Episode 82 invites listeners to arrive into 2026 with honesty, care and a sense of shared responsibility - not as individuals carrying the world alone, but as part of a wider web of life.

Drawing on reflections from Jane Goodall’s work, seasonal change and lived experience, this episode explores how we stay present without panic. It asks what it really means to act with courage, dignity and relationship in uncertain times.

Here are some of her reflections:

1. Opening the year with Jane Goodall’s reminder that what we do makes a difference - and that change begins with choosing the kind of difference we want to make, rather than acting from fear or urgency.
2. Reflecting on the seasonal crossing between hemispheres, and how growth, decay and renewal are always happening somewhere, all the time - whether we notice or not.
3. Sitting with Alder as a teacher: a tree that carries water and fire, masculine and feminine, strength and softness and how this mirrors our inner lives, our fragility, and our need for both boundaries and surrender.
4. Honouring Jane Goodall’s long life of peaceful activism and her understanding that people can only carry what they can - that survival, dignity and stability matter before wider responsibility.
5. Realising that while I never thought of my work as “democratic,” the erosion of democracy makes it clear how relational, sociocratic and consent-based outdoor learning really is.
6. Sharing the moment from the interview that stayed with me most: Jane Goodall’s mother responding to her disappearance not with punishment, but with curiosity and listening - and how her spirit was not broken.
7. Returning to regulation through breath, movement, sensory connection and time outdoors - remembering that responsibility was never meant to be an individual burden, but a collective one shared with the more-than-human world.
8. Realising that healthy outdoor learning mirrors healthy systems: listening matters, power works best when shared, and sociocratic, relational ways of being together are deeply needed now.
9. Closing with a reframing of “together we can” - not as fixing everything, but as listening more deeply, carrying only what is ours, acting where we are, staying in relationship, and choosing our difference with care.

Shownotes: https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-82-together-we-can/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate