What if we're preparing young people for a future that will never exist?

After more than 15 years working across education systems and helping schools improve outcomes for students, Owen Losse has reached a surprising conclusion: we spend too much time trying to predict the future, and not enough time understanding how people actually learn.

In this conversation, Owen draws on his experience as an education leader to explore one of the biggest questions facing education today:

How do we prepare people for a future we can't predict?

From AI and the surprising history of the chalkboard to confidence, practical skills, and why learning has to be hard, this conversation challenges many of our assumptions about education, technology, and what it really means to prepare people for an unknowable future.

Whether you're an educator, parent, leader, builder, or lifelong learner, you'll walk away with a different perspective on learning—and why the most important skills may be the ones that never go out of date.

Support the podcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/HarrisonGardner

Connect with Harrison:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_harrisongardner

Website: https://www.harrisongardner.net/

Books: https://www.harrisongardner.net/bookstore-1

Pre-order my new book HEAT-SHELTER-WATER-FOOD

https://www.harrisongardner.net/heat-shelter-water-food

Connect with Owen:

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

Chapters

00:00 Learning Has to Be Hard

02:45 Owen's Journey Through Education

09:06 Why Education Doesn't Work the Same Everywhere

12:20 What Should Schools Actually Teach?

15:45 Why Schools Keep Chasing the Future

24:50 Why Schools Are Always Behind

27:33 The AI Education Debate Happened 100 Years Ago

34:35 How Build School Teaches People to Learn

39:30 How Schools Can Stop Chasing Society

50:15 What 15-Year-Olds Really Think About Home

58:00 Is Confidence a Skill?

59:20 What Cooking 100 Chickens Teaches Us About Learning

01:03:20 Learning From Failure

01:05:05 What a Good Learning Environment Looks Like

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if your home could produce its own water, energy, food, and comfort?

For more than 50 years, Michael Reynolds has challenged conventional architecture by building off-grid, self-sustaining homes from materials most people consider trash. As the creator of the Earthship movement, he believes our homes should take care of us, not the other way around.

But this conversation isn't really about architecture.

It's about independence.

It's about questioning the systems we've come to depend on and asking a simple question:

What if the resources we need are already all around us?

In this episode, Mike shares why he built homes from tires, beer cans, and bottles and why he believes autonomous off-grid housing is the future.

We explore Earthships, off-grid living, self-reliance, and sustainable architecture, while asking whether waste could become one of our most valuable resources.

Whether you're interested in alternative building or simply learning to think differently, this conversation will challenge the way you think about home, freedom, and resilience.

Support the podcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/HarrisonGardner

CONNECT WITH ME

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_harrisongardner

Website: https://www.harrisongardner.net/

Bookstore: https://www.harrisongardner.net/bookstore-1 

Pre-order my new book HEAT-SHELTER-WATER-FOOD

https://www.harrisongardner.net/heat-shelter-water-food

Earthship Biotecture: 

https://earthship.com/

Earthship Academy & Training:

https://earthship.com/learn

00:00 Building a House From Beer Cans

01:04 The Colombia Story

03:40 Why Mike Started Building Earthships

08:10 The 60-Year Fight Against the System

12:00 Why Autonomous Off-Grid Housing Matters

14:09 Ad Break: Supporting The Tools at Hand

15:57 Unbuilding the Way We Think About Homes

20:30 The Six Things Every Human Needs

25:30 Why Everything Has Become an Industry

29:05 The Knowledge Mike Wants to Spread

38:03 What COVID Taught Mike About Self-Reliance

43:21 Why a House Should Be a Machine

48:25 How Earthships Changed Harrison's Life

49:45 The Garbage Warrior & Harrison's New Book

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When I was 19, I went to Kenya because I wanted to make myself useful in the world. Instead, I found myself caught in the middle of the 2007–08 post-election violence and came home with a feeling of helplessness and a question that has stayed with me for almost 20 years: why do some people keep believing their actions matter while others eventually stop trying?

Years later, I went back to the journal I kept during that time and started looking at the experience differently. In this episode, I explore Martin Seligman’s famous dog experiment and the psychology of learned helplessness, and how our sense of agency is shaped by repeated experience.

I also look at where I see the same pattern today, from Irish farmers dealing with wool that has almost no economic value to a generation growing up with every global crisis in their pockets. And I ask what it might take to unlearn helplessness and start finding the levers that still work.

Pre-order my new book HEAT-SHELTER-WATER-FOOD

https://www.harrisongardner.net/heat-shelter-water-food

Support the podcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/HarrisonGardner

CONNECT WITH ME

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_harrisongardner

Website: https://www.harrisongardner.net/

Chapters

00:00 Intro: Kenya and Helplessness

01:03 Welcome Back

01:40 Why I Went to Kenya

04:10 Kenya's 2007 Election Crisis

13:03 Reading My Diary From Kenya

24:04 Martin Seligman's Dog Experiment

26:30 Learned Helplessness and Agency

28:00 Why I Thought I Could Change the World

31:20 Finding the Same Pattern Everywhere

33:42 The Irish Wool Problem

38:10 What Today's Generation Is Learning

42:30 What Really Happened in Kenya?

48:20 The Work That Actually Matters

52:50 Looking Back Twenty Years Later

55:40 Finding the Levers Around Us

56:50 My New Book: Heat, Shelter, Water, Food

57:35 Credits

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ireland wastes over a million euro of renewable energy every day while over half a million households can't afford to heat their homes. Alan Wyley is the CEO of Energycloud and has a €500 device that connects those two factors. He and Harrison talk about elegant solutions, stubborn optimism, and what it takes to bring an end to energy poverty.

Brought to you by Bord Gáis Energy.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr Clare Noone has sat in the rooms where the world tries to agree on its future. As a climate scientist who attended the most recent COP summit in Brazil, she has seen up close the gap between what the science says and what actually gets decided. She and Harrison talk about turning research into action, what it costs to keep communicating clearly when the stakes are this high, and what the rest of us can actually do with that information.

Contains strong language.

Brought to you by Bord Gáis Energy.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ankur Delight is a conflict mediator, farmer, mathematician, and one of Harrison's oldest friends. They met at the Gandhi Ashram and in this conversation they explore why conflict might actually be a gift, what really happens in a mediation room, and what it means to build community and connection in a world that keeps pulling itself apart.

Contains strong language.

Brought to you by Bord Gáis Energy.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ainle Ó Cairealláin has just returned from Cuba, where he travelled as part of the Nuestra América Convoy's humanitarian mission. He's also one of the most compelling voices in Ireland on the relationship between language, community, and identity. He and Harrison talk about language as a form of infrastructure, what it means to hold a culture together from the inside out, and why the communities with the least are often the ones who know most about resilience.

Brought to you by Bord Gáis Energy.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

IFTA award winning actor and writer Clare Dunne joins Harrison in the studio. Clare's performance as Amanda Kinsella in Kin has made her a household name, but what Harrison really wanted to talk about was Herself, Clare's film about a woman who builds her own home when the system fails her. She and Harrison talk about craft, identity, and the courage it takes to make the thing you need when nobody else will make it for you.

Contains strong language.

Brought to you by Bord Gáis Energy.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After years on the ocean, and then years growing vegetables, Matt Smith co-founded the charity Hometree to restore native woodland across Ireland. He and Harrison talk about ecological restoration, long-term thinking, and what it takes to build something with results you may never see.

Contains strong language.

Brought to you by Bord Gáis Energy.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Aoife Dunne is repeatedly selling out her hit comedy show GOOD GRIEF across Ireland and lucky for us, she found a moment in the middle of it all, to join us in the studio. In this episode, she and Harrison talk about what it actually takes to build a creative life, trust your own voice, and use comedy to process the harder parts of being alive with some honesty.

Contains strong language.

Brought to you by Bord Gáis Energy.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.