Education for social change – Détails, épisodes et analyse

The controversial statue of Cecil Rhodes is finally (slowly) falling at the University of Oxford, and Black Lives Matter protests have started or accelerated similar discussions in many other institutions. However, UK universities are still steeped in a legacy of colonialism and White privilege. In this podcast, I discuss with Mia Liyanage who recently published a high-profile report into the matter what decolonisation means, why it matters, and what the barriers are. The conversation definitely opened my eyes in some areas and gave me ideas of how I can approach teaching a bit differently in this academic year.

You can find Mia's report here and as we say in the conversation, it really is well worth a read.

As always, if you have any comments, questions or suggestions for guests, I'd be happy to hear from you, especially now that I am taking a step back to plan the next season. Please email me at lukas.wallrich@empower-training.de

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In this episode, I interview Robin Goldberg, the Chief Experience Officer of Minerva Schools at KGI. Minerva started as a project to rethink undergraduate education in the US, and move it beyond the current stage when students spend a huge amount of money for what often amounts to poorly designed education. They have designed a whole new curriculum and pedagogical approach, that runs almost entirely online - an inspiration not just in the age of Covid. Apart from the state of undergraduate education and Minverva's proposed solution, we also discuss lessons learned in the process of starting a new educational endeavour, so this episode is well worth a listen. If you then want to learn more, check out the book published by Minverva's founder: Building the Intentional University.

As always, if you have any comments, questions or suggestions for guests, I'd be happy to hear from you. Email me at lukas.wallrich@empower-training.de

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In this episode, I interview Chris Edwards, the CEO of Green School Taranaki in New Zealand. Before starting this school in early 2020, Chris was head of the United World College of South East Asia (UWCSEA), one of the largest international schools in the world; now he is building a much smaller school that is all about building a learning community in which much learning takes place outdoors and across subject boundaries.

In the interview, Chris recommends Planet of the Humans - a film that is freely available online and definitely worth watching. He also mentions the Mastery Transcript Consortium, a network of schools that want to certify learning in a way that goes beyond numeric grades in a small set of subjects - a fascinating initiative that I want to learn more about.

As always, if you have any comments, questions or suggestions for guests, I'd be happy to hear from you. Email me at lukas.wallrich@empower-training.de

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Sandra Ricker (on LinkedIn) is the Edu Tech Lead for Quinoa Education (webpage in German), a private school in Berlin that caters for disadvantaged children in an inner-city setting.

In this conversation, we talk about how they dealt with lock-down, and Sandra shares many practical strategies for using edu tech during the crisis and beyond. The main tool they used is padlet.com which looks like a great platform for any kind of online collaboration.

As always, if you have any comments, questions or suggestions for guests, I'd be happy to hear from you. Email me at lukas.wallrich@empower-training.de

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In this episode, I am speaking to Lord Jim Knight (@LordJimKnight), the Chief Education Officer at Tes Global. He was Minister of State for Schools and Learning under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and has since kept on working to improve education, both as a member of the House of Lords, and in various other roles.

In this conversation, we explore the challenges students and their teachers face during the Covid-19 lockdowns that have kept millions at home around the world. We discuss what schools should focus on when students return, and how the crisis might trigger some important reflection in the education system.

As always, if you have any comments, questions or suggestions for guests, I'd be happy to hear from you. Email me at lukas.wallrich@empower-training.de

Theme music from https://filmmusic.io: "Zigzag" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) Licence: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Photo by Psigrist - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

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James Tooley is Professor of Educational Entrepreneurship and Policy at the University of Buckinghamshire. His research work and other activities mostly focus on low-cost private schools, which he has come to see as one of the most powerful contributors to making high-quality education accessible to the poor in developing countries. In this conversation, we discuss how such schools work, why they are often overlooked in the development discourse, and how they can make a contribution. We also briefly explore James' general beliefs regarding the value of private schools that are independent of the state, and his attempts to make private education more accessible in the UK.

As always, if you have any comments, questions or suggestions for guests, I'd be happy to hear from you. Email me at lukas.wallrich@empower-training.de

If you want to learn more about James' work and research, I would suggest starting with his engaging book The Beautiful Tree in which he shares his journey and his key lessons learned.

If you want to look further at the research, James suggested the following articles: - Tooley & Longfield (2016) Affordability of private schools: exploration of a conundrum and towards a definition of ‘low-cost’ - Muralidharan & Sundararaman (2015) report on the Andra Pradesh voucher experiment (https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/130/3/1011/1931887) and James Tooley's alternative interpretation of the results that suggests that low-cost private schools perform better than reported initially - Kremer et al (2005) on the shockingly high rates of teacher absenteeism in Indian government schools

If you are interested in the realities of James' work in India, "Imprisoned in India"[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Imprisoned-India-Corruption-Extortion-Democracy/dp/178590101X] is also worth reading. The book tells the story of this imprisonment in Hyderabad after he had angered authorities with his work on the failings of state education and the presence of corruption and highlights the value of the rule of law we often take for granted.

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Catalyst is an international programme for young people and their teachers that addresses the War on Drugs in the Americas. It combines several months of online collaboration with an intense summer camp and thereby tries to really enable the participants to return to their communities, make a difference and develop their own voice in shaping drug policy. In this conversation, I speak with Theo di Castri, Catalyst's co-founder and with Diana Rodriguez Gomez, their director of education, to understand their programme and the reasons for this unique design.

As always, if you have any comments, questions or suggestions for guests, I'd be happy to hear from you. Email me at lukas.wallrich@empower-training.de

Theo and Diana suggested quite a few resources for anyone who wants to learn more about the War on Drugs and the many problems that come with it. For starters, this brief and free History of Drug Policy by David Courtwright is revealing, while the following books go further:

• The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander emphasizes the links between racism and the war on drugs in the US
• Plan Colombia by John Lindsay-Poland offers a stark example of the impact of the War on Drugs in South America
• Drug War Capitalism by Dawn Paley highlights the financial flows and economic incentives that fuel the War on Drugs and much violence beyond it

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Gwyn Wansbrough is the Executive Director of Partners for Youth Empowerment who work to bring more arts and creativity into all kinds of educational settings. Here, we talk about her work, her personal journey, and a range of inspiring organisations and approaches.

If the conversation inspires you to bring some more creativity into your own education work, PYE runs excellent facilitator trainings, partners with schools to make classrooms more creative and shares a range of free training resources online. As it is a specific favourite of both Gwyn and me, we discuss Theatre of the Oppressed in the conversation - if you are keen to learn more and use that in your work, Augusto Boal's book Games for Actors and Non-Actors is a fantastic resource.

Other organisations that Gwyn recommended people interested in this space should check out include UWC, the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, the Greater Good Center at Berkely, the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), and the Search Institute. Gwyn also referred to Youtube videos documenting PYE's Creative Classrooms work - here they are: Video 1 and Video 2.

As always, if you have any comments or questions, I'd be happy to hear from you. Email me at lukas.wallrich@empower-training.de

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Ross Hall is a co-founder of the Weaving Lab where he works to enable communities to create local educational ecosystems that bring all the different players together. With that, he wants to transform education into a force for universal wellbeing.

Before starting the Weaving Lab, Ross directed Ashoka's global educational strategy and spent a few years researching wellbeing - so he has a wealth of experience to draw on for this conversation that focuses on collective impact, system change, universal wellbeing and the demands placed on education in our current world. At the end of the conversation, Ross recommends the book "Designing Regenerative Cultures" by Daniel Christian Wahl. He also shares two examples of inspiring Weavers: Vishal Talreja in India (see his TEDx talk) and Catalina Cock in Colombia (see her TEDx talk in Spanish.

As always, if you have any comments or questions, I'd be happy to hear from you. Email me at lukas.wallrich@empower-training.de

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In this episode, I am speaking to Greg Jouriles who teaches at Hillsdale High in California. We speak about some of their inspiring simulations, which engage students with difficult materials across traditional subject divides, for example through a Trial of Human Nature. We also talk about how to include the spirit of such peak experiences into day to day teaching.

I initially learned about Greg's work in the book The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath, which is worth reading for anyone who thinks that students should not just remember prom when they reminisce about high school. After the interview, Greg shared a long list of sources for his educational practice and the design of their two flagship projects - have a look here. I have only just started going through it, but there seem to be many treasures there. If you discover any particular favourites, please let me know.

Also, if you have any comments or questions, I'd be happy to hear from you. Email me at lukas.wallrich@empower-training.de

Theme music from https://filmmusic.io: "Zigzag" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) Licence: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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