with the natural world. A call to respond through the ripples that local engagement initiates. It is a framework that reminds us of our kinship to more than human life and encourages us to express our oneness and harmony with the natural world.Wonder: Learning is engagement with nature through an expression of awe, enchantment, mystery and curiosityIntra-action: Learning is empathy with nature as a result of immersion, reciprocal communication and agencySustainability: Learning as guided by a set of ethics which emphasize balance of energy and resources in natureRegeneration: Learning as honoring and expressing the unique essence of every member of natureWISR is a co-creation between Coconut Thinking (Charlotte and me) and The Learning Future (Louka Parry).You can find more information on www.wisr.life.Check out our website https://coconut-thinking.design, where you'll find our articles, podcasts, conference presentations, resources, and more.

In this episode, I speak with Larissa Raymond. Larissa is a designer and leader of professional learning at EdPartnerships International. Prior to joining EdP she was a Head of Teaching and Learning at Caulfield Grammar School. Larissa has extensive experience supporting teachers to design and trial new forms of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. Larissa pushes us to ask questions from different perspectives, including what can't be seen. She speaks thoughtfully about what agency really is (beyond the catchword) and what power relations are at play in any context. In this episode, we discuss:🥥 How agency is a space to be realized;🥥 How we might stick with the dialogue with young people to nurture trust and release creative energy; 🥥 Remaining deeply curious about others (all living and non-living things, including place) to we can move forward together.Check out our website https://coconut-thinking.design, where you'll find our articles, podcasts, conference presentations, resources, and more.You can also find our articles and many wonderful writers and thinkers on Intrepid Ed News: www.intrepidednews.com.

In this episode, I speak with Dr. Bayo Akomolafe. Bayo is a philosopher, psychologist, professor, and poet. He is a teacher and public intellectual renowned for his unconventional views on global crises, activism, and social change. (These are labels that Bayo may reject because posthumanism is also post-identitarian—we are processes of becoming that cannot be labeled.) Bayo speaks of the experiences of colonialism, extraction, climate disaster, multi-species relations, assemblages and entanglements. This is a special episode that examines post-activism, posthumanism, how we respond [with/in] the world, as part of the world and not separate. We discuss:🥥 Sitting with the pain, in the gaps and the breaks and not taking action as if we were separate from the world;🥥 How agency is entangled in the assemblages we cut, and does not belong to the person;🥥 How worlds are enmeshed in the past, the present, and the future, which dissolve into the assemblage.I encourage you to stay with the possibilities offered as we stumble toward these new horizons.Check out our website https://coconut-thinking.design, where you'll find our articles, podcasts, conference presentations, resources, and more.You can also find our articles and many wonderful writers and thinkers on Intrepid Ed News: www.intrepidednews.com.