The Tattooed Teacher

On this episode of The Tattooed Teacher Podcast, I chat with Jess Robertson, child and family connection strategist, creator of the Connection Advantage method, speaker and TEDx speaker, to unpack her journey from early childhood educator to working with schools, families and organisations on connection.

Jess shares how 25 years of work starting in early childhood taught her that children and teenagers want  connection. For that to happen in a real way, they need to be seen, heard and valued by the adults around them.

We explore what really matters when it comes to connection:

• why connection is built in micro moments

• seeing past behaviour to the why, and why anger is often a cover for something else

• why nonverbal cues are read before your words, and what to do when you walk into class dysregulated

• why Jess works with the hardest case first, and why the quiet internalisers are the ones she worries about most

• why boundaries work best with the why attached, and how healthy discomfort builds resilience

We also get into releasing the guilt as a teacher or parent, keeping up with AI so kids aren’t left to navigate it alone, the shock of life after school, and why a lesson that goes wrong means “you got a lesson today”. And yes, the tattoo question gets a “not yet”.

A key thread throughout the episode is to see past the behaviour and look for the why. That’s where connection happens and where change starts.

This is a warm, practical conversation for teachers, school leaders, parents, and anyone who works with or raises young people.

#StudentWellbeing #BehaviourSupport #Connection #Education #SchoolLeadership #TheTattooedTeacher #Podcast

You can find Jess

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jess-robertson-au/

https://jessrobertson.com.au/

https://www.journey-together.com.au/

https://www.instagram.com/jessrobertsonofficial/

https://www.facebook.com/jessrobertsonofficial

you can find me on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-murdoch-%F0%9F%A4%99-68a846b1/

YouTube

https://youtube.com/@thetattooedteacher01?si=tJy1U6Huz684CtZE

Follow DJ Fruit Salad:

https://www.instagram.com/djfruitsaladofficial/

Sponsored byThe BUSY School

This episode is brought to you by The BUSY School— a network of special assistance schools for Year 11 and 12 students who've disengaged from mainstream education. Small classes, real industry connections, and completely free for students.

 If you know a young person who needs a different kind of school, The BUSY School could be exactly what they're looking for. The BUSY School is part ofThe BUSY Group — an Australian not-for-profit approaching its 50th year, operating across Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

 Find out if there's a BUSY School near you at ⁠⁠busyschools.edu.qld.au⁠⁠

Supported by

The Design & Technologies Resource Site

An Australian platform built to help creators, educators, and podcasters increase their visibility and connect with Design & Technologies educators.

https://andacod.com.au/

TeacherPD Australia

https://teacherpd.com.au/

Australia's Premier Teacher PD Directory

On this episode of The Tattooed Teacher Podcast, I chat with Michael Murphy, PhD candidate researching the purpose of education, university lecturer, podcaster and self-described cultural cartographer, to unpack his journey from marine biology student to mapping how education systems think.

Michael shares how he ended up in teaching by accident, how pages of notes became his mantra (help people live well in a world that’s worth living in), and what he misses and doesn’t miss since stepping out of the classroom. The love is a big gap. The bells are not.

We explore what really matters when you zoom out on education:

• why the Australian curriculum is a map, and why the projection we choose, content, experience or capabilities, changes everything

• the public transport map of purposes of education from his PhD, and what happens when 3,000 people are on the economic productivity line and the equality line is empty

• decoupling and recoupling, like when a system says it wants lifelong learners but measures it with Year 12 completion

• why process and product both matter, from bin projects to enrichment toys designed for Adelaide Zoo

• making a part of someone’s good day instead of trying to make it, and why empathy is under a layer, not lost

We also get into the metaphors we live by, three-year-olds in kindy to build submarines, why schools aren’t the only ones killing creativity, banning with replacement, buddy benches, and why we need more glimmers. 

A key thread throughout the episode is simple but important: you can’t highlight everything on a map, so own what you prioritise and what you simplify.

This is a thoughtful, funny, and open conversation for teachers, school leaders, and anyone who has ever wondered what school is actually for.

#PurposeOfEducation #Curriculum #EducationLeadership #TeacherLife #EducationAustralia #SchoolLeadership #Education #TheTattooedTeacher #Podcast

You can find Michael

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-murphy-edup/

https://www.edup.education/

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/vacilando/id1801641843

you can find me on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-murdoch-%F0%9F%A4%99-68a846b1/

YouTube

https://youtube.com/@thetattooedteacher01?si=tJy1U6Huz684CtZE

Follow DJ Fruit Salad:

https://www.instagram.com/djfruitsaladofficial/

Sponsored byThe BUSY School

This episode is brought to you by The BUSY School— a network of special assistance schools for Year 11 and 12 students who've disengaged from mainstream education. Small classes, real industry connections, and completely free for students.

 If you know a young person who needs a different kind of school, The BUSY School could be exactly what they're looking for. The BUSY School is part ofThe BUSY Group — an Australian not-for-profit approaching its 50th year, operating across Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

 Find out if there's a BUSY School near you at ⁠⁠busyschools.edu.qld.au⁠⁠

Supported by

The Design & Technologies Resource Site

An Australian platform built to help creators, educators, and podcasters increase their visibility and connect with Design & Technologies educators.

https://andacod.com.au/

TeacherPD Australia

https://teacherpd.com.au/

Australia's Premier Teacher PD Directory

On this episode of The Tattooed Teacher Podcast, I chat with Nicole Dyson, CEO and founder of Future Anything working with over 100 schools and YouthX (Australia’s only startup accelerator. She is a multi-award-winning educator and entrepreneur and a global authority on project-based learning, entrepreneurial pedagogy and school transformation..

We explore what really matters when you want young people to think, not just recall:

• why the first idea is always the worst idea, and how project-based learning, entrepreneurial thinking and design thinking build the iteration school rarely rewards

• productive friction, and her TEDx research showing 15-minute challenges lifted student self-confidence by four to eight percent in ten weeks

• why you can't AI your way through a design classroom, and what an analog-led process with AI at targeted points looks like

• why academic high flyers often drop a grade the first time they hit project work, while the C and D students climb

• why agency only shows up when students feel safe and connected

A key thread throughout the episode is simple but important: if we want young people ready for life after school, they need to learn they can sit in ambiguity and work their way through it.

This is a practical, honest conversation for teachers, school leaders, and anyone who wants more joy in how we design learning.

The Future Anything Challenge grand final is on 9 November at the Thomas Dixon Centre in Brisbane and online.

#FutureAnything #ProjectBasedLearning #DesignThinking #AIinEducation #StudentAgency #Education #TheTattooedTeacher #Podcast

You can find Nicole

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicdyson/

https://www.futureanything.com/

[email protected]

you can find me on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-murdoch-%F0%9F%A4%99-68a846b1/

YouTube

https://youtube.com/@thetattooedteacher01?si=tJy1U6Huz684CtZE

Follow DJ Fruit Salad:

https://www.instagram.com/djfruitsaladofficial/

Sponsored byThe BUSY School

This episode is brought to you by The BUSY School— a network of special assistance schools for Year 11 and 12 students who've disengaged from mainstream education. Small classes, real industry connections, and completely free for students.

 If you know a young person who needs a different kind of school, The BUSY School could be exactly what they're looking for. The BUSY School is part ofThe BUSY Group — an Australian not-for-profit approaching its 50th year, operating across Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

 Find out if there's a BUSY School near you at ⁠⁠busyschools.edu.qld.au⁠⁠

Supported by

The Design & Technologies Resource Site

An Australian platform built to help creators, educators, and podcasters increase their visibility and connect with Design & Technologies educators.

https://andacod.com.au/

TeacherPD Australia

https://teacherpd.com.au/

Australia's Premier Teacher PD Directory

On this episode of The Tattooed Teacher Podcast, I chat with Dr Louise White, Postdoctoral Research Fellow and consulting researcher, about what it really means to include autistic students in our schools and why the research keeps pointing back to the same thing: belonging, flexibility, and teachers who are willing to look at the barriers instead of the child.

Louise's story is deeply personal, her son was diagnosed with autism. Which led to her own diagnosis. Forty years of questions suddenly had answers. And everything that came with her diagnosis: forgiveness, identity, and a complete reorientation of what she thought she knew after fifteen years in the classroom.

We explore what really matters when it comes to autism, inclusion, and education:

•        why inclusion isn't just having someone in the room, it's creating an environment where everyone has what they need to succeed and genuinely feels like they belong

•        the difference between changing a child and changing their barriers, and why one of those approaches will always fail

•        what autistic students wish teachers understood, and why it doesn't cost any money and barely takes any time

•        why flexibility is the most important thing schools can build in for autistic students, and what getting that wrong looks like in practice

•        how Louise's own experience of leaving school and dropping out of law, unable to take a train or order a coffee, shaped her PhD research on preparing autistic young adults for adulthood

We also get into masking, the spoon theory, monotropism, what the EKKA crowd taught us about how far we've come as a society, why school captain and dropout can belong to the same person, and why providing questions in advance is a simple adjustment that makes a profound difference.

A key thread throughout the episode is simple but important: you are not going to change an autistic person's brain. But you can change the barriers. And that's where teachers have real power.

This is a warm, honest, and deeply important conversation for classroom teachers, school leaders, parents, and anyone who works with or alongside autistic young people.

#AutismEducation #InclusiveEducation #Neurodiversity #Education #AutismResearch #TheTattooedTeacher #Podcast

You can find Louise

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-louise-white-0a8908338/

https://reframingautism.org.au/

https://www.aspect.org.au/

you can find me on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-murdoch-%F0%9F%A4%99-68a846b1/

YouTube

https://youtube.com/@thetattooedteacher01?si=tJy1U6Huz684CtZE

Follow DJ Fruit Salad:

https://www.instagram.com/djfruitsaladofficial/

Sponsored byThe BUSY School

This episode is brought to you by The BUSY School— a network of special assistance schools for Year 11 and 12 students who've disengaged from mainstream education. Small classes, real industry connections, and completely free for students.

 If you know a young person who needs a different kind of school, The BUSY School could be exactly what they're looking for. The BUSY School is part ofThe BUSY Group — an Australian not-for-profit approaching its 50th year, operating across Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

 Find out if there's a BUSY School near you at ⁠⁠busyschools.edu.qld.au⁠⁠

Supported by

The Design & Technologies Resource Site

An Australian platform built to help creators, educators, and podcasters increase their visibility and connect with Design & Technologies educators.

https://andacod.com.au/

TeacherPD Australia

https://teacherpd.com.au/

Australia's Premier Teacher PD Directory

On this episode of The Tattooed Teacher Podcast, I chat with Dr Hugh Chilton, Head of Teaching and Learning at Wycliffe Christian School, co-founder and Associate Director of the Sydney Character Initiative, and co-chair of Research Invested Schools, about what it really means to form human beings well and why character education needs to sit at the centre of everything schools do.

Hugh is a thinker, a connector, and someone who genuinely lives the ideas he talks about. This is one of those conversations that gave me a perspective and plenty to think on.

We explore what really matters when it comes to character, education, and human formation:

• why the root word of education, educare, to draw out, is still the most important frame for thinking about what teachers actually do

• the founding vision of Scots College and how that inspired Scots X, a school within a school learning lab built around connection, choice, and challenge for Year 8 boys

• the three learning modes Hugh and his team designed: mastery training, interdisciplinary quests, and real world projects that asked boys to make something worth showcasing

• what the Sydney Character Initiative is building, including the Forming the Formers fellowship and how Australia can bring its own distinct voice to character education globally

• why character isn't just caught in relationships but is also taught through the content, the texts, and the craft of what we put in front of young people every day

We also get into Research Invested Schools, how different types of schools have more in common than we think, Hugh's challenge to every educator to spend time reflecting on what they actually believe about being human, and why "come and behold what is true, good and beautiful together" might be the most important sentence in education.

A key thread throughout the episode is simple but important: we are forming character in every interaction, every day, whether we are intentional about it or not. So let's be intentional.

This is a rich, warm, and deeply thoughtful conversation for educators, school leaders, and anyone who believes that education is fundamentally about human formation.

#TheTattooedTeacher #Podcast #CharacterEducation #HumanFormation #SchoolLeadership #TeacherLife #EducationAustralia #SydneyCharacterInitiative

You can find Hugh 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hughchilton/

https://www.sydney.edu.au/arts/our-research/research-areas/education-and-social-work/sydney-character-initiative.html

you can find me on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-murdoch-%F0%9F%A4%99-68a846b1/

YouTube

https://youtube.com/@thetattooedteacher01?si=tJy1U6Huz684CtZE

Follow DJ Fruit Salad:

https://www.instagram.com/djfruitsaladofficial/

Sponsored byThe BUSY School

This episode is brought to you by The BUSY School— a network of special assistance schools for Year 11 and 12 students who've disengaged from mainstream education. Small classes, real industry connections, and completely free for students.

 If you know a young person who needs a different kind of school, The BUSY School could be exactly what they're looking for. The BUSY School is part ofThe BUSY Group — an Australian not-for-profit approaching its 50th year, operating across Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

 Find out if there's a BUSY School near you at ⁠⁠busyschools.edu.qld.au⁠⁠

Supported by

The Design & Technologies Resource Site

An Australian platform built to help creators, educators, and podcasters increase their visibility and connect with Design & Technologies educators.

https://andacod.com.au/

TeacherPD Australia

https://teacherpd.com.au/

Australia's Premier Teacher PD Directory

On this episode of The Tattooed Teacher Podcast, I chat with my good mate Josiah Hein, teacher, content creator, TikTok sensation, and the man behind “Jesus loves you baby”, about what it looks like to build an authentic life in public without losing who you actually are.

And yes, this is episode 75. Fortune had it that Josiah landed the milestone. Couldn't have picked a better one.

Josiah came to Australia to get a visa. Teaching was on the critical skills list, he had a business degree, and one more year of study seemed like a pretty good trade for residency. That was over ten years ago and he's still in classrooms, still bringing the joy, and somehow also appearing on Channel 9 couches, red carpets for Paramount, and TikTok feeds across the country.

We explore what really matters when you're building something real:

• how a promise made at a best mate's funeral at age thirteen brought Josiah to Australia, and what happened when he got here

• the video filmed on a plane coming back from his sister's funeral that hit five million views, and the luggage carousel video that changed everything an hour later

• why he says Jesus loves you, baby at the end of every video, and the story behind it that you won't see coming

• what overnight success actually looks like when it takes seven years of posting every single day to get there

• why the classroom keeps pulling him back even when the red carpet is calling, and why he reckons he's called to bring the party wherever he goes

We also get into staying grounded when the algorithm tries to change you, what authentic content creation actually costs in hours per day, why you have less to lose than you think when you take a risk, and the world trip that started with a video of a car engine block in minus forty-five degree Canadian winter.

A key thread throughout the episode is simple but important: the clout, the fame, and the opportunities are just a byproduct. If you lose your purpose and who you are, you lose everything.

This is a fun, honest, and genuinely joyful conversation for teachers, content creators, and anyone who needs reminding that a good life is built one real moment at a time.

#TheTattooedTeacher #Podcast #ContentCreation #TeacherLife #Authenticity #Education #EducationAustralia #SocialMedia

You can find Josiah

https://www.linkedin.com/in/josiahhein/

https://www.instagram.com/josiahhein/

https://www.youtube.com/@JosiahHein

https://lnk.bio/josiahhein

[email protected]

you can find me on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-murdoch-%F0%9F%A4%99-68a846b1/

YouTube

https://youtube.com/@thetattooedteacher01?si=tJy1U6Huz684CtZE

Follow DJ Fruit Salad:

https://www.instagram.com/djfruitsaladofficial/

Sponsored byThe BUSY School

This episode is brought to you by The BUSY School— a network of special assistance schools for Year 11 and 12 students who've disengaged from mainstream education. Small classes, real industry connections, and completely free for students.

 If you know a young person who needs a different kind of school, The BUSY School could be exactly what they're looking for. The BUSY School is part ofThe BUSY Group — an Australian not-for-profit approaching its 50th year, operating across Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

 Find out if there's a BUSY School near you at ⁠⁠busyschools.edu.qld.au⁠⁠

Supported by

The Design & Technologies Resource Site

An Australian platform built to help creators, educators, and podcasters increase their visibility and connect with Design & Technologies educators.

https://andacod.com.au/

TeacherPD Australia

https://teacherpd.com.au/

Australia's Premier Teacher PD Directory

On this episode of The Tattooed Teacher Podcast, I chat with Brad Gaynor, an educator, author, executive leadership coach, and current PhD candidate who's spent over three decades in Australian schools, from the classroom to the principal's office.

We explore:

• Why the negative narrative around education sticks, and what educators can do to flip the story themselves

• Brad's two burnouts, the "mask" he wore driving to and from work, and the moment a psychologist finally gave him language for what he was going through

• What "professional dignity" actually means: voice dignity, time dignity, and behavioural dignity, and how much of it schools have quietly stripped away

• His approach to coaching school leaders: building trust before advice, letting leaders speak last, and using rehearsal to prepare for hard conversations

• The PhD he's just started, researching "leadership moral injury" and the toll that implementing policies you don't believe in takes on the people running schools

Give teachers and leaders back their voice, their time, and the trust that they already know their students and their craft, and the profession starts to heal itself.

This one's for teachers feeling the weight of the job, and for school leaders wondering if the exhaustion they're carrying finally has a name.

#Education #SchoolLeadership #TeacherWellbeing #Burnout #ProfessionalDevelopment #Education #EdLeadership #thetattooedteacher #podcast

You can find Brad

https://www.linkedin.com/in/brad-gaynor-92b68b53/

https://bradgaynor.com.au/

you can find me on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-murdoch-%F0%9F%A4%99-68a846b1/

YouTube

https://youtube.com/@thetattooedteacher01?si=tJy1U6Huz684CtZE

Follow DJ Fruit Salad:

https://www.instagram.com/djfruitsaladofficial/

Sponsored byThe BUSY School

This episode is brought to you by The BUSY School— a network of special assistance schools for Year 11 and 12 students who've disengaged from mainstream education. Small classes, real industry connections, and completely free for students.

 If you know a young person who needs a different kind of school, The BUSY School could be exactly what they're looking for. The BUSY School is part ofThe BUSY Group — an Australian not-for-profit approaching its 50th year, operating across Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

 Find out if there's a BUSY School near you at ⁠⁠busyschools.edu.qld.au⁠⁠

Supported by

The Design & Technologies Resource Site

An Australian platform built to help creators, educators, and podcasters increase their visibility and connect with Design & Technologies educators.

https://andacod.com.au/

TeacherPD Australia

https://teacherpd.com.au/

Australia's Premier Teacher PD Directory

On this episode of The Tattooed Teacher Podcast, I chat with Pip Cleaves, Systems and Practice designer, CEO and founder of her own company, and content specialist for Canva. Pip shares her journey through education, her innovative teaching methods, and her insights on integrating AI and neurodiversity into learning, and why authentic, personalised learning has the power to transform student engagement and success.

Pip and I actually met face to face at TEDx Burleigh Heads, and I've been following her work on LinkedIn for a while. This conversation did not disappoint.

We explore what really matters when it comes to learning, neurodiversity, and AI in education:

• why authentic learning has to solve real problems that exist in the world around young people, not problems decided on someone's sofa at 10pm on a Saturday night

• what it means to be neurodivergent in a school system that moves you by bells, sits you under bright lights, and wonders why you explode by week eight of term

• why we're doing more and more for neurodiverse students but almost nothing for neurodiverse teachers, and what supporting a teacher's nervous system could do for the whole profession

• how Pip uses AI not to think for her, but to get her started, keep her present, and handle the low-level tasks that would otherwise drain everything she has

• why the first answer AI gives you is never the one you should use, and what the to and fro of getting it right actually teaches young people about thinking

We also get into project-based learning, sensory profiling, ADHD diagnosis in mid-life, using Gen AI to design a pottery stamp in ten minutes, and why a to-do list is really just a wish list that never ends.

A key thread throughout the episode is simple but important: AI works best when curiosity drives it, not shortcuts.

This is a warm, honest, and genuinely energising conversation for educators, school leaders, and anyone who's ever wondered if there's a better way to support the humans doing the teaching, not just the ones doing the learning.

#Neurodiversity #ADHD #AIinEducation #TeacherWellbeing #Education #Teaching #ProjectBasedLearning  #thetattooedteacher #podcast

You can find Pip

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pipcleaves/

https://www.patternandthread.com.au/

you can find me on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-murdoch-%F0%9F%A4%99-68a846b1/

YouTube

https://youtube.com/@thetattooedteacher01?si=tJy1U6Huz684CtZE

Follow DJ Fruit Salad:

https://www.instagram.com/djfruitsaladofficial/

Sponsored byThe BUSY School

This episode is brought to you by The BUSY School— a network of special assistance schools for Year 11 and 12 students who've disengaged from mainstream education. Small classes, real industry connections, and completely free for students.

 If you know a young person who needs a different kind of school, The BUSY School could be exactly what they're looking for. The BUSY School is part ofThe BUSY Group — an Australian not-for-profit approaching its 50th year, operating across Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

 Find out if there's a BUSY School near you at ⁠⁠busyschools.edu.qld.au⁠⁠

Supported by

The Design & Technologies Resource Site

An Australian platform built to help creators, educators, and podcasters increase their visibility and connect with Design & Technologies educators.

https://andacod.com.au/

TeacherPD Australia

https://teacherpd.com.au/

Australia's Premier Teacher PD Directory

On this episode of The Tattooed Teacher Podcast, I chat with Dr Damian Bebell, Assistant Research Professor at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education and a Senior Research Associate at the Center for the Study of Testing, Evaluation, and Educational Policy, about what twenty years of educational technology research actually tells us about what works in classrooms and what doesn't.

Damian has designed and conducted numerous research and evaluation studies investigating the effects of 1-to-1 technology programs (laptops, iPads, etc.) and other computer-based technology tools on teaching and learning in a wide range of educational settings. 

He has spent his career following teachers as we innovate in real time with kids, leadership looking in the door and parents looking over our shoulder. He's not a classroom teacher. He's never been in educational leadership. He's the researcher asking the simple but profound questions that most of us are too busy to stop and answer.

We explore what really matters when it comes to educational technology and research:

• why the teacher is the fulcrum of every educational technology program in the world, and what the research consistently shows about what makes the difference between a program that works and one that doesn't

• the mission, implementation, assessment framework and why most schools nail the first two but completely lose the plot on the third

• how the tools of research have been democratised, and why any teacher can now collect, analyse, and share meaningful data about their own classroom without an academic institution or a budget

• why screen time limits miss the point entirely, and why what a student is doing on a screen matters infinitely more than how long they're doing it

• what the Apple Distinguished Schools research revealed about teacher burnout, efficacy, and what actually keeps great teachers in the profession

We also discuss what every school should ask before making a technology investment, why young teachers are not necessarily better with technology than experienced ones, and why a teacher who uses technology for creative, collaborative projects is statistically less likely to leave education.

A key thread throughout the episode is simple but important: technology can amplify great teaching and lead to results you could never achieve without it, but it cannot fix a teaching problem. That part is still all us.

This is a rich, wide-ranging, and genuinely fascinating conversation for classroom teachers, school leaders, and anyone trying to make sense of what the research actually says about educational technology.

You can find Damian

https://www.linkedin.com/in/damian-bebell-2403259/

https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/about.html

A summary of Damian's published research can be found here:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Damian_Bebell/research?ev=prf_act 

you can find me on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-murdoch-%F0%9F%A4%99-68a846b1/

YouTube

https://youtube.com/@thetattooedteacher01?si=tJy1U6Huz684CtZE

Follow DJ Fruit Salad:

https://www.instagram.com/djfruitsaladofficial/

Sponsored byThe BUSY School

This episode is brought to you by The BUSY School— a network of special assistance schools for Year 11 and 12 students who've disengaged from mainstream education. Small classes, real industry connections, and completely free for students.

 If you know a young person who needs a different kind of school, The BUSY School could be exactly what they're looking for. The BUSY School is part ofThe BUSY Group — an Australian not-for-profit approaching its 50th year, operating across Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

 Find out if there's a BUSY School near you at ⁠⁠busyschools.edu.qld.au⁠⁠

Supported by

The Design & Technologies Resource Site

https://andacod.com.au/

TeacherPD Australia

https://teacherpd.com.au/

On this episode of The Tattooed Teacher Podcast, I chat with Rashan Senanayake, founder of Inspired Education, lecturer and author, about two of the most important conversations happening in education right now: how design thinking actually works in a school context, and what AI should and shouldn't be doing in our classrooms.

Rashan works at the intersection of human-centred design and artificial intelligence, and this conversation cuts through the noise to help educators trying to make sense of both.

We explore what really matters when it comes to AI and design thinking in education:

• why design thinking is human-centred innovation at its core, and why empathy, collaboration, and experimentation are the three pillars every educator needs to understand

• how to bring design thinking into any subject area, not just creative ones, and why the messy, non-linear process is exactly the point

• why AI should be bolstering the human relationship in schools, not replacing it, and what a proper AI literacy and governance framework actually looks like

• the difference between what AI is genuinely good at, speed, scale, and information, and what only humans can do, judgment, ethics, relationships, and creative thinking

• what the OECD, World Economic Forum, and United Nations all agree on when it comes to the skills every student needs right now

A key thought through the episode is simple but important: design thinking and AI both work best when the human stays at the centre. Remove that and everything falls apart.

This is a practical, and genuinely important conversation for educators, school leaders, and anyone trying to figure out where AI and design thinking actually fit in a school.

#AIinEducation #DesignThinking #EdTech #HumanCentredDesign#FutureOfEducation #thetattooedteacher #podcast

You can find Rashan

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rashansenanayake/

https://rashansenanayake.com/

https://i-edu.com.au/

you can find me on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-murdoch-%F0%9F%A4%99-68a846b1/

YouTube

https://youtube.com/@thetattooedteacher01?si=tJy1U6Huz684CtZE

Follow DJ Fruit Salad:

https://www.instagram.com/djfruitsaladofficial/

Sponsored byThe BUSY School

This episode is brought to you by The BUSY School— a network of special assistance schools for Year 11 and 12 students who've disengaged from mainstream education. Small classes, real industry connections, and completely free for students.

 If you know a young person who needs a different kind of school, The BUSY School could be exactly what they're looking for. The BUSY School is part ofThe BUSY Group — an Australian not-for-profit approaching its 50th year, operating across Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

 Find out if there's a BUSY School near you at ⁠⁠busyschools.edu.qld.au⁠⁠

Supported by

The Design & Technologies Resource Site

An Australian platform built to help creators, educators, and podcasters increase their visibility and connect with Design & Technologies educators.

https://andacod.com.au/

TeacherPD Australia

https://teacherpd.com.au/

Australia's Premier Teacher PD Directory