The Learning Future Podcast with Louka Parry

Season 2: Episode 17 - The Nature of Design with Ewan McEoin

How might we reconcile the human species with the natural environment through excellent design? This week on The Learning Future podcast, we speak with Ewan McEoin, Hugh D.T Williamson Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture at the NGV. We discuss the power of design to transcend pure aesthetics and ergonomics to include the political, social and ecological contexts in which things emerge. What are the consequences of our design choices, and how do we make the true cost of ch...

Season 2: Episode 16 - The Future of Productivity with Amantha Imber

What does the future of productivity look like? And how does it influence the shape of organisations? This week on The Learning Future podcast, we speak with Dr Amantaha Imber, founder of Inventium and in 2019 one of Australia’s 100 Women of Influence. Packed with insights and research, Amantha journeys with us as we explore designing organisations for deep work and greater job satisfaction. Using self-determination theory, OKRs, holacracy, the four-day working week and different chronotypes, we...

Season 2: Episode 15 - A Compassionate Education System with Sarah Mercer

How might we put humanity at the centre stage of education? This week on The Learning Future Podcast, we speak with Sarah Mercer, Professor of Foreign Language Teaching at the University of Graz, Austria, where she is Head of ELT methodology. We discuss how we might extend the cognitive component of empathy to develop critical thinking and critical reflection, how structures create inequitable contexts, and how self-efficacy and agency within education may lead to a richer human ecosystem. Profe...

Season 2: Episode 14 - Transforming Education Through Human Capacities with Michael Anderson

How might we support every young person to be prepared for the present and ready for their future? This week on The Learning Future Podcast, we speak with Professor Michael Anderson, an internationally recognised educational leader who has taught, researched, and published in education and transformation for over 20 years. We discuss how we might support every young person to have the opportunity for collaboration, critical reflection, communication and creativity to harness their present. How i...

Season 2: Episode 13 - Emerging Technologies, Equity and Identity with Ariam Mogos

How do we ensure that we can all be creators with emerging technologies? Ariam Mogos is a futurist fellow in the Stanford d.school K12 Lab. She designs prototypes with K-12 educators to engage, evaluate, and create with emerging technologies, crucially grounded in ethics and digital agency. She is currently working on a set of play-based analog resources focused on machine learning, blockchain, the IOT and other technologies. A constructivist educator passionate about computing, Ariam has worked...

Season 2: Episode 12 - Diet, health and wellbeing with Dr James Muecke AM

How does our diet impact our health and ability to live well? What must we know and do to decrease metabolic disease as parents, educators and citizens? In this episode, we speak with Dr James Muecke AM, an eye surgeon, humanitarian, social entrepreneur, and the Australian of the Year for 2020. James lived and worked as a doctor in Africa and subsequently as an eye surgeon in the Middle East, battling malaria, wild animals, and rebel soldiers, he then co-founded Vision Myanmar and also Sight For...

Season 2: Episode 11 - Catalysing Networks of Change with Dominic Regester

Does the collective good allow for greater individual growth? Are networks evolving to become the heart of peer-to-peer collaboration rather than a tool to elevate an individual’s contribution? On The Learning Future Podcast episode, we speak with Dominic Regester, a not-for-profit executive, convenor, educator, and interim-Program Lead for Salzburg Global Seminar. We discuss educating for the common good, the fundamental importance of collaboration, and how to make space for new initiatives tha...

Season 2: Episode 10 - Taking Off the Masks We Wear with Ashanti Branch

What masks do you wear in the world? How can we all step into vulnerability and self-love to create safer, kinder communities as men? In today's episode, Louka speaks with Ashanti Branch, an inspiring educator, advocate and social entrepreneur raised by a single mother on welfare in Oakland. After studying engineering at California Polytechnic, Ashanti found his passion for teaching while tutoring struggling students. In 2004, as a first-year teacher, Ashanti started The Ever Forward Club to pro...

Season 2: Episode 9 - Liberating Learning from Schooling with Santiago Rincón-Gallardo

Season 2: Episode 8 - Empowering Girls with Patrice Juah

Season 2: Episode 7 - Toward a Human Paradigm with Michael Fullan

Season 2: Episode 6 - The Values-Driven Organisation with Manjula Dissanayake

Season 2: Episode 5 - Self-Determined Education with Hayley McQuire

Season 2: Episode 4 - Imagination by Design with David Staley

Season 2: Episode 3 - A New Learning Paradigm with Stephen Harris

Season 2: Episode 2 - Understanding Suffering, Grief and Death with Zenith Virago

In a Covid world, all of us have experienced loss. So how might we understand grief and powerfully acknowledge the fact that all things come to an end, including our lives and those of others around us? In today's powerful episode we speak with Zenith Virago about the rites of passage in our lives and how we can powerfully experience loss and death. Zenith is a maverick and respected pioneer, teaching both nationally and Internationally, with her work best described as assisting people to die we...

Season 2: Episode 1 - A New Definition of Success with Valerie Hannon

What is education for? And how might we create a new definition of success, that enables us all to thrive in life, society, and on our planet? In today’s episode, we speak with Valerie Hannon, co-founder of Innovation Unit, a social enterprise creating new ways for people to belong and contribute to thriving societies. We discuss learning ecosystems, how we define success, and what kind of new school we need for the learning future. Valerie Hannon’s career spans leadership of education systems, ...

Episode 20 - Season One Summary

Join us for a reflection on Season One, with Louka Parry sharing highlights and themes shared from the 18 different guests that contributed their thinking against the uncertainty of 2020. A year of disruption, and a year that might be seen as one of the most important in the history of education. Thanks for joining us so far on the journey as we inquire, examine, question and illuminate the possibilities that exist for our learning future.

Episode 19 - Education 2050 with Ana Rold

Ana is an award-winning media executive. She is the founder of Diplomatic Courier, the flagship media network and magazine for top diplomats and policy leaders around the world. For over a decade she has served as the chief editor of the G7, G20, and APEC summit publications. Her futuristic think tank, the World in 2050 has convened over 10,000 multi-stakeholders in the United States and Europe since 2012. And since 2006, Ana has taught Comparative Politics at Northeastern University. thelearnin...

Episode 18 - The National Park City with Daniel Raven-Ellison

This week we doing something different. Today we share an episode from our friends at The Future City Podcast, where our CEO Louka Parry and his co-host Eyal Halamish speak with Daniel Raven-Ellison. Dan is a Guerrilla Geographer, National Geographic Emerging Explorer and led the campaign to make London the world’s first National Park City. A former secondary school Head of Geography, Daniel’s work focuses on exploring and thinking about places in creative ways. Daniel shares brilliant insights ...

Episode 17 - Learning and Wellbeing with Emiliana Rodriguez

What does being well look like for you? And how might we all become more self-aware by designing learning environments and experiences that support collective wellbeing? Join us for today's episode where Louka speaks with Emiliana Rodriguez on social emotional learning, ethics, neuroscience and the ABCs of wellbeing. Emiliana is Co-founder and Education Director at AtentaMente, a Mexican organisation that helps teachers to cultivate wellbeing for themselves and for children through Social and Em...

Episode 16 - Deep work and Productive Struggle with Kwaku Aning

How do we create space for deep work? And how can we create experiences that enable deep work through productive struggle? On this episode Louka Parry speaks with Kwaku Aning, the Director of the Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurial Thinking at the San Diego Jewish Academy. We explore human capabilities, technology, art, agency and how we can create space for deep work through productive struggle. Kwaku is an educator, professional wonderer, connector, and advocate for students. He is a glob...

Episode 15 - A Curriculum for Contribution to Humanity with Joanne McEachen

How do we create societies where we focus on our contributions not just narrow results? How might our schools become places where our learners can be who they are and not leave their culture at the gate? In this episode, Louka speaks with Joanne McEachen about our roles as educators, leaders and parents to consider who we are, how we fit into the world, and how we contribute to humanity? We speak about self-knowledge, contributive curriculum and the role of new assessments and activate agency. J...

Episode 14 - Safe Schools by Design with Barry Svigals

How might we design schools that delight children, inspire learning, and nurture community? Violence of all kinds has created a world of fear and trauma, especially when coupled with the mass anxiety that has been such a part of our experience of 2020. In this episode, Louka speaks with Barry Svigals, and award-winning architect, artist, educator and designer, and recently the School Safety Fellow at the Stanford d.school. Svigals trained as an architect at the Yale School of Architecture, and a...

Episode 13 - Building a Learning Economy with Chris Purifoy

What is the internet of education? And how might information and value between k-12 schools, higher ed, online learning, and employment be better shared through building the Internet of Education? Today Louka Parry speaks with Chris Purifoy, CEO of Learning Economy, about their ambitious global goal—to increase the impact of investment in humans, solve equity gaps, and empower learners and employees with better access to their data. Chris talks about the pain points of a fragmented supply chain ...

Episode 12 - Social Emotional Skills in K-12 Education with Jennifer Adams

How developed are your social emotional skills? When and where did you learn them? And how might schools, educators, parents and leaders more effectively support the growth of these non-cognitive, 'soft' skills, alongside technical learning and academics? Today Louka speaks with Dr Jennifer Adams on why a stronger focus on social emotional learning can increase success both in school and in life. Jennifer is the former Director of Education of the Ottawa-Carlton School District in Canada, a netw...

Episode 11 - Equitable Education with Michael Nettles

What does it take to develop an equitable education system? Today we speak with Dr Michael Nettles, Senior Vice President and the Edmund W. Gordon Chair of ETS’s Policy Evaluation & Research Center about assessment, education systems and equity. In 2014, President Obama appointed Dr. Nettles to the President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans. Listen to our discussion on how education improves the quality of life and can dismantle ignorance and divisions wi...

Episode 10 - How to Lead a Quest with Jason Fox

What makes for meaningful progress at work, at school and in our life? And how might we ensure that in our quests in learning, teaching, innovating and leading we aren't seduced by delusions of progress? In today's podcast we speak with brilliant Dr Jason Fox, an author, leadership advisor and wizard-philosopher, and delve into complexity as we seek to pioneer new and meaningful progress—beyond the default. Join us for a dangerous, sincere and ironic conversation, as we inquire into how we might...

Episode 9 - A Happiness Curriculum with Shailendra Sharma

Can we teach our children to be happy? What if we tried to teach not just one child, but 1.5 million children across one of the world’s great cities, New Delhi? What might the world learn from this approach to elevate mindfulness, social emotional learning and happiness alongside academic studies? Join Shailendra Sharma and Louka Parry as they discuss the Happiness Curriculum, one of the reforms seeking to enhance the learning of students in the Government schools of Delhi. Shailendra is the Pri...

Episode 8 - Digital Skills for the New Economy with Barbara Holzapfel

A seven year old today will graduate as part of the Class of 2030. How might we set them up for success in our increasingly digital world? On today's episode we speak with Barbara Holzapfel, GM of Microsoft Education, about technology, social emotional learning and the future of work. Barbara works across the entire Microsoft portfolio leading the strategic Education segment across K12 and Higher Education seeking to empower every student on the planet to achieve more. Recorded in person during ...