Traditional Higher Education has lost its way. Missionless and Visionless, it is time for Massive Distributed Teaching & Learning
We have a crisis in Higher Education that is not a recent phenomenon. It has been here quite a while. Pre-COVID19, we in the wealthier parts of the world were satisfied that only 7% of the world’s population has ever been to college, despite a college education being a prerequisite in many advanced parts of […]
The Air Between Two Hands: Parts, Wholes, and Holistic Wellbeing
A reflective essay written as part of the WISE Emerging Leaders program. The concept of holistic wellbeing, for me, is intrinsically linked with the concept of wholeness: bringing awareness to, and caring for the entirety of our being. The word holistic is derived from the Greek word holos, meaning all, whole, or entire, and is associated […]
What Does COVID-19 Mean for SDG 4’s Future?
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a collection of goals set by the United Nations to achieve better lives and future for all. There are 17 goals that are interconnected and address multiple challenges facing humanity ranging from poverty, inequality, quality education to gender and environmental issues. It is extremely important that these goals are […]
Measuring Success of Systemic Impact: Be Fine with Letting Go
A reflective essay written as part of the WISE Emerging Leaders program. My last memory as a teacher is of being in front of a school, surrounded by students, who were either disappointed or relieved, some crying. It was their last year in secondary school, brought to an end by the baccalauréat, the french national exam allowing […]
Introduction: Reimagining Education
There is a fantastic quote from the German philosopher Hannah Arendt “Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it, and by the same token save it from that ruin which except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and the young, would […]
Do Children need to go ‘Back to School’?
Wherever we look for the origin of schools, it is usually defined by ‘studying’ subjects and being separate from the everyday reality of work and personal life. Nothing could be more wrong. Right now, we are falling short of providing education for all, including seeing some of the biggest decline in well-being, and the current rapid changes […]
The Fundamental Shift Needed to Transform Education
The cries are resounding: “Education must emerge from this global crisis transformed.” For most of us making those calls, what we mean by transformed is, ultimately: more human (and within that notion, we include more equitable). We are echoing the cries of John Dewey and countless other educators for over a century that our global system of forced, […]
Learning for a New World
As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, so do the risks we face. The COVID-19 pandemic has not stopped at national borders, and affected people regardless of nationality, level of education, income or gender. But that has not been true for its consequences, which have affected the most vulnerable hardest. Education has been no exception. Those from privileged […]
Love the Questions
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves…, Live the questions now. –Rainer Maria Rilke Revisiting Rilke’s advice to love and live questions prompted my own reflection on our current task of developing answers to the many questions requiring an urgent response at the expense of identifying […]
Future-ready Learners’ Outcomes and Assessment
As schools strive to be relevant and globally connected, school reform takes on both local and international contexts. International contexts have become widely associated with comparative results from international tests, such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which purport to measure certain aspects […]