ActOnLearning

Fascinating dialogue with Alexis Finet, Assistant Professor of the Practice in the Instruction of French, and French Language Program Director at Vanderbilt University. A native of France, he has taught languages and music over the last two decades, from younger audiences to seniors, nationally and internationally: in France, Colombia, Japan, South Mississippi, North Florida, and more recently, in Nashville. You can find out more about Alexis' work.

In this episode, Tuovi Ronkainen, talks about future skills, and invites pedagogy for teaching with the practice of students to imagine future, UNESCO agenda for FUTURES Anticipation talks about literacy of futures, competencies of critically thinking about multiple scenario and critcally imagining alternatives.

In this episode, we meet Joao Gabriel Almeida Doctor of Communication, Coordinador de Círculos at Instituto de Pensamiento y Cultura en América Latina. Reflecting on what kind of stakeholder engagement should we support in order to build platforms that support meaningful learning. Joao, combines the pedagogical with the technological challenges as well as ideas, with his experience of being an online teacher exclusively since 2016, and also researcher. In the first few minutes will introduce the context of our dialogue with Joao and then we invite you to a deep listening experience and co-creating with Joao's reflections and invitations. I am most grateful and so excited to be working with student agents and artists, T (13y old) and P ( 10 y old) that make all the editing.

In this episode of "Moving through Reimagining education with children, parents, and facilitators from Kubrio" we meet Dawn Fung. In my opinion, this episode is about freedom as learning, it is about learning as LIFE, and as adults dreaming a better way. Here is something Dawn wrote as a post on her social media and that I stand by: “This time, I am developing our young talents and my own creative development will follow theirs. I find this order of life satisfying. It is our young people’s time and we should not hinder their development.” This is an image of paradigm shift practicing emerging strategies, listening towards WeQ.  Dawn Fung founded Homeschool Singapore. She was one of the key leaders in the Singapore homeschooling landscape in the early 2010s-2020s…She believes that education reform begins in the family and every child should have every right to great education. She runs two companies, ParentED International and Little U, focusing on personalising care for parenting, teaching and children’s education for all. She provides consultation to individuals and companies on human resource development with a unique unschooling/homeschooling approach. Dawn Fung homeschools her three children and is based in Singapore.”…so much more to find out, check out the website https://dawnfung.sg/. You might like to take a pencil, paper and scribble images about learning, education, development while you listen. You would enjoy hearing Dawn sharing what she would like to be, do, and learn in the next 1-2 years and how that moves us all somehow. It was a joy to meet Dawn. Strength, innovation, resourcefulness, feminine principle, unlearning are some of the words that comes to mind from this dialogue. 

Ranjani Shettar- Ranjani is international artist, proud mother and wife, just to allow a short introduction for Ranjani ’s ”works are in many prestigious museum collections and have been the subject of several solo presentations including at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (The MET) (2018)..” and I invite you to access more on her work here. In this episode with Ranjani, you would be partnering with the idea “how do I as an adult, parent maybe, step up my game and raise curiosity at the level of a child”? with the beautiful idea Ranjani expresses “I am only as educated as my youngest child, I am having my second chance”. Isn’t this an expression of infinite mindset for learning and education (thinking of the great resource book called Infinite game by Simon Sinek) ? I am a political scientist so I have to appreciate the decoding of how concepts work in practice,  the learning in 21st-century skills-based allowing it to happen. We have one such decoding from this interview with Ranjani “ how can we support children learn?”: 1. Their interest/motivation (unhindered time) ; 2. Adult guidance, and facilitation when needed to be available; 3. Access to learning resources. As this year started for me with the beautiful words from Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi wishing us “ renewed optimism” I hear Ranjani mentioning “ she chooses to be optimistic about technology to support teachers’ work”.  Last but not least one of my favorite scaffolding models for learning, that I use in teachers' training programs that of Lev Vygotsky’s proximity zone where learning becomes actually possible, and I always offer the example of a childhood moment when we learn to use a bicycle without the training wheels, so you want to listen to Ranjani telling us her story about this moment.

There is this naturality about the dialogue that will make you feel close and supported, reflected, and that I believe will open new perspectives. I leave you with this question as you jump into this amazing episode “ what is it that you naturally need to thrive to be creative?”.

In this episode, we meet Heli Aikio. Heli's work description in her own words " In Finland, we have three Saami languages and each Saami group has their own music tradition. We Aanaar Saami people have music tradition called livđe. I have written about livđe on Sámi musihkka akademiija homepage." We approach via Heli's music Integrative Practice, the practice of teachers and students leadership in the classroom. Livde the local music it is not sung to someone, "we sing them", " narrative songs describe people, events, and feelings without a sense of this relationship of dedication, or ownership". You can follow more on this topic in this article https://actonlearning.org/integrative-practices-how-we-step-and-show-up-in-the-classroom-matters/ 

In this episode, we talk with Tiina Otala about Reimagining upper Education, a case of Aalto University. I really appreciate the idea of  "how do we support multidisciplinary" and Tiina takes the examples of the different department spaces " they blend, nothing needs to stand up more than the rest". How is a space inviting well-being in very concrete ways, and how students can choose to experiment-based learning or a more academic approach setting foundation. The culture of " learn by doing mistakes", and my absolute favorite this time, how is your idea, your design, creation, prototype stands the test of " future proof", how Tiina calls it " students and teachers will challenge your creation with the future proof".  How do we practice imagination and vision for learning spaces where people- researchers, students, and teachers feel so easy to approach projects from many different perspectives, Tiina mentions " it is so easy, as all spaces are so transparent, you accidentally meet people", you cannot avoid cooperation, collaboration and getting your work supported by others work. Besides the transparency factor, is "scale it down" element, students don't want to leave this place, they learn, work, socialize, eat, and create their own personal events, "it feels like really your home,  comfortable place" although we are talking about the 2nd largest University in Finland. We talk about the ecosystem, and last but not least future thinking, as Tiina can see how her work will develop. In this article we develop more the topic of "future proof" spaces https://actonlearning.org/future-proof-spaces/

In this episode, we meet Angela and Annie, with "Moving through Reimagining education with parents, children, and facilitators from Kubrio". How do we learn and teach with feedback and feedforward, building on our strengths, you will have a clear example of this with our guests. Angela and Annie also dialogue on what is that we should unlearn like " bad habits", like bullying. What is the ideal or vision from students' perspective? How should we measure the impact of learning in schools? with "Happy Faces, not sad and worried faces", indifferent of what ages students have or what challenges ( like exams or tests). Angela and Annie also express how can we organize as teachers, educators, and facilitators students' agency (autonomy) from the earliest ages possible, a zone of praxis for students' responsibility for their own learning. This means teachers, and educators invest more time and skills in "more facilitation" in the spaces of learning. 

This episode's guest Katrina Hsu talks about bravery, pioneering, image of parenting, co-education, co-learning, and trusting the fact that everything is just fine. The role of an educator is that of empowering learners to listen and follow their interests, build and organize for themselves a community of other learners, creating a network to experience the joy of learning and making education meaningful. The transformative call, as with Janelle Schroy, (our guest in episode 2) Katrina invites this perspective of letting go of the idea that we need to receive quality education. Education is not something we receive. Katrina invites her daughters’ wisdom with their education, which makes this dialogue insightful and indifferent of where we perform as educators.

In this episode, we meet and interview Janelle Schroy - Author, TV show producer, educator, coach, entrepreneur, entrepreneur mentor, wife, partner, and mom of four amazing graces (this choice of wording is explained in the interview). Let us introduce you to why you should listen to this episode and get your family to listen to it too. First, it transmits so much optimism, getting you to dream or imagine wild and big. There is the invitation to the process of stepping into your power as a parent and imagine a future of education in which here are Janelle’s words “you are the CEO of your family education”. There is this need to PAUSE on that, as we shift from us parents expecting, moving away from our agency (with some frustrations, tensions, and blaming game) to stepping into educational leadership and "owning it for our family". You will have insights into 21st-century skills-based education from the perspective of the parent, the coach, the educator and also the observer of her 4 daughters like lifelong learning ( this is a big one), the pursuit of curiosity, Open Mind, I will add Open Heart( compassion/empathy) and Open Will (courage/action) because it involves the transformation and updates of the self. How am I changed by this experience the meaningfulness and wisdom in learning with this paradigm shift and learning by action by doing. Janelle moving through Reimaging Education and her family's vision of “traveling being educational rather than recreational” will take you on a journey.