Our Articles Published Elsewhere Online

We are not beings, we are becomings
UNESCO asked me to write in response to their Futures of Education publication. I was the first author invited.

Publication:UNESCO IDEAS LAB

Publication Date: 11 March 2022

This is a commentary I wrote on the UNESCO Futures of Education report. It was part of the IDEAS LAB platform.

Writing a New Narrative for a New System
This was the #1 read article in 2022 in Education ReImagined’s Voyager magazine

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Publication: Education Reimagined Voyager

Publication Date: 4 May 2022

No matter what happened during the pandemic, no matter how much we think the world may have changed, if we continue to hold the same values that make the old system thrive, nothing will change.

STORY-ING AS SHARED FEELING, NOT ISOLATED WORDS

Publication: Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date: 16 February 2024

In part 2 of his series, Benjamin Freud, Ph.D. examines the human act of storying—of creating meanings and spinning our own worlds.

HISTORY IS PHANTASIA

Publication: Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date: 6 January 2024

Benjamin Freud, Ph.D., continues his exploration of which stories—even histories—we tell, and requires us to confront the ethical choices we make in our selection of protagonists, antagonists, plot twists and details.

NEW STORIES OF POWER THAT MATTER

Publication: Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date: 28 December 2023

Intrepid Ed News columnist Benjamin Freud, Ph.D. of Coconut Thinking muses about the way the stories we tell help inform how we understand the world, our role in it, and our ability to act. Power is relational and transactional. As such, the way we shape our narratives about power, and action, helps shape the world of possibilities. When we always tell the same stories—the old stories, the meta-narrative—we perpetuate the power relations of old where the same actors matter.

I WANT TO COMMIT TO THE ETHICAL ACT OF TELLING NEW STORIES

Publication: Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date: 23 October 2023

When we tell stories, we constantly decide what to include and exclude, writes Benjamin Freud, Ph.D. That discriminatory process is the ethical act of telling stories. That is why telling our stories collectively is the most powerful act of #learning and living in our culture.

EMERGENT LEARNING: UNPREDICTABLE GROWTH 

Publication: Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date: 1 August 2023

Emergent learning is unpredictable because everybody makes meaning differently based on a variety of factors. Benjamin Freud, Ph.D. tests the hypothesis in the context of a family trip and learns why unpredictability is consistent with a unified ecosystem.

LEARNING AS A COLLECTIVE: DEPARTING PLATO’S CAVE

Publication: Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date: 5 July 2023

Reclaiming what makes us uniquely human is the same treacherous game we’ve been playing all along, writes Dr. Benjamin Freud. It’s time to exit the cave, which was warm and fuzzy for a small percentage of us, and become part of the whole ecosystem.

Learning as a Collective

Publication: Getting Smart

Publication Date: 14 June 2023

WHAT MIGHT REGENERATIVE PRACTICE LOOK LIKE IN EDUCATION?

Publication: Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date: 5 May 2023

Regeneration is a concept that emerges from a set of principles, writes Dr. Benjamin Freud, and then can be applied to the practice of education in ways that will launch it into a set of environments that meet the needs of individual children without using the baggage of traditional jargon.

Universities Must Require Climate Literacy For Admissions

Publication: Higher Education Digest

Publication Date: 20 March 2023

Changes in education (that respond to climate breakdown) will remain disparate, shallow, and tokenistic unless K-12 schools are required to centralize climate literacy in their curricula, infrastructure, community life, and well-being. There is fundamentally no difference in requiring an applicant to be proficient in algebra or essay writing and requiring them to be proficient in climate literacy. This is the only way that we will prepare students for the future and for what has already happened.

WHERE DO WE BEGIN AND WHERE DO WE END?

Publication: Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date: 13 March 2023

Climbing out of our skin and considering our place in the ecosystem is a challenge, writes Benjamin Freud, Ph.D., FRSA. The Western tradition has defined our beginnings and ends, but there are other ways of “understanding” us in the universe, and for our future sanity, they are worth examining.

What would intake to put Nature on your school board?

Publication: K12 Digest

Publication Date: 16 February 2023

What would it take to consider the impact on Nature (and future generations) of all the decisions we make in schools? Decisions at strategic, curricular, community, infrastructural, well-being, and every other level. 

AGENCY IS NOT TO BE OWNED; IT IS RELATIONAL

Publication: Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date: 31 January 2023

Benjamin Freud, Ph.D., FRSA asks us to stretch our brains to understand why #agency is a relative concept rather than a personal quality. By doing so, our understanding of education, relationships, and why we exist shifts to a new paradigm that could be very exciting.

NEW LEARNING CARTOGRAPHY: SMALL STEPS FOR A BIG JOURNEY WITH NO DESTINATION

Publication: Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date: 13 January 2023

Benjamin Freud, Ph.D., FRSA and Michelle Blanchet write that #creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and communication are not the destination; they are what we pack on our journey, and we have the power to draw up our own lists of what we need.

The Fuzzy Horizon of Learning

Publication: Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date: 30 September 2022

Benjamin Freud, Ph.D., FRSA writes that we shouldn’t glorify expertise, we should approach it with curiosity and humility. While experts once completed the puzzles in their respective narrow disciplines, today nobody completes the puzzles because the pieces don’t always fit together that well.

SCHOOLS MUST BE GROUNDED IN THRIVING RELATIONSHIPS: NEW NARRATIVES 1

Publication: Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date: 27 July 2022

Benjamin Freud, Ph.D., FRSA launches his summer “New Narratives” series by saying, “What if we recognized that we are not static beings that can be measured, sorted, standardized, and labeled, but rather we are dynamic becomings that emerge from all of our relationships?

Chapter 5: From I to We: The Source of Becoming

Publication: Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date: 14 July 2022

Benjamin Freud, Ph.D., FRSA writes that where the current system rewards measuring, sorting, standardizing, and labeling, we come together to do the inner work as a collective, to imagine the futures we want to unfold, to write a new narrative.

Revitalising Education for ‘Only One Earth’

Publication: University of Bath Dept. Of Education Blog

Publication Date: 5 June 2022

Chapter 4: Starting Small to Make Big Changes for a New Education Narrative

Publication: Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date: 9 June 2022

We tend to shy away from big changes in education because it seems overwhelming. Benjamin Freud, Ph.D. explains how we can act on smaller pieces of the puzzle because each of those efforts will impact the larger system.

Chapter 3, Decentralized Networks of Learning as Biomimicry

Publication: Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date: 12 May2022

Benjamin Freud, Ph.D. reminds us that the most innovative practices in our current education system will not realize their potential. Viewing education using biomimicry will help us meet that potential for networked learning that will be necessary for a sound future.

Chapter 2: Schools As Places Of Becoming: The Incipient System

Publication: Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date: 14 April 2022

Benjamin Freud, Ph.D. writes about school change that unless we change what we value, we will not participate in the birth of the new system. If we keep valuing scarcity, separation, and segregation, we will snap back [to pre-COVID practices] for sure.

Chapter 1: The Metaverse will make schools places of becoming

Publication: Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date: 23 March 2022

This is the first installment of a longer series, a long conversation. It builds on the idea that there is no one future of education because we are all on our own journeys and this includes schools. With not even one-fourth of the way through 2022, we are in an even deeper crisis: COVID, conflict, climate. Will we pause to do the inner work to understand who we are, as individuals, organizations, collectives? How will schools respond to the systemic changes, for school is not isolated from the system? How will our relationships and connections be transformed through possibilities and necessities?

THE LONG GAME IN INTERCONNECTED LEARNING: A CONTEXTUAL EXPERIENCE

Publication:
Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date:
1 February 2022

Benjamin Freud, Ph.D., writes that our Cartesian understanding of learningis incomplete. Our mind/body synthesis is always learning from our interconnections with people and things. and every micro-learning experience is represented by a change in us. This article gets to the root of the matter.

Let’s stop talking about the future of education: let’s do the inner work

Publication:
Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date:
19 February 2022

Benjamin Freud, Ph.D., writes that we view fundamental change as either a grassroots process or a result of external forces. Both approaches live in a Newtonian paradigm. He suggests we view paradigm shifts as organic evolution for true regeneration.

THE LONG GAME IN EDUCATION: WHERE DO SCHOOLS FIT?

Publication:
Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date:
4 January 2022

Benjamin Freud, Ph.D. writes that school is simply a learning construct located at the tail end of thousands of years of human learning. As a result, the current context of schools for learning should be viewed as the intersection of our entire learning experience, both past and future.

IMAGINE EDUCATION LIVES IN THE MUSIC PROFESSION

Publication:
Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date:
3 November 2021

Schools would be more effective if they viewed teachers as orchestra conductors rather than singer-songwriters, writes Benjamin Freud, Ph.D. in his prize-winning essay. The goal is not a series of instrumental solos, but a community of music.

A CURRICULUM OF KINDNESS

Publication:
Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date:
1 October 2021

Benjamin Freud, Ph.D. explores the principle of uncertainty throughout history and identifies its primary characteristic, interdependence, as the rationale for creating a curriculum of kindness in our schools.

WHAT IF SCHOOLS BECAME INTERGENERATIONAL LEARNING SPACES?

Publication:
Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date:
27 August 2021

Benjamin Freud, Ph.D. Freud systematically challenges many of our fundamental assumptions about school and learning. For example, content is only as good as what you do with it. That point redefines the meaning of credentials, and then best practices unravel.

WHAT IF WE USED IMPACT PORTFOLIOS AS EVIDENCE OF OUR POTENTIAL?

Publication:
Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date:
10 August 2021

Benjamin Freud, Ph.D. writes that most portfolios are a record of the past and provide little indication of future potential. He suggests impact portfolios that highlight student competencies and how that student made a difference in our world.

THE 4CS ARE STILL THE SAME STORY

Publication:
Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date:
18 June 2021

Benjamin Freud, Ph.D. writes: “these ‘essential skills,’ if developed and used for the purpose of preparing students for the future world of work, will remain transactional and serve the same old system that perpetuates socio-economic injustice, climate emergency, and tensions between communities.”

STUDENT PATHWAYS INTO A CURRICULUM: CHAOTIC OR EMPOWERING?

Publication:
Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date:
4 June 2021

The tradition has been for adults to pass on human narrative and knowledge to children. Benjamin Freud, Ph.D. asks whether such a tradition should endure today. Perhaps we might turn the entry points for useful knowledge over to our students so they will feel empowered to learn.

HOW COULD ETHICS GUIDE A NEW PURPOSE FOR EDUCATION?

Publication:
Intrepid Ed News

Publication Date:
21 May 2021

Benjamin Freud, Ph.D. steps beyond the need for new skills to ensure the future success of our students. He asks for skills that are selected as a result of ethics: “Ethics determine the choices we make before we take action. Skills are what we bring to improve the quality of our actions. Action then leads to impact. Impact is what makes the difference.”