“A Hopeful Education for the End of the World as We Know It”?
The inspiration for this end-of-year impromptu gathering came from a recent flurry of ‘Collapse'-inspired exchanges in my (un)social media feeds! This was prompted largely by Ginie Servant Miklos’ recently published and brilliant book, Pedagogies of Collapse: A Hopeful Education for The End of The World as We Know It quoted in the title of the episode (https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?docid=b-9781350400528) and Will Richardson’s equally provocative and inspiring, Confronting Education In a Time of Complexity, Chaos and Collapse (https://futureserious.school/manifestoedu/).
As regular listeners will know, this podcast is really focused on the need for radical and systemic change in ways that would be more loving, humanising, nourishing…, not just in education, but in all spheres of our lives. But seeing all of this Collapse chat, the question I was left with was something about the ‘how’ of inviting people towards this change. It made me think of this powerful quote from Adam Curtis:
"We’ve retreated into a sense that there’s always a new apocalypse on the horizon; it’s a terrible teddy bear that the bourgeois greens hug to themselves and say, “We’re all going to die, it’s terrible.” That’s not the way you change the world. In fact, it frightens people, and when people are frightened they don’t want change. It’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen. Of course, there are serious issues. And of course, they’re incredibly dangerous. But fear is the last resort of those who’ve failed to mobilise people to transform the world for the better. I get grumpy about this because it’s almost cowardly.” (https://crackmagazine.net/article/profiles/adam-curtis-nathalie-olah-interview/)
So Manda Scott, Raïsa Mirza, Will Richardson, Ginie Servant-Miklos and I gathered yesterday to talk about all of this and more!
Does all of the Collapse chat alienate more people than it galvanises? Does it matter?!
How will we inspire the depth of change that we need if people are unwilling to look at the scale of stuckness and f***edness!
Is the privilege to pontificate on Collapse a function of a broader privilege of being shielded from it (not completely, but a lot more than others in much more precarious geographies).
Is it irresponsible to expose young people to the brutal realities? Or irresponsible not to?
What’s the role of stories and narratives of irresistible futures; of ‘thrutopias’ - “clear, engaging routes through to a world we’d all be proud to bequeath to future generations.” (Manda Scott, https://mandascott.co.uk/why-we-need-thrutopias/); of young and older people actually doing the work now?
Manda Scott - https://mandascott.co.uk/ ; https://www.linkedin.com/in/mandascottauthor/
Born in Scotland at 318ppm CO2, Manda was once a veterinary surgeon and is now a novelist, smallholder, contemporary shamanic trainer and podcaster. Her debut novel, Hen’s Teeth, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize. Subsequent works were shortlisted for the Edgar and Saltire Awards and won the McIlvanney Prize, but it is for her Boudica: Dreaming series that she is best known. Weaving her shamanic spirituality into narratives of Britain’s pre-Roman past, these books bring alive a world in which people understand their inherent connection with the web of life. More recently, Manda read for a Masters in Regenerative Economics at Schumacher, the experience of which led her to set up Accidental Gods podcast (https://accidentalgods.life) and Membership Programme. Each of these explicitly aims to bring humanity closer to emergence into a connected, regenerative system by offering practices of inter-becoming within the membership and by giving voice to the many individuals working for systemic change in the podcast. 2024 saw the publication of her sixteenth novel, Any Human Power, a ‘visionary’ contemporary political thriller that maps fictional – but plausible and workable – routes toward a future we’d all be proud to leave to the generations that come after us: human and more-than-human. Described by Lee Child as ‘Instantly immersive and compelling, rich and strange, human and humane’, the book weaves currents of shamanic mythology similar to those in the Boudica series through a ‘Thrutopian’ narrative of political upheaval and transformative change (https://thrutopia.life). She lives with her wife, Faith Tilleray, on a smallholding in the edge-zone between England and Wales. One day, they’ll go home to Scotland!
Raïsa Mirza - https://raisamirza.com/ ; https://www.linkedin.com/in/raisamirza/
Raïsa is a Bangladeshi-Canadian photographer, educator, designer, facilitator and social entrepreneur. She seeds experiments for systemic-level societal transformations, with a focus on life-centred innovations with a potential to scale and has had the privilege of living in 11 countries and working in 25 countries across many contexts and systems - food and agriculture, health, water, conservation and sanitation and education. But, no matter where she is in the world, home is the Southern Shore of Newfoundland in Canada. Raïsa is currently Head of Social Impact Initiatives & Lighthouse Changemaker Hub and Systems Transformation teacher (https://www.uwcatlantic.org/learning/academic/systems-transformation-pathway) at UWC Atlantic College, Wales. She is also Founder & Principal of WabiSabiJetty: Design for Resilience (https://www.wabisabijetty.com/) in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada supporting the flourishing of small, rural and remote communities around the world through research, capacity-building and systems convening to co-create equitable and just futures for all.
Will Richardson - https://willrichardson.com/ ; https://www.linkedin.com/in/willrichardsonbqi/
A former public school educator of 22 years, Will has spent the last 18 years developing an international reputation as a leading thinker and writer about the intersection of social online learning networks, education, and systemic change. Most recently, Will is a co-founder of The Big Questions Institute which was created to help educators use "fearless inquiry" to make sense of this complex moment and an uncertain future. In 2024, he authored a "manifesto" titled "Confronting Education in a Time of Complexity, Chaos, and Collapse" aimed at provoking serious conversations about the future of schools. In 2017, Will was named one of 100 global "Changemakers in Education" by the Finnish site HundrED, and was named one of the Top 5 "Edupreneurs to Follow" by Forbes. In addition to his focus and expertise on classroom pedagogies, learning theory, and emerging technologies and trends, his current interests include the use of Design Fiction, Speculative Design, and Regenerative Design to help schools and districts envision potential futures. Will has two adult children, Tess and Tucker, and lives in rural New Jersey with his wife Wendy.
Ginie Servant-Miklos - ; https://www.linkedin.com/in/ginie-servant-miklos/
Ginie Servant-Miklos is an engaged environmental educator with fifteen years of experience in education practice, research, and advocacy. She currently holds an Assistant Professorship in behavioural sciences at the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Her research and education work focuses on developing innovative pedagogies for societal impact. She developed the Experimental Pedagogics educational design framework, co-founded the Bildung Climate School with Prof. Rutger Engels, and is the author of the best-selling book, Pedagogies of Collapse: A Hopeful Education for the End of the World as We Know It (https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?docid=b-9781350400528). Ginie is a Member of the Club of Rome and Senior Fellow of the Comenius Network for educational innovators in the Netherlands. She is the founder and Chair of the Board of the FairFight Foundation, an organisation that provides girls and women from Zambia, Zimbabwe, and India with the mental and physical benefits of martial arts practice, as well as educational support. Ginie is a vocal activist for sustainability and gender equality, advocating for change through public engagements like TEDx talks, debates, podcasts, and other digital media outlets.
You can find out more about the Bildung Climate School here: https://www.erasmusmagazine.nl/en/2024/05/29/students-of-all-levels-learn-how-to-deal-with-climate-change-challenges-through-dance-and-philosophy/ ; https://www.instagram.com/bildung_climate_school/ You can also see an overview of the programme here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vS97am09X7bwtKLZfXZrfq-6LuS59W5E/view?usp=sharing
