Welcome to this special episode of Educating to be Human. In Season 1, we asked big questions about what it means to be human, about creativity and curiosity, change and adaptation. And we spoke with people who were committed to transformative change. That included change in the classroom, in communities, in prisons, and questions like, how do we teach empathy, self-worth, and civic engagement? How can we nurture curiosity and creativity while in formal or informal education environments?
And while there's no one right answer to any of these, we do know that education is a critical lever. And it's never just about what's written in a textbook. It's about our shared humanity, our ability to create the extraordinary, our struggles, our desire for a better future. And in Season One, we've explored how we might better challenge, inspire, and connect. So today, we revisit some of those voices, reflecting on how this conversation can and will be carried into Season Two.
We're going to learn how to be not just students of academics, we're going to learn how to be students of human development and self-worth. At its heart, humanity and society are about connection between people, ideas, and communities. It's about understanding oneself and seeing one another fully. Things called monsters or monstrous reveal the radical vulnerability of human beings in human existence, right? There's a stuff that happens to us that we cannot stop and it's awful.
So we kind of look at that to figure out how can we stop it? How do we survive it? How do we predict it? What do we do about it? There's four words on the front of the mask. It says 'happy', 'smart', 'outgoing'. And 'caring'. That's what this young man, this is from a young man, shows on the front of the mask. The mask is anonymous. I don't know who it belongs to, but I would never forget it when I first opened it up and I saw it.
And on the back of this mask, if you look, there's a bunch of words written, the same word written 18 times. And that word is anger. When education teaches us how to engage with the world, how to think critically, and really see what's around us, it can become a tool for transformation, not for the individual alone, but for society as a whole.
If the participatory citizens are organizing a food drive and the personally responsible citizens are donating cans of food, The social justice-oriented citizens might be asking, how come in one of the richest countries in the world, we have people who are hungry? And what can we do about that? Let's go beyond the numbers. Let's go ask people how they are. And let's not just say like, 'hey, how's your financial aid, right?' Or what do you think of your net price for college?
Why don't we just start with, 'how you doing?' Full stop. How you doing? And it was in response to 'how are you' that a student said, 'not okay, haven't eaten in three days.' And that opens it up. Even if, you know, people who want to see places renamed in the name of justice, who may not be successful in. The world of maps and street signs and official names at least can use our platform to say , 'Here's what I think this place should be called .' Here's my ancestral name for it.
Here's some information about what it was called 100 or 200 or 500 years ago. My hope is that this can be something that helps to support peace and dialogue. Humanity thrives in spaces where imagination and curiosity meet. It's not just about solving problems, but about reimagining what's possible, creating connections between the tangible and the intangible. Improv has given me the ability and the joy of being surprised and delighted by the unknown, the unexpected, right?
There's to walk into that, to not be threatened by it, to walk into this with other people and be changed, right? To be flexible, to know who I am strongly enough that I can know that if I change, I'm still me, but to adjust and see what can be born from this new relationship in this moment. You know, creativity-It can happen in a solo environment, but we're never truly disconnected. We're always either affecting the environment or each other. It's never in a vacuum, right?
We're always building off of what someone else has done and what we are doing becomes part of that lineage. It's always rooted in community, regardless of what we're doing. When you study a language, you don't just study a language, you study everything. Because language, you know, you talk about everything. And in the same way, when you study the maths of harmony, you're studying chemistry and physics and reality and radio waves and wireless charging and the song.
Education shapes how we see ourselves and others. It's about envisioning a society that values all voices. Being in conversations that, honestly, quite frankly, they just haven't really been able to have consistently, even about themselves, even about what they want to do, their hopes, their dreams, being vulnerable in spaces, having some difficult conversations.
And so for them, to be in a room regularly with other young men of color working positively to impact lives in their community plays a huge role. You know, I would say one of the greatest challenges of the field really is helping people understand incarcerated students-as students and as people. And so, in a sense, that is the challenge and the tension that you're constantly confronting when you work in this space.
Across these stories, one thread ties them together: the enduring complexity and resilience of our shared humanity. As we move toward Season Two and navigate through increasingly complex times, the questions we've explored here will only grow more urgent. How are we cultivating spaces where creativity and connection thrive? How can we develop critical thinking, resilience, and self-reflection?
Thank you for walking this path with us as we reflect and learn and challenge ourselves and each other in this journey. In Season Two, we'll continue to push these conversations forward, diving deeper into our understanding of what educating to be human truly means. I'm Lisa Petridis. Thank you for listening.