ReIMAGINING the Purpose of Education

We've inaugurated our 2026 Schools and Education transformational efforts with a deeply important and heart-warming online event that brought together about 70 passionate and curious people keen to take part in REimagining the Purpose of Education Learning Planet Festival event!

Led by the Climate Youth Resilience Project and Doughnut Economics Action Lab, during this interactive workshop we talked about the current challenges of an education system that is not fit to respond to the 21st century planetarian reality - including human societies and all living and non-living ecosystems on Earth - and the opportunities opening up to influence its transformation.

Many people and organisations are working tirelessly on the same and/or similar goals. Asking for example, what are the skills and capacities that we need to teach and learn so that young people are equipped for what is to come in the future?, what will the future look like?, actually, is it one or multiple possible futures?... How do we support teachers so that they can be at their best when doing their job?, how about the infrastructural needs faced by education institutions/places of learning?, etc, etc. 

The uniqueness of this event, though, relied on a multiplicity of grounding values and agreements resulting from the organisations’ collaboration; anchored on for example, radical hospitality, inner resilience, shared dynamic power, plural pedagogical approaches and tools engaging head, hearts, hands and feet. All of these and more framed the dynamics, activities, and conversations from a completely different mind-set to 'business as usual'. 

To start with, the large majority of participants were actually young people (primarily in their mid-twenties), joining from a diverse number of countries and therefore representing different ways of being and doing around the world. Facilitators throughout the session were also youth representatives who had full autonomy to lead and feedback on the tasks and conversations happening in the different breakout rooms. We effectively co-explored what it means to design education not for young people but with them – centring their lived experiences, agency, and vision for a flourishing future.

Next, when actively reimagining what futures may look like when people and planet thrive in balance, we stayed in the present: what is it today? Revisiting our childhoods and tracing our education experiences - our journey -  by mapping it through the lens of Doughnut Economics, helped us to expand our assumptions of what education is, and where it happens. Using the Embedded Economy as a template, we asked how that journey came together for each of us - for better or worse. How it was influenced by a wide and diverse number of variables, including lots of people -such as family, friends, teachers, bus drivers, cafeteria staff for example -, local and global resources, public/private services, technology, governments, preconceived ideas of 'a good education and success', and so on.

It was difficult to stop ourselves from wanting to have ‘control plans’ and/or ‘fixed solutions’ by the end of the session. We listened to each other in a messy and non-linear way. Learning from each others' education journeys, finding commonalities in what we cherish, what we want to keep, what we missed. As well as how we excluded or were excluded, what didn't serve us, what we value now that we didn't then... how we keep learning, always learning indeed! This helped massively and sustained us when sharing with each other. Particularly the painful memories.

We 'left the room' with new Climate Youth Resilience and Doughnut Economics skills and tools to use in different settings and to keep learning with others. We left with a deeper understanding of what the economy is, what the purpose of education is really about, how they are intertwined, how we are all part of it and influence it through our everyday activities. Perhaps the biggest offshoot of this shared experience, is that we all felt like we didn't have enough time to discuss, and that we want more of it! This first iteration, and feedback from participants, has helped to identify what we can do better next time. But most importantly, it has helped us to practise the conditions for a new purpose of education to emerge; one aligned with thriving and regenerative futures. Acknowledging that 'reimagining education' goes way beyond 'curriculum design' and ‘what happens at school’. Inviting everyone to contribute to the 'change' needed from their everyday actions, from the renewed qualities that emerge from non-extractive relationships, from reflections about each and everyone’s needs and wants and how they move through the economy to satisfy them, etc. 

Watch this space! We are working on co-hosting more sessions that help us keep learning and practising, to continue gesturing 'those thriving futures' in our everyday lives. What will they be?

Learn more about what we are doing and future co-hosted events at:
https://climateyouthresilience.org/

https://doughnuteconomics.org/