If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while now, you will know that creating conversational spaces full of possibility as an antidote to polarisation and crisis is something I really value, whether that’s on a podcast, online, or even better, in person! 

So it was such a joy to sit down with Doline Ndorimana to talk about her amazing work doing just that...

For new parents and early years educators, there’s a wealth of guidance and support for how to understand what’s happening for our babies and toddlers, but when it comes to the stories we tell about adolescence, an equally important period of significant change, sometimes it’s more just get your head down and get through it! As millions of young people make the big transition to Middle School, I was very curious to learn from Chris Balme, one of the real experts, not only of the patterns of change and development at this time, but also of how to create educational environments that really take these young people seriously! 

Carol Sanford is one of the most important thinkers of the last few decades. Like no-one else, her work calls out the deeply damaging effects of Behaviourism on all aspects of our lives, especially learning and education, and advocates for a living systems approach to business, education and community.

As you will have heard on previous episodes with Sandra Milligan, Yong Zhao, folks from Mastery Transcript Consortium and Rethinking Assessment, standardised tests and assessments are often one of the biggest barriers to change in education as these credentials and school-leaving certificates often hold the key that opens up the next door or higher education for many young people.

In his book, The Good Ancestor, Roman challenged us all to consider the rights of future species and future citizens in the face of our current catastrophic obsession with short-term thinking. Now, Roman is leading us into the past to ask what can we learn from history in his fantastic new book History for Tomorrow: Inspiration from the Past for the Future of Humanity.

What does it really mean to have 'agency' and how might we create more opportunities for young people to step into their agency in meaningful ways? Indra Adnan has been exploring this concept in communities around the world as well as in grassroots political organising.

Wakanyi Hoffman is a storyteller, author, keynote speaker specialized in ubuntu philosophy, a scholar of indigenous knowledge, and narrative weaver of wisdom in AI. She was born and raised in Kenya before embarking on an adventure around the world and has so far lived in 8 countries on 4 continents.

Simply trying to avoid or remove uncertainty and complexity from the lives of our young people (and our own) just isn't a viable strategy anymore! So what do we do instead? How might we intentionally build our adaptive capacity to thrive in the face of these dynamics?

Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayner are internationally renowned social learning theorists and consultants. Their pioneering writing and consulting is influential in diverse fields including learning theory, business, government, international development, healthcare, and education.

What does it mean for those in culturally Eurocentric school systems around the world to learn from and with indigenous peoples about the role of education in community and connected with place? Should we even, after the horrors inflicted upon indigenous communities by settlers? These are delicate but important questions and it was a huge privilege to be able to sit down with Dr Marie Battiste to discuss them.