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LeeAnne's Blog (Community Engagement and the Power of Storytelling)

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LeeAnne's Blog (Community Engagement and the Power of Storytelling)

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Picture 24 17-year-old high schoolers living completely different lives and with very different socio-economic backgrounds collaborating on a project 13 time zones apart. Today, such learning is made possible with technology and new pedagogies such as digital storytelling, and this is the story of one such collaboration.

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In the future, education systems should nurture a broader range of capabilities, help restore meaning to young people’s lives and equip them with the skills and ambition to remake our societies, economies and organisations. To flourish over a lifetime, people will need to be adaptive problem solvers, ethically competent and able to understand, appreciate and act in the world. In the age of AI, education must strengthen human agency, human meaning and human security.Since 2020, the OECD has developing far-reaching ideas on the future purposes of education, based on policy dialogues with seven high performing PISA systems. The Human Capital model, which has shaped what students learn for many decades, prepares young people for yesterday’s jobs, through cognitive examinations. Education for Human Flourishing will equip young people for lives of purpose and fulfilment.The framework is helping shape the international conversation about the future of education. It is a vital ingredient in the development of PISA and a contribution to national policymaking, for countries wishing to reorient education purposes, policies and practices. It will be of interest to ministers, officials, students, teachers, school leaders, researchers and education innovators.

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Community: The Structure of Belonging by Peter Block

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Community: The Structure of Belonging by Peter Block

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Community: The Structure of Belonging, 2nd Edition - Peter Block

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Buy from Bookshop.org and support Designed Learning Inc.

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I couldn't put this book down!

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The renowned nature writer and author of the best-selli…

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Exploring pedagogy and transformative learning (suggested reads from Thoughtbox Education)

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Exploring pedagogy and transformative learning (suggested reads from Thoughtbox Education)

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Help your child to wonder – Rachel Carson (article)
Permission to Feel – Marc Brackett (book)
Schools of Thought – Mary Warnock (book)
Schools reinvented for the challenges we face - Valerie Hannon (PDF)
Worldwise Learning – Elizabeth Crawford & Carla Marshall (book)

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Triple WellBeing® Story — ThoughtBox Education

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Surely real learning isn’t about filling our heads with facts; it’s about nourishing ourselves with the wisdom for a well-lived life.

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Future Learning Design Podcast | FutureLearningDesign

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The Moth Podcast features stories from our Mainstage, StorySLAM and Community programs. Episodes are released every Tuesday.

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Kim Bingham: Triple WellBeing at the Peterborough School

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Podcast · ThoughtBox Education · In a world which can feel increasingly volatile and uncertain, join ThoughtBox’s Holly Everett in speaking with members of our Triple WellBeing® education community as they share their stories of transforming education through self-care, people-care and earth-care.We’re in this together. Together is how we change the world. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Fostering Global Citizenship with Service Learning

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Fostering Global Citizenship with Service Learning

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71. Fostering Global Citizens Through Service Learning: Stories of Changemaking, with LeeAnne Lavender - Educators Going Global

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Most international schools make it part of their mission to nurture global citizens who are in service to their community. Like all big, worthy goals, this needs lots of planning, implementation support, and accountability to determine if the scho…

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The Story of Triple WellBeing — ThoughtBox Education

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Triple WellBeing shows us that individual, community and planetary wellbeing are not just connected—they’re fundamentally dependent on each other. By fully embracing this relationship, we set in motion a cycle of wellbeing that uplifts every aspect of life.

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Designing Creative Communities by Spud Marshall

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Designing Creative Communities by Spud Marshall

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So much of what is explored in this book connects to what we do with community engagement and partnerships.

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Designing Creative Communities (Signed Copy) - My Creative Community

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Get a signed copy of “Designing Creative Communities” from the author, Spud Marshall, which has been featured as an Amazon bestseller! “We’re often told to build communities without any support or guidance; but no longer! This book is your GPS, partner in crime, and constant source of inspiration.” -- Dustin Liu, United Nations Youth Observer We all want to be a part of a thriving community. But few of us know how to meaningfully contribute to the places where we live, work, learn and play. Whether you dream of launching a community innovation center, want to enhance your town with colorful murals, or are simply looking to strengthen relationships with your neighbors, Designing Creative Communities is the guide for you. Award-winning community builder, Spud Marshall, coaches emerging leaders and community members alike through a simple process for how to design your own creative community. Filled with stories from Spud’s work over the past decade, Designing Creative Communities teaches you how to actively create change and have a lot of fun along the way. The book will introduce you to the CANVAS Framework where you’ll learn how to: Step 1: Chart Your Path - Determine what success would look like, how your unique style will influence the idea, and how to move past fears preventing you from getting started. Step 2: Ask Probing Questions - Get a pulse on what your community needs by getting face-to-face, testing your assumptions, and learning how to ask curious questions. Step 3: Name Early Adopters - Identify those who are most eager to rally behind your idea and build momentum by asking for deeper engagement over time and incrementally. Step 4: Visualize a Prototype - Develop moments of wonder, which are small experiments to tangibly test your idea and learn what works. Think small, cheap, and fast to test the boundaries of what’s possible. Step 5: Articulate Your Story - Design a clear and compelling narrative for your project that stands out and is easily shareable, while leveraging various media forms. Step 6: Sustain Efforts With Partners - Find partnerships that satisfy a mutual need and learn how to lean on your network’s trust as a critical currency of partnership-building. Prefer audiobooks? Feel free to get a signed copy for your bookshelf and then download the book on Audible! “A brilliant take on how to design your own creative community! This is a must-read for any emerging leader.” -- Erin Krampetz Boyd, Co-Founder of Ashoka U and Business Operations for Culdesac “Spud is hands down the most creative community builder I’ve ever met! In his book, he showcases his unique journey step-by-step, the highs and lows he navigated along the way, and how you too can shape the community of your dreams.” -- Alexis Taylor, World Economic Forum Global Shaper and Davos Lab Taskforce Co-Chair “An essential read for anyone in community and economic development professions, or anyone that just wants to make a positive contribution to their community. Spud weaves captivating and highly entertaining stories about success, failure, and overcoming adversity from his own creative practice in dozens of communities, providing powerful tools for creative transformation with humor, humility, and honest self-reflection. This book is hugely relatable and difficult to put down; it is one influential guide that I will be recommending widely to colleagues and communities alike.” -- Michael Fortunato, Founding Partner of Creative Insight Community Development

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Enacting Equitable Global Citizenship Education in Schools

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Enacting Equitable Global Citizenship Education in Schools

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Enacting Equitable Global Citizenship Education in Schools: Lessons from Dialogue between Research and Practice

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Offering contributions and vignettes from teachers, school leaders, and scholars, this volume purposefully dismantles practitioner-academic divides to invite dialogue around diverse understandings of global citizenship education (GCE).
Recognizing that the field of GCE is often explored and conceptualized by educators and academics in silos, this book confronts this issue by focusing on how schools, educators, and researchers can together support the enactment of GCE in international and nationa

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Universities as Innovation Ecologies for Human and Planetary Flourishing (with many implications for K-12 education)

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Universities as Innovation Ecologies for Human and Planetary Flourishing (with many implications for K-12 education)

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In an era of planetary crisis and a time when universities are increasingly under attack, an underlying question that has gradually moved to the center of attention is this: what is the role of universities in society, and what should their role be going forward?

Historically, universities have been central to fostering social mobility. More recently, and disturbingly, we have seen them become vehicles for reinforcing privilege and inequality. In the face of these ecological and economic challenges, what should future universities look like? What do societies need universities for?

This article explores that question from a historical point of view, looking both at the evolution of universities as institutions and at the evolution of the very idea and mission of universities and their role in society. I argue that universities must evolve into innovation ecologies for human and planetary flourishing - hubs that, in the face of systemic breakdown and collapse, foster the praxis of regenerating soil, self, and society.

Traditional educational structures fail to equip leaders and professionals with the transformation literacy they need to address the complex challenges of our time. In order to upgrade their models and methodologies from "education for employment" to "education for human flourishing," educators and leaders will need to upgrade their own toolkits. Instead of learning by reflecting on the past, they will need to learn by sensing and actualizing the future as it emerges (the definition of "presencing"). Without that upgrade in learning and leadership capacity, all ideas and talk about structural reform will remain abstract and ineffective. The result will be more of the same.

Below I present seven propositions on the evolution of universities, the shortcomings of traditional education, and the shifts needed for higher education to fulfill its highest potential.

The paper contributes to the OECD High Performing Systems For Tomorrow group that focuses on how to reimagine educational institutions in the face of AI. As one of its members, Olli-Pekka Heinonen, Director General of the International Baccalaureate (IB) and former Finnish Minister of Education, puts it:

Universities are in a challenging situation. Societal changes are putting pressure on them to transform and reinvent themselves - but when under attack, they tend to freeze and defend. The proposal by Otto Scharmer, to identify universities as innovation ecologies for human and planetary flourishing, is both timely and valuable. University is the obvious answer to the question where one should go to learn about, and contribute to, the solutions to real-world existential threats to humankind and how to use human capabilities to their full potential.

Figure 1: The Alchemist sculpture at MIT (Source: MITx u-lab clip)

The idea of the university has evolved in several stages. In the Western world, that evolution took roughly this form:

The 21st-century university model that is beginning to take shape must ground research and teaching in the praxis of regenerating soil, self, and societal systems. It must cultivate self-awareness and creativity through exposure to real-world challenges and hands-on practice fields.According to the 2024 UNDP Human Development Report, two-thirds of people worldwide are willing to sacrifice parts of their personal income to address climate change. Yet, the same proportion feels a complete loss of agency, believing any actions they take will have no real impact.

This gap - between willingness to act and perceived powerlessness - must be addressed by 21st-century universities. Without bridging this knowing-doing gap, we risk generating more knowledge that is disconnected from agency - in other words: more hot-air machines, more of the same.

We live in a time of massive institutional and leadership failures, evidenced by global mistrust in mainstream institutions. No organization - government, business, multilateral institution - or even civil society, can solve its biggest challenges alone.

As an MIT-based action researcher, I have worked with leadership teams across sectors and observed the leadership void firsthand. Leaders today lack the toolkits and practices necessary for achieving complex cross-sector systems change. Universities, even if under attack, must do more than just defend the status quo. Universities must step up to fill this void by rethinking how they educate for leadership, collaboration, and systemic transformation going forward.

To illustrate the outdated learning models in higher ed, let's look at a concrete example: management education in business schools. While this is just one example of many, similar points can be made about engineering and other STEM and non-STEM disciplines. In my experience, current university and management education overrates three things and underrates three others:
I. We overrate knowledge and underrate not-knowing.
Having spent half my professional life creating knowledge, it pains me to say that knowledge is overrated. I say this because many of the things that matter most in leadership and decision-making are things we don't know. Specifically, we don't know the future. No one does. Yet, as changemakers and leaders, we must use our best judgment to act in the present, in anticipation of what is about to happen.

Not-knowing is the ability to embrace uncertainty - to listen, sense, and co-sense from a deeper place. Accessing our not-knowing is at the root of all great entrepreneurship and deep creativity, enabling us to bring forth something truly new. In the age of AI, developing the ability to listen, sense, co-sense, and tune in to what is not yet known emerges as a primary capacity of learning and leadership.
II. We overrate comfort and underrate discomfort.
Anyone working in leadership development knows this: as long as leaders remain in their comfort zone, they are not learning anything that will lead to meaningful change. Behavioral change requires leaning into discomfort.

It is natural to value comfort and to be reluctant to embrace discomfort. However, to be ruthlessly honest about where the current system is broken and where new challenges and opportunities are emerging, we must engage in data-gathering and sensing activities that are not biased by our own comfort or discomfort. If our sense-making is limited to data sourced only from within our comfort zone, we will almost certainly remain stuck in old patterns of behavior, preventing anything truly new from entering our field of attention.
III. We overrate action and underrate non-action (stillness).
Those of us who were educated in business and engineering schools may find it hard to accept the idea that taking action isn't always the best course. After all, isn't action the whole point if one wants to make progress?

But consider this: when we jump from challenge to action without pausing, what are we doing? Reacting. Usually by doing more of the same. And that is precisely what we see playing out in institutions today - leaders are stuck in the patterns of the past. A pattern can take the form of analysis paralysis (overthinking without acting) or mindless action (using a 'chainsaw' without attending to and learning from the impact it creates).

In today's hyper-expensive higher education environments, where everyone is in overdrive to maximize their return-on-investment (ROI), there is little space or time for reflection, contemplation, and inner stillness. Yet the capacity to value stillness (non-action) is and remains the primary gateway to all deep creativity.
Rebalancing What We Overrate and Underrate
Our current management paradigm overvalues knowledge, comfort, and action - while undervaluing not-knowing, discomfort, and non-action. Moving forward, we must learn to balance these polarities. A good changemaker and leader must be literate in all six capacities:

Knowledge and the ability to embrace not-knowing; comfort and the willingness to lean into discomfort; action and the capacity to access the deeper sources of creativity through stillness. The future of learning and leadership will depend on our ability to rebalance these capacities. That is as true for university leaders as it is for educators and students - in other words, for all types of learners in the system.

In this age of artificial intelligence, AI is being used to reconfigure, recombine, and modify existing bodies of knowledge. As the hype around it goes through the usual cycle, we are beginning to see more clearly what the true power of AI (and the coming AGI) is, as well as some of its limitations.

What's the one thing that we know is in AI's blind spot? In a word: the future. Or to be more precise: that part of the future that cannot be reduced to modifying relational probabilities of the past. It's the part of the future that, as Martin Buber once put it, "stays in need of us"to be sensed, embodied, and realized.

In other words: AI's blind spot is the innate human capacity for deep creativity. It is unable to tap into the dormant potential that requires human agency from the heart. As Andreas Schleicher, Director for Education and Skills at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) sums it up: "If we want to stay ahead of technological developments, we have to find and refine the qualities that are unique to our humanity, and that complement, not compete with, capacities we have created in our computers. Schools need to develop first-class humans, not second-class robots."

Accordingly, as we see in many places already, the future of learning and leadership will require education to cultivate hands-on practices such as generative listening, deep sensing, and rapid-cycle prototyping, skills that allow usto tune in to and operate from the future as it emerges. I give examples below.

A university that is not able to link with and innovate for the profound challenges facing our planet is not a university - at least not one that the 21st century calls for, one that revolves around the integration of teaching and research with the praxis of regenerating soil, society, and self.

In an age where the independence of universities is challenged, we should do more than just defend the status quo. We should reimagine the university as an innovation ecology that is, through a system of hubs, deeply embedded in the root systems of profound personal, ecological, and societal renewal.

What will it take to update the university for our current century and its challenges?

It will take three major shifts. These shifts are already underway and being prototyped around the world in many different forms - often at the margins of the current system. They are:

A shift in the outer place of learningfrom the classroom to the real world: Universities must embed learning in immersion journeys and participatory action learning that take students to the frontlines of societal innovation.

A shift in the inner place of learningfrom the head to the heart and from there to the hand: Education must move beyond intellectual exercises to engage in the praxis of regeneration and transformation

A shift in the interpersonal space of learning by practicing deep listening and generative dialogue in ways that transforms how we converse, think, and act together.

The core process of such a living ecology can be conceptualized as a breathing process:

Breathing in: Learners take deep-dive journeys to the frontlines of disruption and the places of innovation and most potential, to listen and sense deeply and to support and sustain action learning-based innovation initiatives.

Breathing out: Returning to campus from the deep immersion, they and their fellow learners begin to make sense of what they experienced, along with other teams and pioneers in the field.

This breathing cycle turns university ecologies into living labs of emerging futures that are worthy of the learners' highest commitment.

While the medieval university was defined by being disconnected and separate from society, the emerging 21st-century university model is the logical endpoint of a thousand-year-long opening process. That structural opening of institutions of education and higher education can be thought of as an inversion: what used to exist separate from society now emerges from a profound opening process to the societal and community context. The innovation ecosystem breathing process described above blends that opening to and immersion with societal challenges (breathing in) with high-quality supporting infrastructures for innovation and learning (breathing out).

The origins of the university are often traced to medieval times. If the medieval university served a feudal society and the modern university was built for the industrial era of the 19th and 20th centuries, what form should the 21st-century university take in the midst of a rapidly accelerating planetary polycrisis - one that is largely driven by the very industrial paradigms of thought that today's university systems continue to reinforce?

To address that question, we must consider a deeper and more diverse lineage of learning traditions worldwide that have long integrated ethical, social, and ecological learning.

To envision the next stage, we must move beyond the institutional perspective and reconnect with the university's deeper essence - its living core process and core purpose. Seen through this lens, the university emerged from a diverse tapestry of cultures and traditions across centuries and continents. These include:

Taxila University (India, 5th century BCE)

The Academy of Athens (387 BCE)

Confucian Academies (China, 2nd century BCE)

House of Wisdom (Baghdad, 8th-13th centuries CE)

Timbuktu University (Mali, 12th-16th centuries CE)

Indigenous Knowledge (Americas, Africa, Australia, Polynesia, over millennia)

Despite their many differences, these knowledge ecosystems share some key characteristics:

Learning begins in dialogue and immersion - whether under the trees of the Academy of Athens in Socratic exchange, through deep textual study and debate in Taxila, or in real-world governance and ethics in the Confucian tradition.

Ethical wisdom and technical expertise are integrated rather than separate - as seen in the House of Wisdom, where scholars not only advanced mathematics and medicine but also reflected on their moral and philosophical implications.

The academy is embedded in society and nature, rather than existing apart from them - mirrored in Timbuktu's scholars, who advised local leaders, and Indigenous knowledge systems, where wisdom is inseparable from ecological stewardship.

Education is not the passive transmission of knowledge but an active process of creating knowledge and evolutionary change - a principle embodied in the Indigenous practice of learning through storytelling, experience, and communal problem-solving.

In essence, these historical roots point to a more grounded and holistic connection between knowing, doing, and being - one that blends technical expertise with dialogue, self-development, and ethical competence.
What Should the 21st-Century University Look Like?
A university rooted in this extended epistemology should focus on:

Learning as innovating: through a process of sensing, embodying, and enacting the emerging future by aligning attention, intention, and agency.

Learning as planetary stewardship, relating scientific knowledge to both the challenges of our time and the foundations of wisdom traditions across cultures.

Learning as both horizontal (technical) and vertical (inner) development, leveraging state- of-the-art social technologies and social arts-based practice fields.

Reconnecting the Roots: From Institution to Living Process
To meet the challenges of our time, universities must reconnect not only with theirinstitutional roots(the medieval university)but also with their deeper universal rootsin a process of cultivating soil, society, and self - planet, people, and personal agency.

Interestingly, the words humus, humanity, and humility all share the same etymological origin: the Indo-European ghom-, meaning "earth" or "ground." This root gave rise to words related to soil, land, and humanity. This linguistic connection suggests something profound: just as humans originate from and remain rooted in the earth (humus), so too must universities. In this sense, humility is not about subservience but about being deeply connected to the ground of reality - both literally and metaphorically in the sense of deep systems thinking.

It is this spirit of humility and humanity that higher education must reclaim - shifting from an extractive model of knowledge to a regenerative one. To rise to the occasion in this century, universities must become catalysts for human and planetary flourishing.

In the US and various other parts of the world institutions of higher education have experienced a significant drop in student enrollment over the past decade. There has been a related spike in school absentee rates among both students and teachers. For example, in the OECD countries, approximately 30% of registered students no longer attend school. They are still there on paper. But they don't show up in the classroom. Outside of the OECD countries this number tends to be even higher. These trends constitute a massive crisis for educational systems that are stuck in old modes of operating that have outlived their usefulness.

What would it take to implement the seven propositions I have outlined here?

I believe that universities must invest in an enabling social middleware - the institutions and networks that serve as bridges between academia and society.
The Role of Social Middleware in Higher Education
The term middleware has recently been applied to fields other than technology. In the context discussed here, the term refers to the enabling conditions in two core dimensions of a university ecosystem:

1. The quality of the ecosystem - The depth and diversity of partners that offer meaningful action-learning opportunities and the nature of their relationships.

2. The quality of holding spaces and practices - State-of-the-art social technologies, such as reflective practices, generative listening practices, generative dialogues, and spaces that transform learning relationships from transactional to transformative.

In most universities, these elements remain unknown, underdeveloped, and/or underfunded.
Three Levels of Action Learning
To illustrate the importance of social middleware, consider how action-learning experiences cultivate different types and depths of engagement and agency.

On level 1, structured exposure (partial agency), students engage in university-organized experiences with pre-defined projects and accommodations. They experience new environments without actively shaping them, such as business students working with international companies in pre-arranged settings.

On level 2, immersive learning (expanded agency), students take greater ownership, working in small teams to solve real-world challenges with clients. This requires adaptability and problem-solving, as seen in MIT Sloan's action-learning labs, where students collaborate with partners with minimal but targeted faculty support.

On level 3, transformative learning (regenerative agency), learning becomes systemic and regenerative, integrating deep listening, generative dialogue, and systems sensing. Programs like MIT u-lab and the UNDP Action Learning Lab use practices such as empathy walks, generative dialogue-based case clinics, and presencing practices to foster deep change and leadership.
Cultivating the Social Soil
The three types of action learning differ in the depth of agency that they give students: partial, expanded, or regenerative. The deeper the level of engagement and learner agency, the greater the shift from knowledge accumulation to embodied transformation.

Most universities are operating on level 1, and a few have reached level 2. Truly transformative learning - level 3 action learning - requires strong institutional commitment to cultivating the 'social soil' - the spaces and practices - that enable these learning processes. The cultivation of the social soil means:

Investing in ecosystems of action-learning partners rather than one-off corporate projects.

Strengthening long-term relationships between students, faculty, and external change-makers.

Cultivating intentional holding spaces and leadership practices for deep change

To summarize, consider the two images below.

Figure 5. The Social Field: Social Systems and Social Soil (Source: Scharmer & Kaufer, 2025)

Figure 5 shows the social field as a combination of social systems (what we can see, count, and measure above the ground) and the social soil (the roots that are invisible to the eye: the quality of awareness and relationships).

Figure 6 applies the distinction between social systems and social soil to the discussion outlined above. Much of the activity takes place on the social soil side of the map. The deeper levels of action learning require a more refined mastery of the seven social leadership practices that we have found most impactful in terms of cultivating and shifting the qualities of thinking, conversing and acting together: becoming aware, listening, co-sensing dialogue, presencing, co-imagining, co-creating, and co-governing.

In essence, the different levels of action learning differ in how deeply they engage student agency with the cultivation of the social soil (the quality of relationships).

If universities are to rise to the challenges of the polycrisis, they must move beyond mere knowledge transmission. Imagine a university that:

Grounds learning and research in personal, relational, and planetary transformation.

Bridges the gap between the planetary polycrisis and the outdated paradigms and toolkits.

Rebalances what is overrated (knowledge, comfort, action) and what is underrated (not-knowing, discomfort, inaction/stillness) through new learning environments.

Blends head, heart, and hand to cultivate first-class humans, not second-class robots.

Functions as a breathing innovation ecology - with students immersed in frontline societal innovation and then making sense of those experiences when back on campus.

Operates from an extended epistemology that integrates humility, humanity, and our embodied connection to the entire living world.

Supports all of the above with hands-on leadership practices for cultivating the social soil - by shifting the quality of conversing, thinking, and acting together.

These characteristics summarize the seven aspects of upgrading the operating system of higher ed.

Figure 7 expands on Figure 2 by adding the knowledge type (column 3) that emerges from each type of institution.
Infrastructures for Cultivating the Social Soil
The second column of Figure 7 highlights the evolution of learning infrastructures - elements that either enable or, if missing, hinder transformation. The key to fostering generative learning environments lies in cultivating the social soil through social leadership practices and quality holding spaces that allow learning communities to connect, deepen, and co-create.

A truly transformative educational experience occurs when learners engage in generative social fields - whether in the classroom, small teams, or immersive action-learning journeys. The quality of such social fields determines whether learners can sense and actualize their best potential and agency.

While many recognize the power of a generative social field, few understand how to create one from scratch. The challenge lies in shaping both the visible (outer) and invisible (inner) conditions that foster it. That is why support structures for social leadership practices are essential for addressing the polycrisis at its roots.
Fourth-Person Knowing: The Missing Dimension
The third column of Figure 7 outlines the evolving nature of knowledge itself. Traditional education relies on three primary ways of knowing:

* First-person knowing (subjective)

* Second-person knowing (intersubjective)

* Third-person knowing (objective)

However, transformative change demands a fourth mode:

* Fourth-person knowing - a self-transcending awareness, experienced as creativity coming "through me" rather than being "of me." This form of knowing allows individuals and communities to tap into the sources of deep creativity and change. It is, if activated, a force that can shift the grammar and quality of a social field (Scharmer & Pomeroy, 2024).
New Alliances and Partnerships
How can this fourth-person knowing, which enables us to engage with the deep structure dimension of societal change, become a regular part of the university experience?

The answer lies in bringing together the people, vision, and spaces that can forge new alliances - linking the most innovative pockets within academia to forward-thinking pioneers in social enterprises, businesses, and civil society organizations. Already, many such external partners have created spaces for deep action learning experiences that complement the on-campus learning environment in critical ways.

The seven propositions outlined above are not abstract theories awaiting realization. They are distilled from decades of educational and social innovation across geographies. Businesses, community-based groups, and civil society organizations, if engaged strategically, can serve as critical middleware partners in this transformation. These organizations hold vast reservoirs of knowledge and practice - knowledge that could reshape universities into the hubs of an innovation ecology, akin to what happened with Silicon Valley (emerging from Stanford's innovation ecosystem) and Route 128 in the Boston area (growing from MIT's innovation ecosystem).

While these examples fueled AI and biotech revolutions, in the face of widespread systemic collapse the next frontier in higher education could center on a much-needed wave of societal regeneration - enabled in collaboration with mission-driven enterprises and civil society organizations like Impact Hubs (offering generative spaces), IMAGO Global Grassroots (helping grassroots organizations to scale up for collective impact), SELCO (offering technical and community expertise around regenerative energy), Teach for All (innovation in learning), the Sustainable Food Lab (regenerative ag), or the Presencing Institute (leadership practices for deep systems change). For example, through u-school, the capacity-building arm of the Presencing Institute, all methods, practices, and tools for are made available as creative commons for learners and educators worldwide (including through a suite of free online programming).

Another foundational resource is the Education for Human Flourishing framework that emerged from the OECD High Performing Systems For Tomorrow group, which has reimagined the future of education in the face of AI. As part of that initiative, the Presencing Institute facilitated a leadership track to build collective capacity for the transformation of educational systems in several countries (including Finland, Estonia, and Canada [British Columbia] and for the International Baccalaureate leadership team).

By supporting such national and international collaboratives for profound renewal of our educational systems, and by supporting our universities and schools to open up and link with their surrounding ecosystem of innovation and regeneration, we can bridge the gap between outdated academic structures and the planetary challenges coming our way. Addressing these challenges at the core requires a deepened learning process that relies on existing knowledge but also helps learners to sense and actualize the emerging future using all four forms of knowing.
A Living, Evolving Process
The transformation of the university is not a singular event but an ongoing process - one that requires inspired vision and grounded action by students, faculty, administrators, and partners across sectors. For it to succeed, we must not only update outdated structures (e.g., departmental silos, lecture-based learning) but also update the purpose and core idea of the university in order to realign much necessary trans-disciplinary initiatives that focus on the fundamental challenges and opportunities of our time. It must be solidly grounded not only in the reality of our challenges but also the essence of our humanity, i.e., the intertwined regeneration of soil, society, and self.

Only by embracing this deep shift can we evolve the current form of the university - with all its blessings and limitations - toward a breathing innovation ecology that enables students to move beyond traditional knowledge transfer to co-sense and co-create the future that is in need of us to emerge.
This paper is a contribution to the Education for Human Flourishing initiative of the OECD High Performing Systems for Tomorrow country group. In this context, I thank Andreas Schleicher, Michael Stevenson, Yuri Belfali, and Olli-Pekka Heinonen for their inspiring ideas. I thank Eva Pomeroy, Becky Buell, Dayna Cunningham, Emma Paine, Laura Pastorini, Kenneth Hogg, and Sanjay Sarma for commenting on the draft. Articles By Otto
For additional resources:
join: upcoming Presencing Series (April-June)
watch: 3 min Alchemist clip (u-lab)
enjoy: A farmer who puts his hand to the plow must look forward (tribute)
book: Presencing: Seven Practices

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Universities as Innovation Ecologies for Human & Planetary Flourishing

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In an era of planetary crisis and a time when universities are increasingly under attack, an underlying question that has gradually moved to the center of attention is this: what is the role of...

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108 - A conversation with LeeAnne Lavender

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LeeAnne shares learnings and reflections on Service Learning and Global Citizenship Education in schools. LeeAnne leverages storytelling as the vehicle by which educators can listen and learn from each other. Her primary focus is on helping individuals and communities use storytelling to create cultures that celebrate global citizenship and sustainability.

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Sustainable community development: from what's wrong to what's strong | Cormac Russell | TEDxExeter

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Sustainable community development: from what's wrong to what's strong | Cormac Russell | TEDxExeter

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Sustainable community development: from what's wrong to what's strong | Cormac Russell | TEDxExeter

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What if we deeply listened to the natural world?

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What if we deeply listened to the natural world?

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‎From What If to What Next: 98 - What if we deeply listened to the natural world? on Apple Podcasts

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‎Show From What If to What Next, Ep 98 - What if we deeply listened to the natural world? - Apr 1, 2024

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story

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Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

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The World Becomes What We Teach by Zoe Weil

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The World Becomes What We Teach by Zoe Weil

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The Problem: Inequity in schools, demoralized teachers, and a planet in peril

The COVID-19 pandemic has magnified the brokenness of America's education system.

Hundreds of thousands of students in the United States have disappeared from school during the pandemic.

Many more children have experienced significant academic and social-emotional learning loss, especially BIPOC students and children with disabilities.

Teachers are exhausted and are leaving the profession in droves.

The future has gotten grimmer.

Climate change threatens everyone, especially the most vulnerable and marginalized, and is leading to massive rates of species extinction.

Inequity is increasing, not diminishing.

Ever greater polarization impacts our ability to collaborate and solve the challenges we face.

The Answer: Educate a generation of solutionaries

Teachers and students alike describe solutionary-focused education as game-changing for children, schools, and communities, and the ideas in this book are being adopted by school districts across the U.S. and beyond.

Zoe Weil writes: "Yes, we face potential disasters, systemic injustices, and widespread cruelties, and yes, through the right kind of education, we can solve these problems. Given all these factors, doesn't it make sense for schools to ensure that students understand the formidable challenges before them; to prepare young people to address these challenges; and to engage youth in cultivating their ability and desire to create meaningful solutions to potentially calamitous global problems?"

Praise for The World Becomes What We Teach

"If we are putting hope for the future of our planet in our young people, then they must have the tools and feel empowered to take on the world's greatest challenges. The World Becomes What We Teach offers such direction for the very educators who are working with these young people today."
Jane Goodall, DBE, Ph.D., Founder, the Jane Goodall Institute, UN Messenger of Peace

"This book has never been more important. It provides us with a healing vision for a world struggling under the weight of racism, environmental exploitation, and a host of other ills, and it outlines a powerful and practical pathway forward for all teachers and schools committed to preparing children to be the next caretakers of our planet. It calls on us to go beyond simply preparing students to be 'college and career ready' and to prepare them as well to contribute to the creation of a just, healthy, and sustainable world where all living beings can thrive. Never before have we needed such a strong moral vision for our children or for our schools."
Steve Cochrane, former Superintendent of the Year, Princeton Public Schools

"In an increasingly polarized world, this book is a ray of hope inspiring a generation of solutionaries in our schools to tackle our most pressing problems."
Akash Patel, Global Teacher Prize Finalist, UNA-USA National Council Member

About Zoe Weil

FAQ

What is The World Becomes What We Teach about?

The World Becomes What We Teach is a short manifesto that also provides practical approaches for transforming the education system for the benefit of students, their communities, and our collective future. The book goes beyond typical concerns about schooling and offers a vision for what schools can and must become for the sake of our children and the world they are both inheriting and shaping.

Why is The World Becomes What We Teach important?

Our planet is imperiled by climate change. Lack of critical thinking and polarization are leading us away from collaborative problem-solving. Education is currently delivered inequitably, and it's stress-inducing for students and teachers alike and lacks meaning and relevance. Given that education is the root system underlying other societal systems, The World Becomes What We Teach makes the case that if we educate a generation of solutionaries, we can solve the challenges we face in schools, in neighborhoods, in our country, and in the world.

What is a solutionary?

A solutionary identifies unsustainable, unjust, and inhumane systems and develops solutions that do the most good and least harm to everyone: all people, other species, and the environment. Solutionaries bring a solutionary lens to problems, meaning they focus on solving problems rather than debating them; they work collaboratively; and they employ solutionary thinking to devise solutions with the fewest unintended negative consequences. Solutionary thinking is comprised of critical, systems, strategic, and creative thinking.

What is the Institute for Humane Education (IHE)?

The Institute for Humane Education is a nonprofit organization that educates people to create a world where all humans, animals, and nature can thrive. IHE offers free resources for educators, a Solutionary Micro-credential Program, and online graduate programs (M.Ed., M.A., Ed.D., Graduate Certificate) through Antioch University.

What is humane education?

Humane Education examines the interconnected issues of human rights, environmental sustainability, and animal protection with the goal of preparing people to be solutionaries who can address and solve systemic problems and create a world where all life can thrive.

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In the revised second edition of her book, The World Becomes What We Teach, she offers a vision along with practical ideas for re-imagining education, rooted in teaching students to collaboratively develop solutions to the problems in our neighborhoods, nation, and world.

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Citizens by Jon Alexander & Ariane Conrad (a must read!)

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Citizens by Jon Alexander & Ariane Conrad (a must read!)

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Jon Alexander’s “deeply hopeful” new book provides a powerful toolkit for organisations and institutions to open up to citizens and involve them in the work of building a better world.

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An Abundant Mindset for Service Learning

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An Abundant Mindset for Service Learning

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171: An Abundant Mindset for Service Learning

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Podcast Episode · Be a Better Ally: critical conversations for K12 educators · 05/23/2024 · 39m

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2040 is a hybrid feature documentary that looks to the future, but is vitally important NOW! A story of hope that looks at the very real possibility that humanity could reverse global warming and improve the lives of every living thing in the process.

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Award-winning director Damon Gameau (That Sugar Film) embarks on a journey to explore what the future could look like by the year 2040 if we simply embraced the best solutions already available to us to improve our planet and shifted them rapidly into the mainstream. Structured as a visual letter to his 4-year-old daughter, Damon blends traditional documentary with dramatised sequences and high-end visual effects to create a vision board of how these solutions could regenerate the world for future generations.

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Award-winning director Damon Gameau embarks on a journey to explore what the future could look like by the year 2040 if we simply embraced the best solutions already available to us to improve our planet and shifted them rapidly into the mainstream.

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Retelling the story of humans and nature

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Retelling the story of humans and nature

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Retelling the story of humans and nature | Damon Gameau | TEDxSydney

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Storytelling with Purpose: a guide to digital storytelling for all educators

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Storytelling with Purpose: a guide to digital storytelling for all educators

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- KEN BURNS"Teaching is the most important profession in any democracy. Michael Hernandez has written a wonderful book that anchors storytelling in the classroom and provides a highly readable and hugely helpful guide for teachers who each day are taking students on an intellectual journey that is critical to the wellbeing of our country."

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"Just in time, this is a pedagogical and practical guide for any educator ready to take learning to a new level."
- SETH GODIN

Storytelling With Purpose:
​Digital Projects To Ignite Student Curiosity

Award-winning educator and international speaker Michael Hernandez brings together over 20 years of in-the-classroom experience to help solve some of our most existential challenges in education today: rapid changes caused by artificial intelligence, and how to spark passion and purpose in learning. The solution: using digital storytelling as a framework for learning.

This book is perfect for learning coaches, classroom teachers, and education leaders seeking practical ways to elevate teaching and learning in every grade level and subject area. The book focuses on student-centered, project-based learning experiences that use digital tools to:

Create uncheatable assessments

Leverage curiosity as the engine for learning

Provide purpose for the skills and knowledge central to our curriculum

Cultivate digital literacy skills and ethical mindsets

Bring purpose and joy back to learning

Published by ISTE/ASCD
​RELEASE DATE: FEBRUARY 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781564849960
Length: 160 pages

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Storytelling With Purpose book by Michael Hernandez

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"This is the book our children's children will thank us for reading." The Edge, U2

About The Good Ancestor

How can we be good ancestors?

We live in the age of the tyranny of the now, driven by 24/7 news, the latest tweet, and the buy-now button. With such frenetic short-termism at the root of contemporary crises - from the threats of climate change to the lack of planning for a global pandemic - the call for long-term thinking grows every day. But what is it, has it ever worked, and can we even do it?

In The Good Ancestor, leading public philosopher Roman Krznaric delves into history and the human mind to show that we can. From the pyramids to the NHS, humankind has always had the innate ability to plan for posterity and take action that will resonate for decades, centuries, even millennia to come. If we want to be good ancestors and be remembered well by the generations who follow us, now is the time to recover and enrich this imaginative skill.

The Good Ancestor reveals six profound ways in which we can all learn to think long, exploring uniquely human talents like 'cathedral thinking' that expand our time horizons and sharpen our foresight. Drawing on radical innovations from around the world, Krznaric celebrates the time rebels who are reinventing democracy, culture and economics so that we all have the chance to become good ancestors and create a better tomorrow.

Selected reviews

"Beautiful to read, heartfelt and persuasive, The Good Ancestor is one of those landmark books with the power to shift a mindset. One turns the pages feeling a growing compulsion for change. Krznaric's clarion call for long-term thinking makes him an ancestor all future generations can be proud of."
Isabella Tree, author of Wilding

"Roman Krznaric's brilliant book The Good Ancestor champions the long-term thinking that could lead us out of our multiple disasters."
George Monbiot

" The Good Ancestor is full of revelations for everyone who cares about the legacy they leave. This is the book our children's children will thank us for reading."
The Edge, U2

"The individualistic philosophies of the last century have generated huge concentrations of wealth - but at the same time put us on the road to social, political and environmental collapse. This clear-sighted and inspiring book suggests a different view of who humans are and what they really value - and a number of ways off that lethal road. It's a must-read for anyone who's looking for the good news."
Brian Eno

"Expanding our time horizons to envisage a longer now is the most imperative journey any of us can make. Roman Krznaric's inspirational book traces out these steps for us. Stacks of books on my shelves mourn the impending loss of the living world. The Good Ancestor emerges as the most necessary, and the most hopeful, providing keys to create profound and lasting change. Join the time rebellion, and help shape the lives of those to come."
Katie Paterson, deep-time artist and creator of Future Library

"From the seventh-generation thinking of Native American tribes to legally empowered guardians of the future and citizens' assemblies, Krznaric explores a wealth of ways we can become good ancestors. For anyone who is interested in how we can get today's society to leave the world better than they found it - this is your Guide."
Sophie Howe, Future Generations Commissioner for Wales

"An important and fascinating book that asks whether we've got what it takes to become citizens rather than consumers and create an ecological civilisation. The Good Ancestor is a triumph."
Sir Tim Smit, co-founder of the Eden Project

"In The Good Ancestor, the philosopher Roman Krznaric calmly calls for a reorientation toward the future, not to benefit us (as is typically the pitch of the pop-futurist book), but to benefit our far-off descendants."
Samantha Culp, The Atlantic

"A superb intellectual history and razor-sharp analysis of contemporary politics, this book will change how you think about the world and is a call to action. Read it. You owe it to your children's children."
Kevin Watkins, Chief Executive, Save the Children

"With a dazzling range of sources, zinging with ideas, stories and jaw-dropping graphics, The Good Ancestor is packed with information and insight. Every school should have a copy, with its maps and plans on every classroom wall."
Michael Wood, historian, broadcaster and author of The Story of China

"In this persuasive book, one of our leading thinkers Roman Krznaric expands his ground-breaking work on empathy to argue that our only hope of survival is to develop deep empathy for future generations across time and space."
Professor Morten Kringelbach, neuroscientist, Universities of Oxford and Aarhus, Denmark

"'A masterpiece - and a must-read for conventional economists.'
Anders Wijkman, Honorary President of the Club of Rome

"A terrific read. The Good Ancestor is a brilliant, concise treatise on time that makes a persuasive case for radically rethinking the timescales over which we are accustomed to think and plan. It is essential reading for any architect concerned with what it means to be contemporary."
Michael Pawlyn, RIBA Journal

"What is fantastic about The Good Ancestor is that the more I got into it, I realised how rich this concept of long-term thinking is."
Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive, Royal Society of the Arts

"It is a cliché to declare a book essential reading, but in this case it is true. In a little more than 300 pages Krznaric develops a powerful set of concepts and a frame that will serve to refresh and undergird the civic rationale for public planning."
Tim Beatley, Journal of the American Planning Association

"Krznaric is successful in fulfilling his self-declared goal to fill the 'intellectual vacuum' surrounding long-term thinking. He provides a conceptually sound, wide-ranging, academic, but empathetically argued text which not only defines long-termism but speaks volumes for its benefits." Grace Clover, Intergenerational Justice Review

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Roman Krznaric's book, The Good Ancestor, explores six ways we can expand our time horizons to confront the great long-term challenges of our age. Learn more.

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Two Inconvenient Women (with Rachel Musson and Holly Everett)

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Two Inconvenient Women (with Rachel Musson and Holly Everett)

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Exploring the inconvenience of Donald Trump

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Podcast · ThoughtBox Education · In a world which can feel increasingly volatile and uncertain, join Holly and Rachel from ThoughtBox as we explore some of the inconvenient truths, possibilities and opportunities of our rapidly changing world.Each episode we’ll be diving deep into the big, tricky issues of our time, exploring what it means to be ‘inconvenient’ in our work to transform lives, communities and mindsets towards a healthier future for people and planet.To find out more about the work we do at ThoughtBox Education, visit www.thoughtboxeducation.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Narrated and featuring Woody Harrelson, Kiss the Ground is an inspiring and groundbreaking film that reveals the first viable solution to our climate crisis.

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A NESA podcast episode about the power of digital storytelling in relation to service learning & engaged global citizenship

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A NESA podcast episode about the power of digital storytelling in relation to service learning & engaged global citizenship

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Digital Storytelling with LeeAnne Lavender by The Wayfinder

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How can we enable students to take their learning outside the four walls of the classroom? On our tenth episode, we sit down with LeeAnne Lavender, a storytelling, service learning and global citizenship educator, to discuss purpose-driven pedagogy, multimedia storytelling projects, and what it means to be a learner alongside your students.

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12 Big Questions for Schools to Imagine Irresistible Futures

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12 Big Questions for Schools to Imagine Irresistible Futures

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12 Big Questions Book - Big Questions Institute

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“12 Big Questions to Imagine Irresistible Futures” Get Your free copy now! Our BIG Question Looking Forward: The urgency to reimagine and regenerate schools and education is growing. How are you responding? Each day, more and more educators around the world are sensing the impact…

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Zoe Weil and Julie Meltzer on equipping our students to be solutionaries

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Zoe Weil and Julie Meltzer on equipping our students to be solutionaries

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Practical principles for creating conditions for happiness at scale from the program director of the Gross National Happiness Center of Bhutan, the only

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Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

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Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

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https://www.robinwallkimmerer.com/books

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The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer

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The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer

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This is a wonderful book that uses that motif of the serviceberry to provide wisdom about generosity, reciprocity, and community, and ways of being that exist outside of the consumer/individual economy that drives most of our dominant cultures.

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Digital Citizenship Institute Webinar: Digital Storytelling - A Catalyst for Civic Readiness & Global Citizenship

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Digital Citizenship Institute Webinar: Digital Storytelling - A Catalyst for Civic Readiness & Global Citizenship

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Hospicing Modernity by Vanessa Andreotti

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Hospicing Modernity by Vanessa Andreotti

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Book reviews:
Chris Jerrey; Rainbow Juice, GTEC Reader, Review of "At work in the ruins" that also talks about Hospicing Modernity
Recorded sessions and Q&A with the author (2022)
Preface and prep work; Chapters 1 & 2; Chapters 3 & 4; Chapters 5 & 6; Chapters 7&8; Chapters 9&10.

"Beyond a mere critique of modernity, this is a book written for us as people who struggle with the everyday manifestations of modern power. Clear, creative, and cogent, the work offers cutting-edge philosophy at the same time that it furnishes usable guidance for how to cope with the coming perils of colonialism and capitalism. It's a book for the future, yet written to meet us where we are at right now as individuals living with trauma and facing ethical dilemmas about what it means to take meaningful actions under conditions of complexity."
- KYLE WHYTE, PhD, George Willis Pack Professor of Environment
and Sustainability at the University of Michigan

"Asking the question 'What if racism, colonialism, and all other forms of toxic and contagious divisions are preventable social diseases?', Hospicing Modernity invites its reader to dare and educate themselves by undergoing a process of self-unmaking. Drawing on and moving beyond traditions of radical pedagogy, such as those inspired by Paulo Freire, the author has created a powerful tool for uncovering, undoing, and recovering from the deadly ways in which modernity also lives and dies as humans experience it subjectively."
- DENISE FERREIRA DA SILVA, PhD, professor at the University of British Columbia Social Justice Institute and author of Toward a Global Idea of Race and Unpayable Debt

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The book "Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity's Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism" was published in September 2021. If you are in Canada, you can purchase the book here (with proceedings going to our Indigenous partners in Brazil). Other options for purchase can be found here.

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Learning to Relearn: Supporting Identity in a Culturally Affirming Classroom by Kwame Sarfo-Mensah

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Learning to Relearn: Supporting Identity in a Culturally Affirming Classroom by Kwame Sarfo-Mensah

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Learning to Relearn | Supporting Identity in a Culturally Affirming Cl

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“With Learning to Relearn, Sarfo-Mensah has written himself into the canon of scholars who boldly advocate for social justice in schools.”
—From the foreword by

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This book is about deep ecology, and the interconnectedness between human beings and the natural world. The author uses our relationship with salmon as a synecdoche (a type of metaphor where a part represents the whole) for our relationship with all of nature, and it's a thought-provoking and deep read. The first section of the book is particularly poignant.

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Being Salmon, Being Human | Chelsea Green Publishing

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Being Salmon, Being Human is both a philosophical and a narrative work, rewarding readers with insightful interpretations of major philosophers.

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Triple Well-Being in International Education: an episode with me    :)

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Triple Well-Being in International Education: an episode with me    :)

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LeeAnne Lavender: Triple WellBeing worldwide | Stories of Triple WellBeing

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Holly speaks with LeeAnne an international educator based in Canada

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How your brain responds to stories - and why they're crucial for leaders

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How your brain responds to stories - and why they're crucial for leaders

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How your brain responds to stories -- and why they’re crucial for leaders

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How do the world’s best leaders and visionaries earn trust? They don’t just present data -- they also tell great stories. Leadership consultant Karen Eber demystifies what makes for effective storytelling and explains how anyone can harness it to create empathy and inspire action.

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A dew drop hangs from a piece of lichen growing on the trunk of a tree. The image is intended to illustrate a form of reciprocity in nature.

The term "reciprocity" has increasingly become part of mainstream vocabulary in research spaces (and beyond), especially in conversations around addressing harms, and minimizing extraction. At the same time, I've noticed that many people still use "reciprocity" interchangeably with "exchange" - which significantly reduces the concept to that of a simple transaction. And it's not our fault. Under a capitalist system, we've been conditioned to think this way. To do right by someone, is to give back something of equal value.

But reciprocity is actually far more nuanced and relational; it's not simply about balancing debts or about immediate exchanges. It involves deeper responsibilities and sustained relationships.

In this article, I'd like to highlight some of the assumptions we tend to make about reciprocity in research, and offer a perspective shared by many Indigenous communities and spiritual traditions, that invite us to practice reciprocity as a way of living in relationship.

In our modern world, the concept of reciprocity often mirrors the transactional nature of capitalist economies. We tend to view giving and receiving as equal exchanges, bound by time and immediate return.

We often assume that reciprocity should be:

Direct and individual: a one-to-one exchange. The person who gives is the person who receives. The plant we eat from, is the plant we should water.

Time-bound: something that needs to be balanced with speed and immediacy.

Even: an even exchange that often ignores the responsibility which comes with power and privilege, and erases historical context and structural inequities.

These assumptions end up shaping our expectations of self and others. And they impose limitations on our imagination of what reciprocity could be, and what it truly means to be in right relationship.

In the context of research, reciprocity is often reduced to compensation - honoraria for time, reimbursement for participation. And while these may be necessary to survive capitalism, they are not enough - because reciprocity, in its truest form, isn't just about payment. It's about responsibility. It's about what happens after the conversation ends, after the data is collected, after the story is shared in trust. It's about what we carry forward and how we live in relation to those who've gifted their knowledge.

Some questions we might ask ourselves are:

How do we stand in solidarity with the communities we've learned from?

How do we ensure that what was offered to us benefits more than just ourselves?

What becomes our responsibility, once we have received?

As Robin Wall Kimmerer writes in The Serviceberry:

"If our first response to the receipt of gifts is gratitude, then our second is reciprocity: to give a gift in return. What could I give these plants in return for their generosity? I could return the gift with a direct response, like weeding or bringing water or offering a song of thanks that sends appreciation out on the wind... Or maybe I could take indirect action... speaking at a public hearing on land use, or making art that invites others into the web of reciprocity... We live in a time when every choice matters."

This quote expands our understanding of reciprocity beyond linear or time-bound exchange. It reminds us that reciprocity can look like art. Like advocacy. Like structural change. Like refusing to see ourselves as separate from the systems and relationships that sustain us.

This shift - from transaction to responsibility - helps us reframe what it means to give, to receive, and to belong in relationship.

When we understand ourselves as part of a web of relations, reciprocity becomes a way of life, not a checklist. It becomes less about immediate repayment, but about how we live in right relation across time, space, and power.

In research, reciprocity could look like:

· Advocacy: Using our power, voice, and influence to advocate for and materially support the needs and dreams of those we have learned from - not just to publish our insights, but to practice them.

· Custodianship: Protecting and caring for the integrity of shared knowledge by ensuring it remains grounded in its context, and not exploited for personal or institutional gain.

· Ongoing Relationship: Relationship doesn't always mean staying in direct contact. It can live on in how we speak about communities, how we cite and acknowledge them, how we protect their stories, and how we carry those teachings forward.

These forms of reciprocity extend beyond the transactional logic of "you give, I give" and move us into a relational ethic - one that acknowledges histories of extraction, the asymmetry of power, and the enduring nature of responsibility.

As esteemed writer, visionary and Afrofuturist, Octavia Butler, teaches us: change is the only constant. Relationships, circumstances, capacity, and resources are always in motion.

What we are able to give in one moment, may not be what we are able to give in another.

What we need today, may not be what we needed yesterday.

Yet, dominant understandings of reciprocity tend to assume a static world - one in which exchanges are predictable, stable, and immediate.

While staying with family on Bribri Indigenous territory, a friend of mine arrived with the intention of being in service to the local community and the land. But shortly after arriving, they were seriously injured - suddenly unable to contribute in the way they had planned. Instead of being able to offer their labor, they found themselves in a position of needing care. In that moment, reciprocity wasn't about giving as they had intended, but about receiving with humility.
What does reciprocity mean when our capacity to give shifts unexpectedly? What if we are called to receive instead?
Can we release the idea that reciprocity is an obligation to be fulfilled within a static relationship, and instead embrace it as an ongoing movement of care and trust?

If we unshackle reciprocity from capitalist logic, we can begin to imagine it differently.

What if reciprocity was not about settling a balance but about tending to relationships across time and space?

What if reciprocity was not limited to direct exchange but understood as a web of care, where what we receive in one place informs how we give in another?

What if reciprocity was a practice of honoring what we have been given, not just in return to the giver, but in how we show up in the world?

Reciprocity is not a transaction to be fulfilled. It is an orientation of how we move through the world, with care and relational integrity.

The question, then, is not what can I give back? but how will I move differently because of what I have received?

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The term "reciprocity" has increasingly become part of mainstream vocabulary in research spaces (and beyond), especially in conversations around addressing harms, and minimizing extraction. At the...

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Soft versus Critical Global Citizenship Education 

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Soft versus Critical Global Citizenship Education 

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Understanding global issues often requires learners to examine a complex web of cultural and material processes and contexts on local and global levels. Vanessa Andreotti explores how critical global citizenship can be an effective way to support learners in that process.

Introduction

At the end of a 'Make Poverty History' (MPH) training session for activists, as an inspiration for a group of about 30 young people to write their action plans, a facilitator conducts the following visualisation (reproduced from my notes):

"Imagine a huge ball-room. It is full of people wearing black-tie. They are all celebrities. You also see a red carpet leading to a stage on the other side. On the stage there is Nelson Mandela. He is holding a prize. It is the activist of the year prize. He calls your name. You walk down that corridor. Everyone is looking at you. W hat are you wearing? How are you feeling? Think about how you got there: the number of people that have signed your petitions, the number of white bands on the wrists of your friends, the number of people you have taken to Edinburgh. You shake Mandela's hands. How does that feel? He gives you the microphone. Everyone is quiet waiting for you to speak. They respect you. They know what you have done. Think about the difference you have made to this campaign! Think about all the people you have helped in Africa..."

Listening to this as a Southern person was disturbing, but what was even more worrying was to observe that, when the young people opened their eyes and I asked around if they thought the visualisation was problematic, the answer was overwhelmingly 'no'. They confirmed that their primary motivation for 'training as an activist' was related to self-improvement, the development of leadership skills or simply having fun, enhanced, of course, by the moral supremacy and vanguardist feeling of being responsible for changing or saving the world 'out there'. This actually echoed one of the sayings in a poster of the organisation that was running the course "do what you love doing, but save the world while you do it".

Part of the reason why I felt so uncomfortable was that the group seemed to be unaware that the thought patterns and effects of 'what they love doing' could be directly related to the causes of the problems they were trying to tackle in the first place. This points to a central issue in global citizenship education: whether and how to address the economic and cultural roots of the inequalities in power and wealth/labour distribution in a global complex and uncertain system.

In order to understand global issues, a complex web of cultural and material local/global processes and contexts needs to be examined and unpacked. My argument is that if we fail to do that in global citizenship education, we may end up promoting a new 'civilising mission' as the slogan for a generation who take up the 'burden' of saving/educating/civilising the world. This generation, encouraged and motivated to 'make a difference', will then project their beliefs and myths as universal and reproduce power relations and violence similar to those in colonial times. How can we design educational processes that move learners away from this tendency?

This article aims to introduce the argument for critical global citizenship education. It is divided into three parts. In the first part I present Andrew Dobson's arguments in relation to the grounds for global citizenship and his critique of the notions of the 'global citizen' and 'interdependence'. In the second part, I present Gayatri Spivak's analysis of some cultural effects of colonialism in the relationship/assumptions of North and South. In the last part I compare and contrast soft and critical citizenship education in general terms based on Dobson's and Spivak's analyses and briefly explore the notion of critical literacy as a significant dimension of critical global citizenship education. I argue that, for educators, a careful analysis of the context of work is paramount for informed decisions in terms of what focus to choose, but that it is imperative to know the risks and implications of the options available in order to make responsible pedagogical choices.

Common humanity or justice: The material dimension of citizenship education

Andrew Dobson is a British political author and Professor at the Open University, specialising in environmental politics. His most famous work is entitled Green Political Thought. He addresses the grounds for global citizenship and the notions of a 'global citizen' and 'interdependence'. He starts his analysis with what he perceives as a common question in the 'Northern' context:

"How can severe poverty of half of humankind continue despite enormous economic and technological progress and despite the enlightened moral norms and values of our heavily dominant Western civilisation?" (Pogge, 2002:3 cited in Dobson, 2006:170).

He states that, for many in the political sciences today, it is precisely the assumptions of progress and values/morality of the West that are at the root of the problem. He poses another question: "what should (then) be the basis for our concern for those whom we have never met and are never likely to meet?" He proposes that the answer should be framed around political obligation for doing justice and the source of this obligation should be a recognition of complicity or "causal responsibility" in transnational harm (Dobson, 2006).

Dobson argues that the globalisation of trade creates ties based on "chains of cause and effect that prompt obligations of justice, rather than sympathy, pity or beneficence" (p.178). He offers the ecological footprints as an illustration of how this operates "as a network of effects that prompts reflection on the nature of the impacts they comprise" (p.177). He also mentions unjust practices imposed by the North as a global institutional order that reproduce poverty and impoverish people (p.177).

Two of the central pleas of the MPH campaign point in the same direction. The calls for trade justice and debt relief suggested that the North had something to do with the poverty created elsewhere. However, this acknowledgement of complicity did not translate into the campaigning strategies. The use of images, figures and slogans emphasised the need to be charitable, compassionate and 'active' locally (in order to change institutions), based on a moral obligation to a common humanity, rather than on a political responsibility for the causes of poverty.

Dobson argues that acts grounded on this moral basis are easily withdrawn and end up reproducing unequal (paternalistic) power relations and increasing the vulnerability of the recipient (Dobson, 2006). For him, justice is a better ground for thinking as it is political and prompts fairer and more equal relations. He makes a distinction between being human and being a citizen: being human raises issues of morality; being a citizen raises political issues (Dobson, 2005).

Unlike what was suggested in the 'Make Poverty History' campaign, Dobson emphasises individual - rather than institutional - responsibility. He quotes Pogge to stress this point:

"We are familiar, through charity appeals, with the assertion that it lies in our hands to save the lives of many or, by doing nothing, to let these people die. We are less familiar with the assertion examined here of a weightier responsibility: that most of us not merely let people starve but also participate in starving them" (Pogge, 2002:214 cited in Dobson, 2006:182).

Dobson also challenges the concepts of a 'global citizen', interdependence and world-wide interconnectedness that often accompany unexamined notions of a common humanity in global citizenship education. He asserts that they do not take sufficient account of unequal power relations between the North and the South, as Vandana Shiva states:

"The 'global' in the dominant discourse is the political space in which a particular dominant local seeks global control, and frees itself of local, national and international restrains. The global does not represent the universal human interest; it represents a particular local and parochial interest which has been globalised through the scope of its reach. The seven most powerful countries, the G7, dictate global affairs, but the interests that guide them remain narrow, local and parochial" (Shiva, 1998: 231 cited in Dobson, 2005: 261).

Shiva and Dobson argue that only certain countries have globalising powers - others are globalised. In this sense, the North has a global reach while the South only exists locally:

"Globalisation is, on this reading, an asymmetrical process in which not only its fruits are divided up unequally, but also in which the very possibility of 'being global' is unbalanced" (Dobson, 2005: 262).

Having the choice to traverse from the local to the global space is the determining factor for whether or not you can be a global citizen. If you are not 'global', "the walls built of immigration controls, of residence laws and of 'clean streets' and 'zero tolerance' grow taller" (Bauman, 1998:2 cited in Dobson, 2005: 263) to try to contain the diffusion of ideas, goods, information and peoples in order to protect specific local spaces from unwanted 'contamination'. Thus, we end up with a one way transfusion (in its legal form at least) rather than a diffusion. As the capacity to act globally is limited, Dobson concludes that those who can and do act globally are in effect often projecting their local (assumptions and desires) as everyone else's global (Dobson, 2005:264). This is well illustrated in one of MPH's campaign slogans: "Make History" (Whose history? Who is making this history? In whose name? For whose benefit?).

Dobson's analyses raises important questions for global citizenship education: who is this global citizen? What should be the basis of this project? Whose interests are represented here? Is this an elitist project? Are we empowering the dominant group to remain in power? Are we doing enough to examine the local/global dimensions of our assumptions?

However, Dobson's account also seems to oversimplify North-South relations by presenting the South as only a site for Western forceful dominance or some 'grassroots' resistance. In analysing the cultural aspects of the historical construction of this relationship, other critics present a more complex picture, taking into account the 'complicity' of the South itself in maintaining Northern dominance.

Sanctioned ignorance: The cultural dimension

A cultural analysis raises complementary questions for global citizenship education. The emphasis here is on the implications of the projection of Northern/Western values and interests as global and universal which naturalises the myth of Western supremacy in the rest of the world. Gayatri Spivak, a professor at Columbia University in the United States who has had a great impact on the theoretical development in the areas of cultural studies, critical theory and colonial discourse analysis, calls this process "worlding of the West as world" (Spivak, 1990).

Spivak argues that this naturalisation occurs by a disavowal of the history of imperialism and the unequal balance of power between the 'First' and 'Third' Worlds in the global capitalist system. The outcome of this naturalisation is a discourse of modernisation in which colonialism is either ignored or placed securely in the past, so that we think it is over and does not affect - and has not affected - the construction of the present situation.

The result is a sanctioned ignorance (constitutive disavowal) of the role of colonialism in the creation of the wealth of what is called the 'First World' today, as well as the role of the international division of labour and exploitation of the 'Third World' in the maintenance of this wealth. Within this naturalised logic, the beginning of the Third World is post-WWII "with 'First' World growth patterns serving as history's guide and goal" (Kapoor, 2004: 669).

This ideology produces the discourse of 'development' and policies of structural adjustment and free trade which prompt Third World countries to buy (culturally, ideologically, socially and structurally) from the 'First' a "self-contained version of the West", ignoring both its complicity with and production by the 'imperialist project' (Spivak, 1988). Also within this framework, poverty is constructed as a lack of resources, services and markets, and of education (as the right subjectivity to participate in the global market), rather than a lack of control over the production of resources (Biccum, 2005:1017) or enforced disempowerment. This sanctioned ignorance, which disguises the worlding of the world, places the responsibility for poverty upon the poor themselves and justifies the project of development of the Other as a 'civilising mission'.

For Spivak the epistemic violence of colonialism (where colonialism affects the coloniser's capacity to know their situation of real exploitation) makes this sanctioned ignorance work both ways with complementary results: the First World believes in its supremacy and the Third World forgets about the worlding and 'wants' to be civilised/catch up with the West. In line with Said, Bhabha and Fanon, Spivak affirms that the colonial power changes the subaltern's perception of self and reality and legitimises its cultural supremacy in the (epistemic) violence of creating an 'inferior' other and naturalising these constructs. Spivak illustrates that in the 'First World' it reinforces Eurocentrism and triumphalism as people are encouraged to think that they live in the centre of the world, that they have a responsibility to 'help the rest' and that "people from other parts of the world are not fully global" (Spivak, 2003:622).

This is echoed in policies related to the 'global dimension' in England in the notion that different cultures only have 'traditions, beliefs and values' while the West has (universal) knowledge (and even constructs knowledge about these cultures). The idea of a 'common history', which only acknowledges the contribution of other cultures to science and mathematics also reinforces this perception, which projects the values, beliefs and traditions of the West as global and universal, while foreclosing the historical processes that led to this universalisation.

This has significant implications for the notion of 'global citizenship'. However, in terms of the reproduction of this ideology, for Spivak the class culture is more important than geographic positioning: she refers to an elite global professional class (consisting of people in or coming from the First and the Third Worlds) marked by access to the internet and a culture of managerialism and of international non-governmental organisations involved in development and human rights. She maintains that this global elite is prone to project and reproduce these ethnocentric and developmentalist mythologies onto the Third World 'subalterns' they are ready to help to 'develop'. She also states that in order to change this tendency educational interventions should emphasise 'unlearning' and 'learning to learn from below' (Spivak, 2004).

The analyses of Dobson and Spivak are not isolated examples in their disciplines. Several academics and practitioners have questioned the ideologies behind development and global citizenship education in recent years and a few pedagogical initiatives have been developed based on these analyses. However, in general terms, the articulations between new thinking and new practices have been weak.

Soft versus critical citizenship education and the notion of critical literacy

From the analyses of Dobson and Spivak it is possible to contrast soft and critical frameworks in terms of basic assumptions and implications for citizenship education. Table 1 illustrates this comparison in very general terms, in order to prompt discussion.

Table 1: Soft versus critical citizenship education

Common humanity/being good/sharing and caring.

Responsibility FOR the other (or to teach the other).

Justice/complicity in harm.

Responsibility TOWARDS the other (or to learn with the other) - accountability.

So that everyone achieves development, harmony, tolerance and equality.

So that injustices are addressed, more equal grounds for dialogue are created, and people can have more autonomy to define their own development.

Role of 'ordinary' individuals

Some individuals are part of the problem, but ordinary people are part of the solution as they can create pressure to change structures.

We are all part of problem and part of the solution.

Strategies for global citizenship education

Raising awareness of global issues and promoting campaigns.

Promoting engagement with global issues and perspectives and an ethical relationship to difference, addressing complexity and power relations.

The notions of power, voice and difference are central for critical citizenship education. Thus, for the creation of an ethical relationship with learners (and with the South), the development of critical literacy becomes necessary. I conceptualise critical literacy as a level of reading the word and the world that involves the development of skills of critical engagement and reflexivity: the analysis and critique of the relationships among perspectives, language, power, social groups and social practices by the learners. Criticality, in this context, does not refer to the dominant notion that something is right or wrong, biased or unbiased, true or false. It is an attempt to understand origins of assumptions and implications. In this sense, critical literacy is not about 'unveiling' the 'truth' for the learners, but about providing the space for them to reflect on their context and their own and others' epistemological and ontological assumptions: how we came to think/be/feel/act the way we do and the implications of our systems of belief in local/global terms in relation to power, social relationships and the distribution of labour and resources.

Critical literacy is based on the strategic assumption that all knowledge is partial and incomplete, constructed in our contexts, cultures and experiences. Therefore, we lack the knowledge constructed in other contexts, cultures and experiences. So we need to engage with our own and other perspectives to learn and transform our views, identities and relationships - to think otherwise. Action is always a choice of the individual after a careful analysis of the context of intervention, of different views, of power relations (especially the position of who is intervening) and of short and long term (positive and negative) implications of goals and strategies.

In contrast with soft global citizenship education, this approach tries to promote change without telling learners what they should think or do, by creating spaces where they are safe to analyse and experiment with other forms of seeing/thinking and being/relating to one another. The focus is on the historical/cultural production of knowledge and power in order to empower learners to make better informed choices - but the choices of action and meaning (what 'we' are or 'should be') are never imposed, as the 'right to signify' is recognised and respected (as an ethical relationship 'commands').

However, as there is no universal recipe or approach that will serve all contexts, it is important to recognise that 'soft' global citizenship education is appropriate to certain contexts - and can already represent a major step. But it cannot stop there or the situation illustrated at the beginning of this paper will become the norm. If educators are not 'critically literate' to engage with assumptions and implications/limitations of their approaches, they run the risk of (indirectly and unintentionally) reproducing the systems of belief and practices that harm those they want to support. The question of how far educators working with global citizenship education are prepared to do that in the present context in the North is open to debate.

References

Bauman, Z (1998) Globalization: the Human Consequences, New York: Columbia University Press.

Bhabha, H (1994) The Location of Culture, London: Routledge.

Biccum, A (2005) 'Development and the 'new' imperialism: a reinvention of colonial discourse in DFID promotionalliterature', Third World Quarterly, Vol. 26, pp. 1005-1020.

Dobson, A (2005) 'Globalisation, cosmopolitanism and the Environment', International Relations, Vol. 19, pp. 259-273.

Dobson, A (2006) 'Thick Cosmopolitanism', Political Studies, Vol. 54, pp.165-184.

Kapoor, I (2004) 'Hyper-self-reflexive development? Spivak on representing the Third World "Other"', Third World Quarterly, Vol. 4, pp. 627-647.

Pogge, T (2002) World Poverty and Human Rights, Cambridge: Polity Press.

Shiva, V (1998) 'The Greening of Global Reach' in G Thuatail, S Dalby and P Routledge (eds.), The Geopolitics Reader, London: Routledge, pp. 230-143.

Spivak, G (1988) '"Can the Subaltern Speak?"', in C Nelson and L Grossberg (eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, Chicago: University of Illinois Press, pp. 271-313.

Spivak, G (1990) The Post-colonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues, New York and London: Routledge.

Spivak, G (2003) 'A conversation with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: politics and the imagination', interview by J Sharpe, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Vol. 28, pp. 609-624.

Spivak, G (2004) 'Righting wrongs', The South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol. 103, pp. 523-581.

Vanessa Andreotti is a Brazilian educator who has worked as a practitioner/researcher in the fields of global citizenship/development education for the last seven years. She is a research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice at the University of Nottingham where she coordinates the Open Spaces for Dialogue and Enquiry initiative ( www.osdemethodology.org.uk) and the project 'Through Other Eyes' about indigenous understandings of the development agenda. She is also finishing a PhD on the representations of 'North and South' in global citizenship education in England. She would like to thank the following friends and colleagues who provided extremely valuable feedback, ideas and insights to earlier versions of this article: Linda Barker, Katy Newell-Jones, Doug Bourn, Ange Grunsell, April Biccum and Lynn Mario de Souza.

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Soft versus critical global citizenship education

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Understanding global issues often requires learners to examine a complex web of cultural and material processes and contexts on local and global levels. Vanessa Andreotti explores how critical global citizenship can be an effective way to support learners in that process.

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The Future of Education: Human-Centred, Purpose-Driven, and Technologically Enhanced

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The Future of Education: Human-Centred, Purpose-Driven, and Technologically Enhanced

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The Future of Education:
Human-Centred, Purpose-Driven, and Technologically Enhanced

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I have spent the last 12 months away from full-time education. A sabbatical if you will, spending time with family and dipping into consultancy and advisory roles.

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Holding Space for Difference: Disagreeing Without Disconnecting

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Holding Space for Difference: Disagreeing Without Disconnecting

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The gift and challenge of international schools is this: we work with brilliant people who, in most cases, see the world through completely different lenses.

You're sitting in a meeting. Someone says something that, to you, feels completely off the mark - maybe even offensive. And yet, to them, it's completely valid. It's not coming from a place of malice. It's coming from their lived experience. And now you're left stewing, wondering, how do they not see this the way I do?

Welcome to the beautiful, chaotic, multi-layered world of international education - where truth is plural, values vary, and the psychology of "I don't agree with you" can quietly turn into "I don't like you," unless we learn to hold space for differences without losing our center.

Why Do We Get So Affected?

Here's the thing: when someone presents a view that directly challenges ours, especially something we care about deeply (inclusion, discipline, pedagogy, leadership), our nervous system responds as if it's under threat. Not because of the person, but because of what the view represents - a challenge to our internal compass. It's biology, not bad character.

But their view? It's not a personal attack. It's their truth. Their context. Their own accumulated lived experience.

So how do we stay grounded in these moments - especially when we have to work with this person... every single day?

3 Human-Centered Practices for Living in the Middle of Difference

1. Bring Yourself Back to Neutral

Before you respond, pause. Seriously. Even a half-second of breathing space can shift the tone of the entire conversation.

*What part of me is feeling activated right now?

*Is this about the person, the idea, or something deeper - like a value I feel is being violated?

*What assumption am I making about their intention?

Neutrality doesn't mean giving up your stance - it means responding from clarity instead of reactivity. When we engage from a place of inner balance, we're more likely to say things that move the conversation forward, rather than things we'll mentally replay in the shower three hours later.

2. Practice the "Both/And" Mindset

This is the antidote to black-and-white thinking. In international schools, binary thinking is the fast track to conflict - but nuance? That's where the wisdom lives.

*I can advocate for student voice AND understand that some colleagues are still learning how to listen.

*I can believe in strong safeguarding AND acknowledge someone else's cultural lens.

*I can want efficiency AND make space for emotional processing.

This mindset helps you avoid the trap of moral superiority - where your "right" feels like someone else's "wrong." The truth is, most people aren't trying to be difficult. They're showing up with their own experiences, values, and blind spots - just like you.

It's not always obvious in the moment - especially when you're in your third uncomfortable meeting of the day - but there's always something to be gained if you choose to look for it.

*Learning how to have hard conversations without shutting down.

*Strengthening your emotional agility - moving from judgment to inquiry.

*Realizing your own growth areas or unexamined assumptions.

*Even just building stamina for difference - which is hugely underrated.

And sometimes, the gift is knowing how to disagree without disconnecting - a crucial skill in any human-centered environment.

Daily practice: At the end of each day or difficult conversation, ask yourself:

*"What did this teach me?"

*"How did I show up? What would I do differently?"

Jot it down. Over time, these reflections become your personal leadership compass.

Bonus: Your Daily Toolkit for Peaceful Co-Working

When No One Agrees: Getting to a Yes

I once worked with a great friend and Head of School who lived and breathed the principles of Getting to Yes by Fisher & Ury - a book that became one of his leadership anchors. In every tough conversation or gridlocked decision, he would ask: "What's the shared interest here? What do we both want to be true?" And somehow, the fog would clear.

That book taught me a quiet lesson: You don't have to agree on positions to find agreement on purpose.

In the words of Getting to Yes:

"Don't bargain over positions. Focus on interests."

When no one agrees, go deeper. What's beneath the stance? What value is trying to be protected? What fear is trying to be calmed? Find that, and you begin to move from "me vs. you" toward "us vs. the problem."

Whether it's a policy meeting, a student concern, or a leadership team at odds, the goal isn't to win - it's to build a bridge. That's what human-centered leadership demands of us. And when we get to a "yes," it's not just a decision - it's a sign that we've chosen curiosity over control.

Human-centered leadership doesn't mean avoiding hard truths - it means showing up with enough grace to hold the tension between them. We're not here to all agree. We're here to do good work together, even across difference.

So the next time you're in that meeting - breathing through someone's radically different opinion - remember: their view doesn't have to shake your values. Just widen them.

Let's keep leading, laughing, and learning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Holding Space for Difference: Disagreeing Without Disconnecting

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The gift and challenge of international schools is this: we work with brilliant people who, in most cases, see the world through completely different lenses. You're sitting in a meeting.

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Near East South Asia Council of Overseas Schools

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Humane Education is a field of study and an approach to teaching that draws connections between human rights, animal protection, and environmental sustainability. The goal of humane education is to prepare people to be compassionate, dedicated solutionaries, able to identify unjust, inhumane, and unsustainable systems and create solutions that enable people, animals, and nature to thrive. Watch this video to learn more:

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Is based on the premise that if we reimagine the root system that underlies all other societal systems -schooling-we can prepare future generations to find answers to the challenges we face.

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There are many ways to be a humane educator and bring social justice, animal protection, and environmental sustainability issues to others. Humane education offers an intersectional lens which can be applied to any field. While teachers and college professors can incorporate humane education into classrooms, curricula, and schools, there are other arenas for practicing humane education as well including:

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#6 on IndieBound Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers (5/8/22)

Available wherever books are sold.

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Over the past twenty-five years, the directors of The Moth have worked with people from all walks of life-including astronauts, rock stars, Nobel Prize-winners, high school students, dental hygienists, and a retired pickpocket-to develop true personal stories that have moved and delighted millions of listeners on The Moth's Peabody Award-winning radio hour, The Moth Podcast and on stages across the globe. A leader in the modern storytelling movement, The Moth also inspires thousands of people around the globe to share their stories each year.

Now, with How to Tell a Story, you will uncover and craft your own unique stories, like Moth storytellers including Mike Birbiglia, Rosanne Cash, Darryl "DMC" McDaniels, Neil Gaiman, Elizabeth Gilbert, Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Gopnik, Amanda Gorman, Padma Lakshmi, Hasan Minhaj, Tig Notaro, Boots Riley, Molly Ringwald, Krista Tippett, John Turturro, and more.

Praise for How to Tell a Story:

"Fans of nonprofit storytelling organization The Moth, which, since 1997, has presented 50,000-plus stories, won a Peabody Award for its The Moth Radio Hour and boasts a popular eponymous podcast, will be drawn to this guide to, yep, telling stories. From toasts to eulogies, from job interviews to social events, this book will help you with ideas, structure, delivery and more."- CNN

"Inspiring . . . This book . . . provides everything readers need to share their own personal narratives."- Booklist

" How to Tell a Story shows us ALL how to rise to the occasion. This is a master class on standing in front of an audience. Bravo!" - Barnes & Noble

"True to its title, How to Tell a Story is a wonderfully practical and thoughtful guide to turning your own experiences and epiphanies into engaging tales." - The Washington Post

Whether your goal is to make it to The Moth stage, deliver the perfect wedding toast, wow clients at a business dinner, give a moving eulogy, ace a job interview, be a hit at parties, or simply connect more deeply to those around you, stories are essential. Sharing secrets of their time-honed process and using examples from notable and beloved storytellers, the Moth directors will help you:

* Mine your memories for your best stories;

* Explore structures that will boost the impact of your story;

* Tailor your stories for any occasion.

Beyond public speaking, The Moth team will help you present your most authentic self to the world-and tell stories that will forge lasting connections with coworkers, clients, friends, family and everyone in between.

How To Tell A Story shows everyone has a story to share.

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The Moth | The Art and Craft of Storytelling

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6 on The New York Times Best Sellers List (5/15/22) #6 on IndieBound Hardcover Nonfiction Best Sellers (5/8/22) Available wherever books are sold.

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The Science of Storytelling (Will Storr)

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The Science of Storytelling (Will Storr)

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Read 675 reviews from the world’s largest community for readers. Stories mould who we are, from our character to our cultural identity. They drive us to ac…

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The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human

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The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human

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The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human

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Read 987 reviews from the world’s largest community for readers. Humans live in landscapes of make-believe. We spin fantasies. We devour novels, films, and…

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"Superb writing advice. . . . Hilarious, helpful, and provocative."
-The New York Times Book Review

"A warm, generous, and hilarious guide through the writer's world and its treacherous swamps."
-Los Angeles Times
"One of the funniest books on writing ever published."
-The Christian Science Monitor
"A gift to all of us mortals who write or ever wanted to write. . . . Sidesplittingly funny, patiently wise and alternately cranky and kind-a reveille to get off our duffs and start writing now, while we still can."
-Seattle Times

" Bird by Bird would be worth reading just for Lamott's ele- gant, moving, and often-hilarious prose. But the advice she offers is just as fantastic as the style with which it's delivered."

"Anne Lamott understands better than anyone that writers need help. . . . She writes so well, in fact, that it's hard to believe that she, too, has trouble with writing. That's what's so deeply comforting about this book."
-The Wall Street Journal

"Deftly and honestly explores the mental challenges of being a writer. . . . Lamott's advice is, simply put, invaluable."
"[Lamott] uses her writing exercises or lessons as a way to help us more deeply understand ourselves and the human condition in all its messiness. If you're looking for sense-making and meaning during this deeply destabilizing time, this book is timeless."
-Elise Hu, TED Talks Daily

"Delight[s] with insight and descriptive acumen. This humorous, insightful, no-nonsense approach will remind novices why they are writing."
-Kirkus Reviews

"Offers unique inspiration. . . . An honest appraisal of what it takes to be a writer and why it matters so much."
-Library Journal

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Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott: 9780385480017 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * An essential volume for generations of writers young and old. The twenty-fifth anniversary edition of this modern classic will continue to spark creative minds for years...

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Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet by Thich Naht Hahn

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Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet by Thich Naht Hahn

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Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet – Parallax Press

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Mindfulness and the radical insights of Zen meditation can give us the strength and clarity we need to help create a regenerative world in which all life is

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A Little Book About AI That Is Not Really About AI

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The Solutionary Way: Transform Your Life, Your Community, and the World for the Better

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Discover practical strategies for positive change in The Solutionary Way by Zoe Weil. Embrace a solutionary mindset and create a brighter future for yourself and the world.

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In Search of Deeper Learning — Harvard University Press

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Winner of the Grawemeyer Award“In their brave search for depth in American high schools, scholars Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine suffered many disappointments…Undeterred, they spent 750 hours observing classes, interviewed more than 300 people, and produced the best book on high school dynamics I have ever read.”—Jay Mathews, Washington Post“A hopeful, easy-to-read narrative on what the best teachers do and what deep, engaging learning looks like for students. Grab this text if you’re looking for a celebration of what’s possible in American schools.”—Edutopia“This is the first and only book to depict not just the constraints on good teaching, but also how good teachers transcend them. A superb book in every way: timely, lively, and entertaining.”—Jonathan Zimmerman, University of PennsylvaniaWhat would it take to transform our high schools into places capable of supporting deep learning for students across a wide range of aptitudes and interests? To find out, Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine spent hundreds of hours observing and talking to teachers and students in and out of the classroom at thirty of the country’s most innovative schools. To their dismay, they discovered that deeper learning is more often the exception than the rule. And yet they found pockets of powerful learning at almost every school, often in extracurriculars but also in a few mold-breaking academic courses. So what must schools do to achieve the integrations that support deep learning: rigor with joy, precision with play, mastery with identity and creativity?In Search of Deeper Learning takes a deep dive into the state of our schools and lays out an inspiring new vision for American education.

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Edvolution: The Stories We Tell in Schools

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Edvolution: The Stories We Tell in Schools

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In this conversation, we sit down with the fabulous LeeAnne Lavender, a global citizenship and community engagement consultant who brings a passion for storytelling to every project. Together, we unpack some of the common challenges schools face when building service learning programs and explore strategies for creating strong, lasting community partnerships. We also discuss how storytelling can be a powerful tool to kick off the school year, helping educators set the tone, inspire students, and connect purpose with action.

Learn more about LeeAnne and how she supports educators here!

Check out her new course, Authentic Global Citizenship & Community Engagement here.

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The Stories We Tell: Starting the Year with Purpose and Partnerships (featuring LeeAnne Lavender)

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In this conversation, we sit down with the fabulous LeeAnne Lavender, a global citizenship and community engagement consultant who brings a passion for storytelling to every project. Together, we unpack some of the common challenges schools face when building service learning programs and explore...

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Nature doesn’t need people. People need nature.

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A love letter to the Earth : Nhá̂t Hạnh, Thích : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

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Curriculum Units as Storytelling — PRAXIS Education

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My daughter and I were a little late to the Netflix TV phenomenon of Stranger Things . We didn’t join the fan club until the summer of 2019 and the release of season 3. At that point, before we could watch season 3, we had to go back and watch the earlier two seasons. We were both immediately hooke

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Activating the Common Good by Peter Block

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Activating the Common Good by Peter Block

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Activating the Common Good - Peter Block

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Values and principles to foster a sustainable future

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The Institute for Ethical AI in Education

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The Institute for Ethical AI in Education

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Replenishing the Earth by Wangari Maathai

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Replenishing the Earth by Wangari Maathai

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Replenishing the Earth: Spiritual Values for Healing Ou…

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An impassioned call to heal the wounds of our planet an…

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The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker: 9781594634932 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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“I learned much from this book. Priya Parker has created both an art and a science to gathering in ways that can bring joy and fulfillment to any meeting.”—Deepak Chopra MD “A long overdue and urgent…

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Learning as if Life Depended On It by Olli-Pekka Heinonen

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Learning as if Life Depended On It by Olli-Pekka Heinonen

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Olli-Pekka Heinonen — Learning As If Life Depended on It

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Olli-Pekka Heinonen - Learning As If Life Depended on It