[RE]LEARN 2020 - The Learning Innovation Festival

As the impact of the pandemic unfolds, it is becoming abundantly clear that traditional learning models have ill-equipped our children to respond to the current crisis. Some of the structural and systemic challenges in our education systems have come to the forefront.

The invitation of this session as we prepare ourselves for the post-pandemic world is that we use this pause to reimagine how schools and learning ecosystems can be truly transformative for all children.

For example, what if learning ecosystems decide to:

i) Spend the first three months when children come back to school only on re-integrating them into the post COVID-19 world, while deprioritizing academic subjects.
ii) Have no examinations across the board for one year.
iii) Invest in targeted trauma-healing of teachers, resulting in schools becoming more trauma responsive.
iv) Support school leaders to re-imagine the school calendar to integrate life-skills and SEL as core components to prepare children for future uncertainty.
v) Change the metric of success of our education systems from academic and economic outcomes to well-being and thriving of all students, communities, and the planet.

Considering how our school and societal systems are currently designed, this is not going to be easy. Yet this is the most important call of the moment, and we will collectively reimagine the purpose of education to transform the lives of our children.