Coconut Thinking

How might our stories be as unique as the place from which they unfold? In this episode, I speak with Jenny Andersson. Jenny is the founder of The Really Regenerative Centre. She works as a strategist, facilitator and educator, supporting organizations and communities to create visions for the future they want – together – and to find the energy, will and approaches to sustain long-term change. She also leads the cohort Power of Place, which is collective learning journey in regenerative placemaking. The aim of the course is to provide a living systems and regenerative thinking approach to how we design our places so that they can become places in which humans can fulfill their potential and true roles and all life thrives in harmony – so that the places that are precious to us become Places For Life. We discuss: 🥥 How place provides an entry point into understanding the enormous complexities of systems and the dynamic relationships within them; 🥥 How understanding your bioregion is critical to education because it connects us to place, but also appreciates the uniqueness of every system and our place [within/as] it; 🥥 The nestedness of all things, or rather, the rhizomatic relationships that we have with all aspects of society and life. Check us out www. coconut-thinking.com

How might we re-think higher education to be about our ability to discern the world and take action, not the diplomas we receive? I speak with Ronald Barnett. Ron has spent a lifetime in higher education as a scholar, institutional leader and manager, researcher, and writer. He is recognized as having introduced and developed the philosophy of higher education as a field in its own right (and he is the President of the recently established Philosophy and Theory of Higher Education Society, and co-editor of two major book series. Since 1990, he has been on the staff of the Education Faculty of University College London, where he is now an Emeritus Professor. Over the years, Ron has written and edited more than 35 books and over 150 papers has been cited in the literature over 25,000 times. There are about 3 million words of his in the public domain. He continues to act as a consultant to individual universities around the world on higher education matters, and also with his work in examining, reviewing, editing, and mentoring. We discuss: 🥥 Higher education as a process, not an institution; 🥥 The conspiracy that involves all stakeholders in grade inflation and the degradation of standards; 🥥 Ethics as the platform from which the critical thinker seeks to make the world a better place. Check us out on www.coconut-thinking.com

How might we create the conditions and spaces for learning to be wild? Or maybe we need to un-create them for wildness? I speak to Jennifer D. Klein and Jill Ackers-Clayton. Jennifer has a broad background in global education and global partnership development, student-centered curricular strategies, diversity and inclusivity work, authentic assessment, and experiential, inquiry-driven learning. She has facilitated workshops in English and Spanish on four continents, providing strategies for high-quality, globally connected project-based learning in all cultural and socioeconomic contexts, with an emphasis on amplifying student voice and shifting school culture to support such practices. Jennifer has worked with organizations such as the Buck Institute for Education, the Center for Global Education at the Asia Society, The Institute for International Education, Fulbright Japan, What School Could Be, the Centre for Global Education, TakingITGlobal, and the World Leadership School, to name a few. Jennifer’s first book, The Global Education Guidebook: Humanizing K–12 Classrooms Worldwide Through Equitable Partnerships, was published in 2017, and her second book, The Landscape Model of Learning: Designing Student-Centered Experiences for Cognitive and Cultural Inclusion, was released in 2022. Jill is an influential educator with nearly three decades of experience across a broad spectrum of the educational sector. Her journey began as a mathematics teacher, evolving into a technology expert after achieving her CCNA & MCSE certifications in Denver, Colorado. Her skills in managing school networks and teaching K-8 technology led her to significant roles in educational leadership. Her publication, "Developing Natural Curiosity through Project-Based Learning: Five Strategies for the PreK-3 Classroom," highlights her dedication to innovative education. As the Director of Education at VS America, her current role focuses on transforming learning environments, a crucial aspect of impacting student lives daily. This role involves collaborating with architectural firms, interior designers, and furniture vendors globally to create adaptable, flexible, and dynamic learning spaces. We discuss: 🥥 How learning experiences might be gatherings rather than collaborative efforts, to allow for possibilities and emergence; 🥥 How we might consider physical and non-physical spaces in different ways to promote learning, not simply to hold learning and learners; 🥥 How place-based learning flourishes when communities gather to solve problems. Check us out: www.coconut-thinking.com

How might we come together around a WHY rather than a HOW? Might the HOW sort itself out if we share purpose? In this episode, I speak with Kevin Bartlett. Kevin is the Founder of the Common Ground Collaborative. He has held leadership positions in the UK, Tanzania, Namibia, Austria, and Belgium, where he was most recently Director of the International School of Brussels from 2001-2015. Kevin has co-designed accreditation systems for the European Council of International Schools (ECIS), the Council of International Schools (CIS) and the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) and is currently engaged with a small team developing ACE, an innovative new accreditation protocol for NEASC. He is a writer and trainer in the field of curriculum design and leadership for learning for the Principals’ Training Center. As a curriculum designer, he was the initiator and early leader of the IB Primary Years Programme. We discuss: 🥥 How we might challenge schools to describe what they're doing as a process, in order to avoid getting stuck in outcomes; 🥥 How conceptual transfer opens up spaces for learning and action, how goes beyond the the here and now to make a difference in now and then. 🥥 How feeling inspires action, not academics; feeling is what connects us, not cognitive understanding (though that can nourish feeling). Check us out: www.coconut-thinking.com

How might AI create both utopian and dystopian futures all at the same time? What does this mean for education and for learning? In this episode, I speak with Darren Coxon. Darren is Founder of CoxonAI, a worldwide strategic advisory specialising in K-12 AI implementation. An educator for 25 years, Darren has most recently managed the operation of schools’ groups, notably Brighton College’s international schools, Forfar Education, and Britus Education, Bahrain, where he was COO. Darren has been at the forefront of educational technology for many years, including leading the first 6th form college in the UK to move to an iPad 1:1 model. He is now a major thought leader on AI in education, has delivered training for COBIS and the National College, as well as more recently delivering keynotes and workshops for HMC, GESS Dubai, and the Cottesmore AI Festival. We discuss: 🥥 How generative AI is only the beginning, yet there is nothing new in how we use technology to enhance ourselves, our learning, and our abilities; 🥥 The connections between AI and our response to ecological breakdown... maybe this is also an opportunity to connect non-virtually; 🥥 How we might prepare learners, no matter their age, to be useful, not in an extractive way, but rather one that helps all life thrive, and this is the re-purposing of schools. Check us out: www.coconut-thinking.com.

How might we free ourselves from the bondage of data to tell different stories of learning? In this episode, I speak with David Penberg, Ph.D. David is an urban and international educator, teacher and writer with 40 years of experience. His work is place-based and intergenerational. He supports communities seeking to become more vital, joyous and integrated places of learning. He has held leadership and teaching roles in non-profits, community-based organizations, independent, international and charter schools, and in higher education. His love for learning and interest in people are rooted in a belief in agency and democratic practices. We discuss: 🥥 How intentionality can lead to greater well-being and deeper learning; 🥥 How to amplify stories of care, ones that connect and inspire us; 🥥 How schools can find their place within the community, as places of learning for all generations. Check us out www.coconut-thinking.com

How might learning be flow between structure and emergence? How might we measure impact quantitatively and qualitatively? In this episode, I speak with Michael Bunce. Michael is an educator, researcher, and interdisciplinary sound artist, with wide-ranging international experience across education and the arts. As an educational researcher, he specialises in interdisciplinary learning design and innovation, working in leadership, teaching, research, and consultancy roles in schools, arts and community organisations, regulatory and advisory bodies, and universities. You'll want to check out http://www.learningmap.education/ for the visuals. This isn't a light conversation, yet Michael's work provides valuable insights into pedagogy and the cyclical and dynamic nature of learning, going from structured, to semi-structured, to emergent, to embedded forms of learning. Michael challenges us to reconsider how we might conceptualize learning. We discuss: 🥥 Emergent learning as an unpredictable process that arises when learners have agency and are the source of knowledge creation; 🥥 How content, capacity, and context find different value depending on the learning experience we have and need; 🥥 How we can tell different narratives of learning that include stories of impact. Check us out on www.coconut-thinking.com

What might flourishing look like as collective and individual experiences entangled in environment? Eri Mountbatten-O'Malley is a Senior lecturer in education policy at Bath Spa University and is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. His research is philosophical in nature and helps us to better understand social problems and social research. Eri’s central pedagogical interest is in nurturing critical thinking and complex concept development in students. Eri’s research interests are at the cross-roads between epistemology and ethics. In particular, he is interested in using philosophical skills to better understand social problems. His interests in concepts such as ‘well-being’ and ‘happiness’ led him to focus his PhD research on a conceptual analysis of ‘human flourishing. He has had the opportunity to share his research and read papers at numerous international conferences on the problems of reductionist accounts of normative concepts such as ‘wonder’ and ‘human flourishing’, and will be reading further papers over the coming year on related topics. We discuss: 🥥 How flourishing happens where the inner and outer worlds inter/intra-act; 🥥 How empiricism requires conceptual understanding that cannot easily be measured; 🥥 The dynamic nature of language as encounter. Check us out on www. coconut-thinking. com

How might we tell new stories open up our imagination to what is possible? In this episode, I speak with Cindy Forde. Cindy’s career has been dedicated to transforming how we understand and act as human beings towards Earth. She works globally with leaders across sectors in education, communication and sustainability including University of Cambridge and the UN, and believes the biggest impact we can have in making change is how we, as a global community, shape the mind-set of our children. In 2022, her children’s book “Bright New World” came out. Cindy is the founder of Planetari, an organization that sets out a new vision for education, to enable all children to understand our planet as a living system and to have the capacity for creativity and innovation to be able to live successfully here. Prior to Planetari, Cindy led the Cambridge Science Centre as CEO and the Blue Marine Foundation as Managing Director. We discuss: 🥥 The importance of storytelling for us to imagine and then create possibilities for new a new worlds; 🥥 How healing ourselves (including the planet) begins by listening to one another with open hearts and minds; 🥥 How ecological breakdown finds its roots in colonialism and our spirit of extraction. Check out our website: www.coconut-thinking.com. You'll find our articles and resources.

How might we transform our relationality with the world, as the world, especially the non-human world? In this episode, I speak with Rūta Žemčugovaitė. Rūta is a writer, artist, and researcher, working with mycelium for regenerative futures. With a background in Psychology, she learned to facilitate trauma healing and shadow work in Costa Rica and now works with technology, mycology (and trying to build things out of mycelium), affective computing, spatial sound design, creating art, regenerative practices, and writing. Rūtais a philosopher, flirts with post-humanism, and asks how we can design with the living world in mind. We discuss: 🥥 How humans are embedded in the ecosystems around it, meaning that if we increase the thriving of the non-human, we increase the thriving of the human; 🥥 How de-centering the human opens up spaces to changing our relationality [with/as] the living world, toward more regenerative approaches to life. 🥥 How we can re-draw the boundaries of our identities and idon'thave to stick to "human." Check out our website: www.coconut-thinking.com Check out Rūta's consultancy: https://www.sympoiesis.world/

What might happen when the landscape is our place of learning? In this episode, I speak with Luis Alberto Camargo. Luis was named the 2023 Richard Louv Prize recipient, in recognition of his life’s work, which has impacted 130,000 children and youth across Colombia. Luis is Founder and Executive Director of Organización para la Educación y Protección Ambiental (OpEPA - Colombia & USA), Co-Founder of The Weaving Lab, Core member of Regenerative Communities Network and Founder of Colombia Regenerativa, and Director at Thundra Outdoors. Global Change Leader, Young Global Leader (2008), Ashoka Fellow. Prior, he held a number of roles, including Adviser to the Vice-Minister of Environment of Colombia, Adviser to the Department of National Planning, Researcher at Universidad de los Andes and WWF, Wilderness Medicine Instructor at the Wilderness Medicine Institute of the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) as well as wilderness educator in the US. We discuss: 🥥 Listening to the silence as means of connecting and convening; 🥥 Ways in which schools in urban settings can re-connect with/as Nature within their context; 🥥 How if we want to live as Nature, we must learn as Nature. Check out our website: www.coconut-thinking.com.

What might it be like if we approached education and business as if we belonged to the living world? In this conversation, I speak with Gil Friend. Gil, a systems ecologist and business strategist, is widely considered a founder of the sustainable business movement. He is noted for inspiring, challenging, and supporting business, policy, and investment leaders to rethink business in light of the challenges posed by climate change and sustainability. Joel Makower describes him as "one of the most thoughtful and creative thinkers I know in the area of sustainable business, adeptly bridging the scientific and technical aspects of sustainability with the practical realities of the business world and its impact on people and the systems in which they operate." Gil is the founder and CEO of Natural Logic Inc., a strategy boutique advising the world's leading companies on building "massive value" through business-integrated sustainability strategies. He is an inaugural member of the Sustainability Hall of Fame and was named "one of the 10 most influential sustainability voices in America" by The Guardian. He is also recognized as one of the Bay Area's "top 25 movers and shakers" in CleanTech. Our discussion includes: 🥥 How can we reconsider capitalism to be reciprocal, not extractive; caring, not alienating; regenerating, not just generating for the few? 🥥 What would happen if we went to school to learn in order to contribute to all life, rather than simply attending prestigious institutions like Oxbridge? 🥥 Approaching capital (of all kinds, not just financial) in ways that meet the needs of all life, re-evaluating even what those needs are systemically rather than individually. Check out our website: www.coconut-thinking.com

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

How can capital contribute to the (non-monetary) wealth of the entire ecosystem? In this episode, I speak with Cordell Jacks. Cordell is the Co-founder and CEO of Regenerative Capital Group, a Canadian-based fund and accelerator that trains entrepreneurs in an 'alternative' entrepreneurial career path through ETA (entrepreneurship through acquisition). Instead of launching start-ups as platforms for change and innovation, RCG champions aspiring leaders to acquire small businesses that have already proven market validation and traction, and that are seeking ownership transition from retiring baby boomers (most of whom are without succession plans). RCG acquires these businesses for the entrepreneur (no investment capital required from entrepreneur), where they can earn meaningful equity in the business if they take it on a 'regenerative journey'- looking at all material areas of impact the business has, which can be utilized as levers for net-positive value creation for all stakeholders (human, social, and environmental) across their ecosystems. We discuss: 🥥 How mono-capitalism can be a source of degeneration, much like mono-agriculture can be, but eco-capitalism might open up different possibilities 🥥 How capital might become regenerative when it is nourishes every part of the ecosystem, human, other-than-human, and more than human 🥥 Approaching every moment as an opportunity to contribute to the ecosystem, to bring about the world we want. Check out our website: www.coconut-thinking.com

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

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

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

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

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

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