Season 3: Episode 14 - Transforming the Factory-Model of Learning

How much of our education is still entrenched in a factory-style model? How do we step back and take what we've learned 150 years of understanding about humanity in challenging our assumptions and values?

Ulcca Joshi Hansen is a mother, educator, researcher and advocate whose two-and-a-half decade career has spanned classrooms, non-profit leadership, philanthropy and consulting. She is driven by a vision of education that attends to and supports the development of young people’s humanity and creates learning experiences that help them realise their unique potential - the place where who they are and what the world needs intersect.

An internationally-recognised expert on educational transformation at the level of instruction, assessment, organisational design and policy systems, she brings a diverse set of experiences working with educators, funders, policymakers, researchers, legislators, business leaders and community advocates in the US and internationally.

Her work is aimed at helping transform the foundational values of our educational, cultural and social systems, and building the capacity of educators, families, communities and advocates to work with young people toward new ways of being in the world.

A two-time TED speaker, Ulcca holds a BA in Philosophy and German from Drew University and a certificate in early childhood and elementary education with a focus on special education. She earned her PhD from Oxford University and a JD from Harvard Law School. She has been recognised for her leadership as a Harry S. Truman Scholar; a British Marshall Scholar and a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Ulcca Hansen: When was that moment when somebody, an adult, supervisor, a mentor, a family member, a teacher saw me, right... Really created this moment for me, that sort of allowed me to see myself as something.

[00:00:15] Introduction: The world has never been changing more rapidly dislocating. The ways we work, learn, and live on the learning future podcast. We discuss the knowledge, skills, and dispositions we all need for our learning future exploring insights with world-class educators, researchers, policy-makers from across industries and across the world.

[00:00:33] Louka Parry: Hello and welcome to the learning future podcast. I am. Of course, your host Louka Parry and it's my delight to be joined today by Ulcca Joshi Hansen.

Ulcca a mother, educator, researcher and advocate who over 25 years has spanned classrooms, nonprofit, leadership, philanthropy, and consulting. She's driven by a vision of education that attends to and supports the development of young people's humanity, and creates experiences that help them realize their unique potential, the place where, who [00:01:00] they are and what the world needs intersect.

She is an internationally recognized expert on educational transformation at the level of instruction, assessment, organizational design, and policy systems, and Ulcca brings a diverse set of experiences in working with educators, funders, policy makers, researchers, legislators, business leaders, and community advocates.

Every part of the ecosystem that really contributes to the formation of young people and how we value and construct education. She is a two time Ted speaker and holds a BA in philosophy in German from Drew university, a certificate in early childhood and elementary education and has earned her PhD from Oxford university and a JD from Harvard law school, she has been recognized for her leadership as a Harry Truman scholar and a British Marshall scholar and a Paul and Daisy serous fellow. Uh, she's also the author of the book that's in my hand: "The Future of Smart: how our education system needs to change to help all young people thrive."

Ulcca thank you so much for joining us.

[00:01:59] Ulcca Hansen: Thanks, [00:02:00] Louka. It's great to be here.

[00:02:02] Louka Parry: I'm very taken by the way that you frame the opportunity that we have. Uh, but let's start with something a bit more practical. What is something for you that you've learned, recently?

[00:02:14] Ulcca Hansen: So beyond, beyond jumping into the world of social media and clubhouse, which was surprising, um, I've recently been reading, um, some papers that are just looking at the impact of social media and tech on our brains.

And I've just, I had never really thought about the idea that there are people who are genetically kind of predisposed to behavioral addictions. So we often think about substance abuse. Um, you know, when we think about addictions, but in the same way that addiction doesn't necessarily show up until you're put in a situation where you're exposed to something. There are people who are, um, who are predisposed to behavioral addiction. And I think that's really [00:03:00] interesting as we think about the tech world, as we look at, what's come out recently about Facebook and tech Tok and the ways in which, you know, companies are intentionally manipulating, um, their platforms to try and get reactions from young people.

So I've just been delving into that and it's been, um, both enlightening and a little bit concerning, you know, I have 13 and 15 year old and so we're smack in the middle of this world.

[00:03:25] Louka Parry: That's such an interesting thing to reflect on. We've had a few people on this podcast speak to the challenges of technology. Uh, you know, Nicholas Carlisle talked to, you know, the idea that for the first time ever last year, More children's spent more of their waking hours online than offline.

And so we are now very much in this digital native world and, you know, the center for humane technology and, you know, just Harris and some of the team there that looking at what are the harms of technology that might be intentional or unintentional. It's such an interesting world. Um, particularly now that we're, Facebook's going Meta, right, which is [00:04:00] very recent news over the last year, you know, building an internet on top of an internet. I mean, that could be it, that could be this whole podcast, but, um, I mean, I'm sure you'll speak to it as well around, you know, how, how do we design environments, uh, that aren't just about the attentional hijacking, but actually are about kind of deep work and contribution. So take us a little bit into your world. You've got a wonderful kind of breadth of experience across law, education, research, and languages is another, um, commonality that we share. What's the big idea you've been focusing on.

[00:04:36] Ulcca Hansen: I've been really curious about how we shift our understanding of education, but also our systems generally, away from systems that kind of predefined things. So in this case, ask us, ask us the question. Are you smart? And instead kind of thinking about systems, including education systems that ask, how are you smart? Right. [00:05:00] How do we create opportunities, environments learning and growing experiences for young people, as well as adults, frankly, um, that enable them to look inward, to get a sense of who they are.

Um, what's important to them. What gives them purpose and fulfillment and sort of find that place where, who you are and what the world needs, intersect. And so, you know, that is for me as I explore this question, the future of smart it's, how do we go from, are you smart to, how are you smart? And then what does that mean in terms of all of the systems, um, that we need to shift to make that real.

[00:05:36] Louka Parry: Oh, that's so interesting. Uh, then there's also this concept of who gets to be smart, you know, which is the idea of thinking about the systemic impacts and barriers potentially that are, that also. Frankly, um, elevate particular types of contribution. Um, I'd love, I'd love you to reflect on it because this is really the [00:06:00] system conversation, a system level change conversation.

Uh, and also I love this convergence between the inner world and the external world, the outer world. How does who I am and then impact how I contribute to the world. And then how does that feed back into, um, and you know, the idea of if we had to redesign anything, I often talk about icky guy, you know, which is just a great, a great Venn diagram.

And I'm an educator. So who doesn't love a good Venn diagram, but you know, this idea of really converging around not just what you're good at and what you love, but also what the world needs and ultimately what you can be paid to do. And this, this is a lifestyle. Conversation, I suppose when it comes to that.

So take us a bit more into that world. What, what is, what are the main obstacles as you see them all occur? And then how do we, in some ways transcend where we currently are and re reimagine and then remake?

So one of

[00:06:51] Ulcca Hansen: the reasons I decided to write this book is because, you know, there are obviously a lot of books that have come out over the last 20, 30, 50 years talking about how education doesn't [00:07:00] work and what we need to do differently.

But one of my observations, and maybe this is because I'm a philosopher, maybe it's because I've sort of lived in an experience, lots of different cultures was that we don't actually dig into the underlying values and assumptions that undergird, this thing that we have all learned to call the factory model of education.

So we point at the factory model or the industrial mode, and, and we sort of say, that's not good. Um, and it's felt like we've made cosmetic changes. So instead of having kids sit in desks in rows, we put them at tables. Instead of having books, we use digital kind of curricula and computers. But to me, the question was really what are the underlying values and assumptions about human beings, about who young people are, what they're capable of, what the purpose of education is, what are the assumptions?

And so. In in the book, the first third of it, which could feel like a really long time, it's actually taking us backwards and it starts us off about [00:08:00] 500 years ago at this period in human history that I think is, is incredibly unique. Um, Right. It's right around the time of the scientific revolution. And before that time, human beings lived in small communities.

You know, children were educated in life, through life, through their families and communities. They learned what they needed to survive and to contribute. Um, and human beings, I think, had this different sense of themselves in relationship to the world. Right. We had our creation stories. They had gods and goddesses because they didn't fully understand this thing, but they knew they were a part of it.

So I think of that. View of the world. And it's the one I kind of call holistic, indigenous, right. As being about homeless and connected and embodiment. Right. And then the scientific revolution happened. And what slowly started to happen was this über rationalization, right. That we could somehow stand apart from the world, that we could break it apart that we would understand it. So we started fragmenting the world. We took information and knowledge out of [00:09:00] context to try and understand it. And we started to privileged this kind of mind, um, learning, right? This abstract conceptualized learn. And so, you know, when Descartes said, I think therefore I am like that, that has deeply influenced our culture.

And I think it's really important to understand that divide in world views and the ways in which the factory model really reflects this Cartesian Newtonian ethic. And when we point at the factory model, we're not pointing at how things are organized. Or at least that's not what I think we should be pointing at. I think we should pointing at a different way of being in the world and creating systems that then allow us as human beings to be in the world in a different way.

[00:09:45] Louka Parry: I think this is such a, that's a beautiful way of taking us through a few centuries of history. I think Ulcca and understand, you know, for us to reflect on how did we get here, which is such a critical question to ask, you know, cause otherwise we do. [00:10:00] We don't go deeply enough. I mean, one of the great questions that has been asked on this podcast many times by us by great guests, you know, what is success? Like? What is this for? I mean, these are philosophical questions, actually. It's not about an incremental shift. It's it's actually, what are we all doing here?

Why are we here? And, you know, again, you speak to the kind of core foundation that purpose has in, in any kind of design of a system or an experience or environment, whatever the case might be. So take us a little bit now into what's required. I mean, the idea, you know, this cleaving of the full human right into these different dimensions and then privileging particular ones, you know, we might say the primacy of the cognitive. Um, recently, uh, we had professor Jean Clinton, who's a psychiatrist and child development expert. Talk about, you know, the tyranny of academic obsession and how it kind of does just, it doesn't allow us to be embodied in a way it becomes all about what you do and then our [00:11:00] languages, but what do you do? And then it becomes status.

And that's your, your sole purpose and your soul value. You kind of internalize this industrial paradigm where, how does. Progress from here. Cause in some ways it's not invention. It's also remembering I think, which is I love, I love the distinction between catatonia, Tony and, you know, Newton in Tony and physics and kind of the scientific piece and holistic and indigenous thinking, which in some ways has remained, uh, fully human. Um, in some ways, w w what would you, what are your reflections?

[00:11:37] Ulcca Hansen: So the two worldviews birth really different systems across lots of dimensions. Right? Whether it's in science and the disconnect between Newtonian physics and quantum physics, whether it's classical economics and behavioral economics, whether it's kind of unrestrained capitalism versus social capitalism, right?

There are all these systems that look different. If you design [00:12:00] out of the different worldviews education is one of those things. So, um, you know, part of what I think is important and interesting about this book at this moment is that when we look around, I live in the U S um, but we have, you have listeners who are around the world, but when we think about the debates we're having in many cultures and countries right now, it feels like we are fundamentally having a worldview debate.

Which values do we want reflected in the systems, economic systems, political systems, social systems. And so, you know, to me it's really important to kind of then look to all right. So what, what type of an educational experience was birthed out of much more holistic indigenous kind of way of being, and the label I put to it is human-centered liberatory and liberatory is really a reflection of this idea that the same worldview, that birth star industrial model of education birth.

Enslavement birth colonialism birth, the exporting [00:13:00] of a modern Western culture around the world and sort of the decimation of the indigenous culture that existed elsewhere. Um, and so as we think about where we want to go in education, It feels really so liberatory, right? Is this idea that we are freeing ourselves very intentionally from the types of social political, economic agendas that were part and sort of built into the factory model and this idea of mass education.

So, you know, to me, We've got to kind of step back and say, look, if the purpose of education really should be about looking at the human beings in front of us and helping them to unfold, right? The folks who developed the factory model didn't know about human development. Children were little adults. Right. But they just, they didn't understand about development and developmental stages. Um, they didn't understand very much about learning and what true deep [00:14:00] learning was. So at this moment in time with the knowledge and the capability that we have to step back, take the knowledge that we've acquired over the last.

150 years or so I think the question is then is the purpose of education to create economic and social units, or is the purpose of education to help create thriving human beings who have what they need to live purposeful lives. And part of that is contributing to the world and earning a S you know, earning money and raising a family, but a large part of it is also.

A sense of purpose, a sense of identity, a sense of self, you know, at least in the U S I find it ironic that it's perfectly okay to be 45 and have a midlife crisis, and then turn around and say, I want to live a life of meaning and purpose, but we find it perfectly okay to take young children and say to them, you know, just sit down and shut up don't worry about it, just do it because I told you to, um, and live your entire life until you hit that moment of crisis without a sense of purpose. Right. That seems really backwards to me. [00:15:00]

[00:15:00] Louka Parry: Yeah, me too. It's so true. It's like at that moment, we, like, we kind of discover who we are far too late, and I was taken by something that I heard from you actually on one of your, one of your talks, which is this idea that, that factory model, which was designed in a past paradigm for a past paradigm, which, you know, we have inherited. And as you say, we just back then, people didn't know what they'd now what we now know. Um, It's this idea that a lot of young people leave school with a really great idea of what they're not good at. And that seems like an enormous waste of human potential. I mean, one of the statistics that I, I often reflect upon is that, and this is an Australian statistic, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's the case in other jurisdictions.

You know, one in three senior secondary students actually choose subjects. That they think they might get a better grading than the ones that they truly love and are uplifted and enlightened by. And I mean that, again, similarly, this idea that we kind of funneled towards that, you [00:16:00] know, young shout out to the sausage model maker, you know, it's like, it really just stayed it kind of.

So my question to you, and I really liked your affection too, about how we shift our gaze and. The idea that the worldview does, does, you know, manifest does kind of, everything kind of comes out of what we believe and we need to make the unconscious conscious. Otherwise it drives out decisions to paraphrase Yeung but do, do you think that, do, how optimistic are you about this, this shift towards this human centered liberatory piece?

You know, can we just embed that. Into our education systems or at scale, because I think as you've reflected as well, there are amazing educators in schools doing this work right now. But so often they're still the exception that are operating within, or sometimes even outside the system constraints.

[00:16:49] Ulcca Hansen: So these human centered liberatory models have existed as long as the kind of more factory industrial models have existed, right. They were in a sense the counter-cultural response [00:17:00] to those schools and those programs. And so historically they have been there, but I would say what they have produced has always been counter-cultural and therefore kind of more on the fringes.

Of those who wanted to be outside of the existing system, or ironically, at least in the U S people who have power access and privilege who send their children to private schools that tend to have this model. Right. So wouldn't you use is that there are these models out there for us to learn from, and we know what it takes to do it.

And in the second part of the book, I lay out the spring. And it came out of some of my research were just kind of, I think of three buckets of schools, I don't know about, you know, in Australia, but at least in the U S we, it feels like we have a lot of debates around the governance model of school. Is it a government [school] run? Is it a charter private, independent? And that doesn't actually tell you anything about how a school approaches its work. So the three buckets are really conventional, which is your factory model. There's this huge bucket in the middle that [00:18:00] I think of as TV. Innovative reform, whole child innovative. And that's when we recognize what doesn't work in the conventional system and we bolt on solutions, right?

So we bolt on things to mitigate the harm we do. Socio-emotional learning. We do, project-based learning. We do culturally responsive practice, but we haven't foundationally changed the structure of the system and anybody who's listening, who's an educator knows this experience, right? You hear about another program or another initiative that's coming in and they're all bolted on.

And everyone's exhausted. Nothing has done particularly well. And often these systems kind of buckle under their own weight. And then the third bucket is this human centered laboratory. And they are designed inside of that holistic indigenous worldview with a different set of values, different set of assumptions.

So to my mind, you know, that when you look at the visual in the book, right, that work is incredibly complex. It's, it's complicated because you're trying to do this really deep, rich work that starts with the [00:19:00] human beings inside the system and builds an ecosystem of relationships and of kind of mutuality that then becomes the foundation for the rest of the work that's done.

Right. So that people can see who is. And design the education system and learning experiences around the human beings who are in front of them and empower them to actually make that happen. So when I think about a lot of the reform, that's happened in countries around the world over the last 20, 30 years, I think of it as sitting in the middle bucket.

So the question is how do we make room in space? For the third buckets to move from the fringes of the system, into the dump when that part. And so in the third part of the book, I talk about that change innovation curve, right? Where, first of all, I think we have to distinguish, and I think policymakers, funders, educators, Students students, right?

We all need to distinguish between the middle bucket and the human centered liberatory. And then we need to very [00:20:00] intentionally create research and development space for the folks who are doing the human centered liberatory work, build the systems and structures that are aligned and supportive of their work.

Right. We need to be able to answer the question. How do you count learning if it's not happening inside a classroom with the teacher? How do we. If we're not doing it only through paper and pencil tests that privilege cognitive abstract knowledge and not doing, how do we hold systems accountable? How do we do post-secondary admissions in ways that, you know, allow young people to kind of go on to pathways.

And there are the beginning points of answers to that, right. But we need to allow the like-minded who are already doing the work. To build those systems and structures. And over time with the change adoption curve, right? You start with the coalition of the willing, and then as you make things visible, often the next kind of wave of people looks and goes, well, why can't my kid have that?

And all of a sudden, you sort of shift the demand. So this is not a two year project. Obviously [00:21:00] this is a 20 to 30 year project and we're not particularly. At operating in those timelines and education for lots of reasons. But I do think that's the only way we get there is to kind of have that long-term vision and then, you know, take each stage as it comes.

[00:21:17] Louka Parry: I love the curve of adoption working and also this, you know, the different. The different levels around the different aspects of what makes a school, a school, you know, pedagogy, curriculum, you know, that the things that when you walk into a learning environment, you okay, this feels like a learning environment.

You know, there's, there's kind of a, what, there's a, how there's some human beings, I suppose. I'd love you to speak a little bit to that. You know, like, you know, the idea of moving from perhaps it is a spectrum, you know, for example, teacher, teacher driven, you know, through to teacher guided, then all the way through to kind of play based or emancipatory.

Um, what are the kind of, what are the spectrums that really need to shift across those different components that we might say that make a [00:22:00] school feel like. So, you know, I mean, the teachers that listen to this podcast, they'll be teaching tomorrow and doing the great work that they do. And sometimes I'm quite guilty of this.

I get so excited about the system level conversation that, you know, it's like, there are human beings doing this work every single day. So what are the kinds of, what are those progressions developmentally that take us towards moving that third bucket, as you say, back into the kind of dominant or the emerging mainstream.

[00:22:26] Ulcca Hansen: So I'll take that question on two levels, right? I mean the first day. Just in terms of thinking about the purpose of education, right? So we need to think about when we think about the experiences we're creating, what's the purpose of what we're doing? How are we thinking about the developmental needs of the young people who were sitting in front.

What are our theories of learning? Um, how are we assessing things? And then most foundationally, I think in these human centered liberatory environments, how are we creating community and relationship? Right. We often talk about it as classroom management and discipline, but in these environments, I actually think it is about how do we [00:23:00] create community, um, and a, a mutuality and a responsibility to one another.

And so those are all elements, right? If I were an educator to be able to sort of look and explore and in the book, I. Break this out, right. Different things under each of those categories. And to kind of say, you know, here's where I am. Like, this is how I have tended to think a lot. Kids cognitive needs or their academic needs or their social and emotional needs.

But gosh, I haven't really thought a ton about how they think about their own identity. So maybe that's an area where I can push in or lean in a little bit, or, you know, I do kind of believe in, you know, inquiry-based work, but it's still kind of teacher directed in the sense that I'm the one who gives them the topic as opposed to, gosh, why don't I ask them what they're interested in and let them decide what they're going to inquire about. Or, you know, I tend to still use pretty conventional means of assessment, paper, and pencil tests, maybe their essays, not bubble tests, but you know, [00:24:00] why couldn't I let my children do a portfolio or work in my school to do exhibitions.

So I tend though not to think of this as a continuum. And I think this is one of the challenges that these kinds of buckets schools have. Right? We have all seen progressive schools done really badly because we sort of say, you know, we're going to be human centric liberatory. So we let the kids do whatever they want and we're not going to do direct instruction ever at all.

Right. So a hallmark of the Cartesian Newtonian worldview is this either or mentality it's either this or that and a hallmark of the holistic. Indigenous worldview is a both. And so that I, as a teacher have in my toolkit, the ability to do direct instruction, if that is what a learner needs or if that is what they need or wants to get, where they, where they need to go in terms of their outcomes.

But if that's not what they needed, I've got another set of tools. So I tend not to think of it as a spectrum because to me that makes it [00:25:00] feel too I'm other at one place or another place as opposed to. I'm inside this breadth of considerations. And I am able to be consciously competent about where I place myself in that, in that kind of ecosystem of learning experiences and engagements based on the human being in front of me or the class of learners in front of me.

[00:25:24] Louka Parry: Oh, that's so that's a fantastic reflection. Ulcca. Great answer. What are you, what have you seen or what have you kind of reflected on in terms of. The shift required in the value set of a human being or an educator or a leader. For example, you know, we have a lot of research that shows that great schools, you know, it's educators that make the biggest impact on student learning.

Um, but only when they're supported by a fantastic team of. That way in which they feel like their own agency is elevated and they're seen as fully human. And therefore that kind of becomes the dominant culture [00:26:00] of this learning environment, which of course taps into all of the experiences and the broader ecosystem of place-based learning, et cetera.

So what is, there is something about us having to shift our own sense of what it is we do and who we might need to be? You know, the idea of we are trained to be teachers or were trained to be researchers or we're trained in a certain thing again, that. Creates an identity marker in which there are a whole suite and set of assumptions about what that needs to look like.

You know, threat to be a teacher is to transact at a superficial level, whereas to be a learning activator or good designer or an architect or an elder, which comes again from indigenous worldviews, right. It's designed to have be able to hold space and weave the narrative. Uh, what's what what's required.

How do we let go of some of those old ways? Cause it seems like it's the letting go it's as difficult as the picking up, you know, otherwise it's just bolting on a bunch of things. Like what can we let go of as human beings that are doing work in education that can [00:27:00] enable this to take place?

[00:27:02] Ulcca Hansen: No, I, I, I love that question and I think, you know, the biggest barrier to getting to this being the dominant mode of education is actually us as adults. Um, and the systems that we have created, um, I will say, uh, there was, oh goodness, this is alluding me. So I'll sort of come back to it, but you know, I've what you see in these programs and schools. Um, and what you hear when you go in and talk to the folks who are a part of the.

Is first and foremost, the sense of belonging and the idea that this is a space where I can come in and show up as my full self, I can bring my full self in whether that is with anger, with sadness, with trauma, with joy, with ease, whatever it is. And I've been reflecting a lot on this in the us. And again, I think this is true in many countries.

I think we have an assumption that human beings. Are sort [00:28:00] of born knowing how to belong, how to hold space for one another, how to have a strong enough sense of identity that I can let somebody else show up as who they are without it feeling like it's a threat to me. Um, and I actually don't think we do.

And I think one of the things that has happened as we've allowed our cultures to erode allowed rituals and institutions that used to hold some of this knowledge. And capacity building is that we didn't replace it with anything else. And so I think we find ourselves in communities of people who frankly, are feeling incredibly.

At risk, right. Incredibly alone, incredibly isolated, incredibly threatened. Um, and we're sort of seeing this kind of move into tribes, like our tribal mentality. And I can't let go of this because it's so I think, you know, when we think about adult capacity building a huge piece of it for me, [00:29:00] Is actually building the capacity of adults, um, to sort of show up in a different way, um, to be able to hold space for themselves, right?

So you have to get right with yourself and hold space for yourself so that you can hold space for the young people who come in and. That is like this next book that's coming in my head. Right. What does it mean to do that? But I know what I was going to say in the beginning, you said something about, you know, creating for the adults in the system, what we create for young people.

And I think that's exactly right. Right. Um, the architecture of factories was the assembly line and you just kind of like organize things into these kind of linear, efficient models, the architecture of nature. Yeah. Is fractals right. And fractals replicate themselves at different scales. And so in these, in these environments, right, what we're aiming to do is to create the same experience among young people, as you have with the young people in their educator.

Which is the same experience [00:30:00] the educators have them have of themselves inside of this learning ecosystem. And so you're sort of building that out boards and I, I find that to be a helpful visual, right. Because then the question each level of the system is how are we designing with principal? Have, you know, whatever it is, wholeness or connectedness or being embodied and having experiences, right.

That allow us to grow in certain ways. And we have to do that for the adults. Um, you know, which is why I think so much of our professional learning right now. Especially around issues of diversity and, and race and culture aren't particularly helpful because they all sit kind of up in our heads and they don't actually give us a chance to kind of live into the discomfort, the newness of being in different ways.

[00:30:47] Louka Parry: Oh, that's a wonderful reflection. Just, just briefly on the, on that, that piece around diversity inclusion, you know, wholeness, every time there seems to be. Someone, you [00:31:00] know, commit something in a political space. They, they get given an empathy training package. It kind of doesn't seem to work. I think it's just because we're not going deeply enough into who we are and the kind of implicit bias and the unknown unknowns, you know, this, I do quite like the work of Otto Sharma and Peter Sangha. You know, the idea of how do you do deep listening, like generative listening, not downloading and kind of looking for confirming information, but actually this idea of holding space, which is, you know, unfamiliar terminology for, for many, but that's what a great leader does. They, they can, they can really hear who and feel who you are and this, you know, the wonderful Maya Angelou quote about, you know, it's, it's not, it's not people forget what you were saying. They might even forget what you did, but they never forget how you made them feel. And I think there's something to that. The other, the other piece of, yeah, go ahead.

[00:31:53] Ulcca Hansen: One thing though, right? Really struck by thinkers like RiskMan Medicam and a woman named Mila libraries, [00:32:00] Phillips who really talk about that period 500 years ago, where we shifted our world worldview as being a trauma that was inflicted on us and is continually inflicted on us and anybody who works with trauma knows that part of, part of kind of dealing with trauma is actually feeling the trauma and allowing yourself to experience it and then process it. And so I don't think it's only just deep listening. Right? I think the reason these empathy packages don't work is because they all sit inside of our head as opposed to giving us the skills that we need to sort of move through discussing.

Right. As we examine, explore kind of break open some of this trauma that's being inflicted on all of us by this world view that is so divergent from who we are as human beings. So I, I, I just think that's, that's something to keep in mind as we try and build experiences for educators and young people that are about kind of showing up in different ways.

[00:32:56] Louka Parry: Yeah. Yeah. That's a great point. Uh, I acknowledge that and I think [00:33:00] the idea. Having what I've heard called coherence between your head, heart and hands. Really? What your gut, this idea of the three places where there are neurological cells found in our body, remarkably, you know, this idea is I count, you know, we have a feeling and we kind of have emotions and then we have our cognition trying to bring those things together.

In a cohesive way, just like they are in the body, which of course is part of nature. So I love as well, your, your reflection on the architecture of nature as the architectural factory. I mean, the language we use, I think also just reveals our worldview. So, you know, we need an intervention, we need a mechanism.

We need, what's pull some lever. You know, we can still hear this talk all the time. I mean, I'm guilty of using it still. And yet what we actually want is not that, because that's still trying to use this mechanistic view as opposed to this kind of holistic indigenous view, as you say, uh, which is what are the conditions? What are the features? [00:34:00] What are the nutrients? I mean, it really is using this ecological language because that should be the world view that. Potentially enables the emergence of this. I mean, what's, what's the culture. How do you create it's good school culture. You can't just do a culture program now.

Great. We have a good culture. It's how philosophy embeds into practices, which embeds into kind of the products or the outcomes, uh, as Johnny Ledbetter would say. So, yeah, I'm, I'm really curious about that.

[00:34:24] Ulcca Hansen: I mean, I think I talk in the book about instructional models, which I, you know, is this idea of a deeply aligned, intentional moving from here's our purpose.

Here's how we think about development. Here's how we think about learning. Therefore here's what we're teaching. Here's what we're covering. Here's how we're assessing it. And then these are systems that support all of that work. And, you know, I, I point at, and sort of. Introduce folks to a couple of different instructional models, ones that people probably have heard of like Montessori or like while they're Steiner schools or Christian or more of these schools.

[00:35:00] Um, and, and what I say in the book is that I actually think for these third bucket schools for these human centered liberatory programs, Really codifying instructional models for people is important because the work is so complex that you actually needs scaffolding. I think as adult and young people to enter into them.

And so for the programs that have done the work to build out the kind of all the units of work that they need, right. What are our theories? What then is the curriculum? How do we think about. Kind of executing those. How do we train adults to do them? Everyone wants to recreate the wheel. But I think if we are going to get traction in this third bucket, we can't afford to have everybody recreate the wheel.

We actually need to codify the instructional models that exist out there. And then we need to give them to communities to make their own right, and to make adjustments and make adapt, you know, to adapt them. But that's very different than trying to put something coherent [00:36:00] together. From scratch, right.

Children are aging out of the system as we do that. And so I think for those of us who are. Invested in sort of in building our capacity to provide this for young people. And you know, this, I would say to policymakers and funders, right? You need to be investing the time, the money, the resources, and allowing people to codify these models so that we have scaffolded kind of, um, ways of building new program.

And I think, you know, scale is my other word that I don't like that the folks, this industrial model, but I think of spreading, right. So how do you see it in different places and allow them to sort of grow so that over time you can kind of get this tapestry that comes together because all of these little seeds that you, that you've planted are sort of coming up.

And to me, that's the sort of visual that I have inside my head, as I kind of think about the spread of these, um, these models to, to being the dominant. That's such a great reflection, again, scale versus [00:37:00] spread, you know, I would try to create a big building or are we. Really seeding a forest. It has to be close to the ground, right?

I mean the whole idea of scale does not work for human beings. I feel like that's what we've done is we've kind of disconnect ourselves from the earth, from the places we live from, the people that we live with in this, this desire to sort of get bigger and, and further out and up. And so I just think these programs are very much grounded, um, in the community.

In which young people are, the learning happens there. The elders are invited in, you know, young people are out in the world, learning through kind of whatever, um, you know, issues or problems or challenges or opportunities they see. So these programs are very, very close to the ground. So I think thinking of it as spread is helpful.

[00:37:52] Louka Parry: Just a question Ulcca about the future of, you know, it's, I think in education and clearly you, you do this as well. You know, [00:38:00] we need to visit the future, all the futures, you know, the different scenarios often, and then return to the present to powerfully act, you know, and potentially shift our worldview and our value set and then ultimately our practice and our program and our cultures. Where do you, where do you see. Where do you see us going? If we have this conversation in 10 years time, which I hope we do, you know, what might we be discussing? Um, and that can potentially, it will be both utopian and dystopian. I mean, technology, for example, is, is both of those things it's deeply connecting and also terribly dehumanizing in some ways. Um, yeah, if we take you, take us into the future.

[00:38:43] Ulcca Hansen: If we got to my mind and maybe this is because of where we started with what I've just learned. I actually think we would be seeing learning experiences in the environments that almost felt more retro in that. Shielding young people a little [00:39:00] bit from the sort of disruptive effect of the new things that we have sort of put in their path to give them an opportunity, right?

To just when they are three and five and eight to learn by doing, to hold things in their hands to kind of manipulate things to somebody said the hand. Is kind of is like the tool of learning. Right. So if you don't let kids do something and I'm like, you know, you can see me on the, on the video, but. How are they going to learn?

So I actually think, I would imagine that we would see schools as spaces that are a bit of a sanctuary from the sort of technology and the sort of pace of the rest of the world. Especially as kids are younger, that they would be sort of like shielded, right. And just sort of held. In this kind of safe space to learn what it is to be without these kinds of like shocks to human cognition.

But I think technology presents and then sort of gradually releasing them with [00:40:00] intentionality into the tools. Right. And seeing technology. As a tool. One of the things I talk about in the book is this Cartesian divide, Cartesian Newtonian wholistic divide actually mimics the hemispheric divide of our brains and I draw on the work of a man named Ian McGilchrist, who talks about our left hemisphere, our right hemisphere as being this big funnel that takes in everything that we are as human beings. I take some senses, sensory information and sees patterns and that type of. And the left hemisphere is about kind of reducing that down and abstracting it and making what we have taken in useful.

And then it has to go back to the right hemisphere, right? So the left should work in service of the right. And I think that's what we would see education being is the space in which young people get to be in their right hemisphere, um, and learn gradually. How to sort of engage in the left hemisphere of work and tools technology that we have, but to do so in service of what they learned to be inside of this slightly [00:41:00] more protected space.

So I would like to think, you know, if we could get there, those would be the conversations we'd be having. Right. We'd be starting to think about. Okay. So then what does that mean about accountability? What does it mean when we say our students being served well, like different measures, different metrics, That would be looking at to kind of say, are you healthy?

Are you a healthy, functional human being who has a sense of yourself before you got. So that's one thing, um, for sure, but we would just have new systems. And the reality is that even higher education and post-secondary is changing, right? The consolidation of universities, the closure of universities, places like Google and employers that are doing bootcamps that are doing certificates.

Like the whole ecosystem is going to look incredibly different. And, and I think. That what these human centered liberatory programs are doing is going to actually mesh incredibly well with that, that it will feel like a much more seamless birth, uh, for lack of a better word of [00:42:00] young people out of their education, into the rest of their lives, as opposed to now where it feels as this kind of fragmented really frightening transition. Um, am I getting into the right university? I'm like getting the right job. Am I taking the right courses to get the right GPA, to get me into the program that I want? Right. As you talked about that earlier,

[00:42:20] Louka Parry: I love, I love that that idea of having, you know, the learning economy, you know, becoming the internet of education, how do we have agency around?

How does everything kind of speak coherently? To, to itself like an ecosystem would as opposed to yeah. These kinds of the rocket model of education you learn once. Macro microbiome. I mean, there's some very exciting things happening there. Um, uh, all I could speak to you all day, there's so many, is there any more kind of philosophical aspects I'd love to delve into, but I'd love you to leave us all just with a reflection, like a take home message from all of the very deep thinking and work that you've done now over two and a half decades, you know, through philosophy and, [00:43:00] you know, psychology development, uh, and educational design. What do you want to leave us with?

This is a

[00:43:08] Ulcca Hansen: choice, right? This is, this is a choice. And I think we've been gifted a moment of disruption that has broken apart. Some of the things that I think we have mentally and systemically used as our reasons for not changing. And so as we emerge out of the pandemic and we can go back into classrooms. I, and have young people in front of us. I think this is the moment to sort of not immediately accelerate back into whatever normal was, but actually pause to have community conversations, to look our children in the eyes and really think about like what we want for them, because I don't think choice points like this come up very often.

Um, and I think whether we get to. What I thought might be what I'd like to see in 10 years or not is very much a function of our choices. And the [00:44:00] other thing I would say is just, I don't know, sometimes it's useful to sort of ground ourselves in, in that feeling to kind of remind ourselves why it's so important to experience this for a young person, uh, and or to, to create this for a young person.

So I sometimes like to think about like, when was that moment? When somebody and adults, a supervisor, a mentor, a family member, a teacher, you know, Saw me right. Really created this moment for me, that sort of allowed me to just see myself as something more and to kind of hold on to that. Right. As being the thing that we want to kind of create more than anything for young people in the moment, a moment, especially for educators, right?

Who I'm very sympathetic, you're your lives and the demands on you are incredibly complex and crazy, but, um, maybe centering ourselves in that feeling and sort of holding on to that can kind of keep us inspired.

[00:44:55] Louka Parry: Wow. Ulcca. Thank you so much for gifting us, your thoughts and time today. [00:45:00] Uh, we really appreciate you joining the Learning Future podcast.

[00:45:03] Ulcca Hansen: Thank you. It was great to be here.

[00:45:06] Outro: Thanks for listening to the learning future podcast. To find out more about our work drop into the learning teacher.com and follow us at learning teacher on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Here's to building a world of thriving learners together.