Carol Sanford (⁠⁠https://carolsanford.com/⁠⁠) 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.

Carol’s latest book, ‘No More Gold Stars: Regenerating Capacity to Think for Ourselves’ is in some ways a synthesis of many of her most powerful ideas that she has developed through a lifetime of practice and learning from various indigenous and wisdom traditions. But it also calls out the damaging Behaviourist ideas that have ‘become ubiquitous in all our lives and institutions’ and undermined our trust in our abilities to know ourselves and think for ourselves - in all of our various and richly diverse ways. As Tyson Yunkaporta calls it in his amazing foreword to the book, “the sharp and pointy gift that keeps on giving”.

As someone living with ALS, Carol’s voice can be a little hard to understand at times, so if you would like it you will find a transcript link here: ⁠⁠https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wkr31QCA2MO5y9AynAq0L7Qb1bStlk0muFralyIfBeM/edit?usp=sharing⁠⁠ (as well as the automatic transcription on Spotify and some other podcast platforms).

As Carol says in Part One: “I use the 7 First Principles of Living Systems to be rigorous in examination, precise in focus and in order to rise up and venerate life. Otherwise, we fool ourself for the sake of our ego.” (https://carolsanford.medium.com/the-regenerative-education-system-and-practice-part-1-23ffcc86326e)

Part Two: 

Principle 1 - Engage with wholes

Principle 2 - Evoke essence

Part Three: 

Principle 3 - Realise individual potential

Principle 4 - Development of mind and beings

Principle 5 - Work within nestedness

Part Four: 

Principle 6 - Laser focus to nodal

Principle 7 - Regenerate energy fields

(Due to Medium paywall, I am also sharing all of the articles, Parts 1-4, here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/12HWRFUbzmWpv4_k7JxLFgn7F99r8UG4o/view?usp=drive_link)

Carol refers to Alice Waters, chef and restauranteur who started the Edible Schoolyard movement at Berkeley.

⁠⁠https://search.worldcat.org/title/Edible-Schoolyard-:-a-universal-idea/oclc/1280875278⁠⁠

About Carol:

For four decades, Carol has worked with great leaders of successful businesses such as Google, DuPont, Intel, P&G, and Seventh Generation, educating them to develop their people and ensure a continuous stream of innovation that continually deliver extraordinary results.

Carol is a founder and designer of ⁠⁠The Regenerative Business Development Community⁠⁠ with lifetime members of almost 500 members, meeting in locations around the world and now online with leaders from multiple companies learning together in bi-quarterly events as well as an Annual ⁠⁠Regenerative Business Summit,⁠⁠ Carol is also a founder and designer of The Regenerative ⁠⁠Change Agent Development community⁠⁠, with members from three regions- Americas, EMEA, Deep Pacific with over 30 events a year in person and online with regenerative change agents learning about and creating change together.

Carol is the best-selling author of No More Gold Stars: Regenerating Capacity to Think for Ourselves, ⁠⁠The Regenerative Business⁠⁠: Redesign Work, Cultivate Human Potential, Achieve Extraordinary Outcomes; ⁠⁠The Responsible Entrepreneur⁠⁠: Four Game-Changing Archetypes for Founders, Leaders, and Impact Investors, ⁠⁠The Responsible Business⁠⁠: Reimagining Sustainability and Success;  and ⁠⁠No More Feedback⁠⁠: Cultivate Consciousness at Work. 

Her books have won over 15 awards so far and are required reading at leading business and management schools including Harvard, Stanford, Haas Berkeley and MIT.

Social Links

LinkedIn - @carolsanfordkeynote - https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolsanfordkeynote/

Instagram - @carolsanfordauthor - https://www.instagram.com/carolsanfordauthor/

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. This week I’m so excited to share an amazing success story of someone who decided that this compromise was just unacceptable for their young people. 

Viv White AM is CEO and co-founder (with John Hogan) of Big Picture Learning Australia (BPLA) - https://www.bigpicture.org.au/ - a non-profit company established in Australia in 2006. Building on the work started by Dennis Littky and Elliot Washor in the US in 1995 (https://www.bigpicture.org/), Big Picture Learning Australia’s design for personalised, student-driven learning is being implemented in over 50 schools around Australia. Viv has also pioneered a new non-ATAR credential known as the International Big Picture Learning Credential (IBPLC) that is warranted by the University of Melbourne, and accepted by 17 universities around Australia.

In 2018 Viv was appointed to the Order of Australia for her services to education and to the reengagement of young people in learning for life. Prior to leading BPLA, Viv was CEO of the Victorian Schools Innovation Commission and CEO of the Australian National Schools Network. She has a thirty-year history of international work in educational reform, research, policy and practice. Viv taught primary and secondary education for 13 years, worked in tertiary research for five years as a research fellow at Macquarie University and Victoria University, and served as an adjunct professor at the University of Western Sydney. Viv is a Fellow of the Australian Council of Education and was admitted, in 2014, to the Australian Businesswomen's Network Hall of Fame. Viv was also named one of The Australian Financial Review 100 Women of Influence in 2019.

Find out more:

LinkedIn: @viv-white - https://www.linkedin.com/in/viv-white-am-297642142/

Instagram: @bigpicture.edu.au - https://www.instagram.com/bigpicture.edu.au/ 

@bigpiclearning - https://www.instagram.com/bigpiclearning/ (US)

Website: https://www.bigpicture.org.au/

Welcome back to the first episode in the new series of the Future Learning Design podcast. The podcast now has a lovely new home at Good Impact Labs (goodimpactlabs.com). 

The first guest in this new series is the social philosopher and internationally best-selling author, Roman Krznaric

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.

His internationally bestselling books including The Good Ancestor, Empathy, The Wonderbox and Carpe Diem Regained, have been published in more than 25 languages. He is Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University’s Centre for Eudaimonia and Human Flourishing and founder of the world’s first Empathy Museum. 

After growing up in Sydney and Hong Kong, Roman studied at the universities of Oxford, London and Essex, where he gained his PhD in political science. Particularly known for his work on empathy and long-term thinking, his writings have been widely influential amongst political and ecological campaigners, education reformers, social entrepreneurs and designers. An acclaimed public speaker, his talks and workshops have taken him from a London prison to the TED global stage.

Over half a million people have watched his RSA Animate video The Power of Outrospection

Roman is a member of the Club of Rome and a Research Fellow of the Long Now Foundation. He previously worked as an academic, a gardener, a conversation activist and on human rights issues in Guatemala – the subject of his book What the Rich Don’t Tell the Poor. He is also a fanatical player of the medieval sport of real tennis, whose history he explores in The First Beautiful Game.

Social Links

X: @romankrznaric - https://x.com/romankrznaric 

Website: https://www.romankrznaric.com/ 

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.

For over twenty years, Indra Adnan has been writing, consulting, network-building and event-organising on the themes of future politics, conflict transformation, the role of the arts and integral thinking.

She is Founder and Co-initiator, together with Pat Kane, of The Alternative UK political platform, which answers the question: if politics is broken, what’s the alternative?

Indra has been writing consistently about soft power, public diplomacy and the power of attraction and relationship in international relations for over a decade, in major UK and US publications.

Indra is also a psycho-social therapist, founder of the Soft Power Network, and a writer and events producer. She has consulted to the World Economic Forum, Indian, Finnish and Danish governments, NATO, the Scottish Executive and the Institute of Contemporary Arts amongst others. Indra is currently Co-Lead in Bounce Beyond, a social enterprise network doing transformative work to cohere and connect the next global economies.

Her book The Politics of Waking Up: Power & Possibility In The Fractal Age is published by Perspectiva Press.

Social Links

LinkedIn: @indra-adnan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/indra-adnan-6b4aa32/

Instagram: @politics.of.waking.up - https://www.instagram.com/politics.of.waking.up/

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. 

In response to the limited presence of African stories by African storytellers in children’s literature, Wakanyi founded the African Folktales Project, an ongoing open-sourced resource of indigenous wisdom and knowledge for school children. Her diverse intercultural experiences have enriched her perspective on the human condition, while her commitment to cross-cultural knowledge sharing brings added value to her current academic fellowship appointment at The New Institute in Hamburg, Germany. 

She is the author of many stories including Sala: Mountain Warrior (2024) and The Twelve Days of Christmas Safari.

Wakanyi sits on many boards, such as the Kenya Education Fund, an organization dedicated to offering high school education to marginalized, gifted children. Additionally, her advisory role at The Contentment  Foundation underscores her dedication to global well-being. She is also a valued board member at Seeds of Wisdom, championing indigenous elders’ wisdom and knowledge exchange and is also a co-founder of HumanityLink.Org, a global digital communication solutions system for marginalized populations. Wakanyi is a curation partner on the Compassion Bot, a new AI revolution in conversations with compassion.  

Wakanyi is a graduate of University College London (UCL), where her thesis proposed integrating indigenous knowledge into global education systems. She also teaches a summer course at Brooklyn College, and her storytelling Curriculum is used at Presidio Graduate School for teachers training as climate advocates. 

Wakanyi is also a mother to four global nomad kids and together with her husband, they currently reside in The Netherlands. 

Social Links

Website: https://www.wakanyihoffman.com/

LinkedIn: @wakanyi-hoffman - https://www.linkedin.com/in/wakanyi-hoffman-77a9671a4/

Instagram: @waksnl - https://www.instagram.com/waksnl/

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?

Dr. Glenda Eoyang works with public and private organizations to help them thrive in the face of overwhelming complexity and uncertainty. She is a pioneer in the field of human systems dynamics (HSD), which she founded. Through Human Systems Dynamic Institute, Glenda uses her Models and Methods to help others see patterns in the chaos that surrounds them, understand the patterns in simple and powerful ways, and take practical steps to shift chaos into order. Her clients include Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Oxfam International, Canada School of Public Service, Cargill, Fraser Health Authority (BC), and Roche/Genentech.

Glenda’s latest book, with co-author Royce Holladay, is Adaptive Action: Leveraging Uncertainty in Your Organization (Stanford University Press, April 2013).

https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=21971

You can find out more about the Human Systems Dynamics Institute here: https://www.hsdinstitute.org/index.html

Social Links

LinkedIn: @glenda-eoyang - https://www.linkedin.com/in/glenda-eoyang-795786/

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. 

They founded the Social Learning Lab to host events on theory, practice, and leadership. Their more recent writing updated the theory in Learning in landscapes of practice and in the first volume in their new book series: Learning to make a difference: value creation in social learning spaces. 

I can also highly recommend their Communities of practice guidebook as a really useful resource.

Bev and Etienne's website - https://www.wenger-trayner.com/

Communities of practice within and across organizations: A guidebook (2nd edition) - https://www.wenger-trayner.com/cop-guidebook/

Learning to make a difference: value creation in social learning spaces - https://www.wenger-trayner.com/learning-to-make-a-difference-book/

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.

Dr Marie Battiste is a citizen of the Mi’kmaq Nation of Potlotek First Nations and of the Aroostook Band of Micmacs in Maine. She is professor emerita in the College of Education at the University of Saskatchewan. She is a widely published author and editor, an officer in the Order of Canada, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Among her multiple honours are a National Aboriginal Achievement Award, a University of Saskatchewan Distinguished Researcher Award, a Distinguished Academic Award from the Canadian Association of University Teachers, and the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Medal for Service to Canada.

Dr Battiste's new book is out in November 2024: 'Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage: A Canadian Obligation', co-written with James Sa'ke'j Youngblood Henderson.

https://www.ubcpress.ca/protecting-indigenous-knowledge-and-heritage-new-edition

In this mini-series, Tim Logan and Ewan McIntosh talk about some of the most interesting bits (to us) of intriguing guests on the show so far, followed by a bitesized excerpt.

What are the 'future skills' our young people need, and will the university of the future be unrecognisable from the universities of today? Laura Eigbrecht and Professor Ulf-Daniel Ehlers have gathered some of the top thinkers around the world who are creating the university of the future. They join Tim this week to share some of these powerful ideas.

'Creating the University of the Future: A Global View on Future Skills and Future Higher Education' - https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-658-42948-5

Laura Eigbrecht is a senior researcher at the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University at the Chair of Educational Management and Lifelong Learning.

As a doctoral candidate, she conducts research in the field of transformative and participatory future skills in higher education. After her binational bachelor's degree and her master's degree in children's and youth media, she worked at the children's channel of ARD and ZDF as well as in teaching and consulting in the field of migration, language and education.

Professor Ulf-Daniel Ehlers is the founder of mindful-leaders.net and a serial social entrepreneur. He is a full Professor of Educational Management at Baden-Wurttemberg Cooperative State University. In 2011, he launched Germany’s first Cooperative University, now serving 35,000 students.

In 2017, Ulf founded NextEducation (https://next-education.org/), focusing on the future of education and Future Skills. He served as Scientific Director at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology until 2023.

Ulf has collaborated with over 30 universities globally and held leadership roles in EURASHE and EDEN. He has delivered keynotes in 45 countries and authored over 20 books and 300 scholarly articles. A trained systemic coach, Ulf integrates Future Skills into education for sustainable development.

Social Links

LinkedIn: @laura-eigbrecht - https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-eigbrecht-60a586171/

@ulfehlers - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ulfehlers/

X: @uehlers - https://twitter.com/uehlers