Coconut Thinking

How might ethics world the futures our generation will leave behind? How might education respond within the climate context?

In this episode, I speak with Peter Sutoris. Peter is an environmental anthropologist and assistant professor in climate and development at the University of Leeds’ Sustainability Research Institute. He is the author of the books “Visions of Development” and “Educating for the Anthropocene,” and coauthor of the forthcoming “Development Reimagined.” He is a researcher, writer and educator, and has spent over a decade working on issues of education, health and social development. We discuss:

🥥 How we might confront the underlying patterns of extraction rather than hope for technology to make tweaks in the existing system;

🥥 What happens to ethics if we care about what life was before I was born and what will happen after we die?

🥥 What needs to change in our thinking, in our stories, and what might the system accept and what might it resist.

Check us out www.coconut-thinking. com

How might cultivating local relationships with humans and the more-than-human contribute to overall planetary health?

In this episode, I speak with Pim Martens. Pim has a PhD in applied mathematics and biological sciences. He is a professor of Planetary Health and dean of Maastricht University College Venlo. Pim has been a professor of Sustainable Development for 18 years and is currently the project leader and principal investigator of several projects related to planetary health, sustainability science and education, and human-animal-nature relationships. Pim Martens is a scientist and founder of AnimalWise, a “think and do tank” integrating scientific knowledge and animal advocacy to bring about sustainable change in our relationship with animals. Furthermore, he was the founding Director of the Maastricht University Graduate School of Sustainability Science (MUST) and initiated the M.Sc. program in Sustainability Science and Policy. We discuss:

🥥 The importance of developing empathy for non-human animals for a kinder world, including between humans;

🥥 How sustainability and regeneration begin with how we treat all living things;

🥥 How planetary health might reframe how we understand the networks of our interconnections.

Check us out: www.coconut-thinking.com

How do we nurture radical human relationships through authentic stories of learning?

In this episode, I speak with Virgel Hammonds. Virgel is a nationally recognized leader in education innovation. He became CEO of the Aurora Institute in 2024, bringing over two decades of experience in learner-centered education. Formerly Chief Learning Officer at KnowledgeWorks, Virgel has partnered with national policymakers and local communities to redesign learning systems. He has also served as superintendent in Maine and high school principal in California, where he implemented personalized, mastery-based learning models. Virgel is an active board member for several educational organizations, continuing his mission to transform education for all learners.

The Aurora Institute is a pioneering organization focused on advancing competency-based education frameworks. It champions personalized, learner-centered approaches, ensuring students progress based on mastery rather than seat time. The institute collaborates with educators, policymakers, and communities to redesign learning systems, promoting equity and deeper learning for all students.

We discuss:

🥥 Shifting from school systems to communities of learning, recognizing learning as a 24/7, anywhere journey;

🥥 Listening to voices from the entire community to bring in local values, while creating connections with wider networks.

🥥 Showing up with authenticity in order to deepen our relationships, with courage and vulnerability.

Check us out www.coconut-thinking.com

You can find the Aurora Institute on https://aurora-institute.org/

How is place an emergent, relational experience, rather than a fixed location?

In this special episode, Charlotte and Benjamin speak alongside the sounds of Paris to create a conversation that includes the city. We come to Europe every couple of years to visit family, and this year we will also drop my son off to university. We recorded this episode in raw form, so we can be immersed in experience. We discuss:

🥥 How place creates the conditions for agency to emerge;

🥥 How learning experiences might be designed with emergence in mind, that is, with enabling constraints that nurture inquiry and the unexpected, without giving way to "anything goes;"

🥥 Specific examples of learner projects that have contributed to life and led to deeper learning (and yes, outcomes).

Come be part of this conversation that is alive with the city. When we listen to the stories around us, we appreciate that Nature is everywhere because we are Nature.

How might we commit to change in order to create conditions for deeper learning and put students first?

In this episode, I speak with Kyle Wagner. Kyle is an education consultant and founder of Transform Educational Consulting (TEC). He specializes in empowering schools to create socially, emotionally, and globally aware citizens through project-based learning. With over 20 years of experience, Kyle has worked with numerous schools worldwide, helping design more than 500 learning experiences. He previously served as the coordinator for Futures Academy at the International School of Beijing and as a project-based learning leader at High Tech High. Kyle is the author of "The Power of Simple," which provides strategies for school transformation. We discuss:

🥥 How changes in the physical environment can augment or constrain deeper learning;

🥥 How artifacts of learning are touch points in journeys of learning rather than ends in themselves;

🥥 How no matter where you are, or think you are, you can make a shift toward more student-centered learning.

Check us out www.coconut-thinking.com

And look Kyle up on https://transformschool.com/

How might regenerative travel teach us about reciprocity, contributing to a different approach to education?

In this episode I speak with David Leventhal and Ximena Rodrigues of Playa Viva.  Playa Viva is a B-Corp certified brand that leverages hospitality to bring capital to work to improve ecosystems, for people and planet, to create vibrant, resilient, healthy and profitable systems for all participants. It takes a "slow money" committed investment and runs entirely off-grid. Playa Viva works extensively with its local community to support health and education. David Leventhal is its Founder. He is a regenerative (social and environmental) impact entrepreneur and investor. Regeneration principles have guided much of his work including the founding of Regenerative Travel and Regenerative Resorts to support similar independent hotel owners around the world. Ximena Rodriguez is the ReSiMar Regenerative Education Coordinator. Sher works closely with the local community to develop citizenship through education, working alongside guests at Playa Viva. We discuss:

🥥 How travel is an exchange of discovery between peoples coming from two different places;

🥥 How we are not the principle characters of the story, but rather participants here and in this moment;

🥥 How travel is not reward for working, it is education for living... which has a parallel to schools.

Check us out www.coconut-thinking.com

And look up Playa Viva: www.playaviva.com

What if we decided to do things differently?

I speak with Clover Hogan. Clover is a 24-year-old climate activist and the founding Executive Director of Force of Nature - the youth non-profit turning climate anxiety into action. She has worked alongside the world’s leading authorities on sustainability, consulted within the boardrooms of Fortune 50 companies, and counseled heads of state. Clover has spoken alongside Jane Goodall and Vandana Shiva, and interviewed the 14th Dalai Lama. Her TED talk, 'What to do when climate change feels unstoppable', has been viewed over 2 million times. At 22 she was recognized on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, and has featured in countless media outlets. And she is a Green School Bali graduate! We discuss:

🥥 How the real problem isn't that youth is climate anxious, it's that people in power are not;

🥥 How Departments of Defense might consider defending our rivers, mountains, forests, and air—where preserving the peace becomes about climate;

🥥 How social justice and climate justice are the indissociable, and how transforming education has to take this into account.

Check out our website: www.coconut-thinking.com

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