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Exploring Educational Commons as part of EdU:
We are in the process of weaving the story of Educators Unite. We aim to meaningfully engage with the concepts of knowledge and educational commons. Educational commons involve the shared creation and distribution of knowledge, with governance methods that are collaboratively managed and co-developed by a community. Within Educators Unite, one of our ambitions is to support and nurture a platform of educational commoners.
We’ve begun compiling our thoughts and exploring what activists and scholars have written about educational commons. This exploration has provided us with different perspectives, which are all valuable to share with our community. We invite you to review our draft, provide comments, challenge ideas, and share your reflections. Your contribution will be very important in shaping and refining our understanding of educational commons, as Educators Unite is based on the collaborative values of commoning.
You can read the first draft here. Please leave your thoughts on this form.
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EDUCATORS UNITE GATHERING 1
On the 29th May, approx 40 of us arrived at the Pickle Factory for the first gathering of Educators Unite. We were a mix of those who teach, students, practitioners, and Bristol Commoners - many wearing several hats at once.
Together, we travelled through the journey of the agenda (and even space at one point!) via a variety of participation invitations; designed to engage our heart, head and hands, and build energy and momentum throughout the day.
There were lots of smiles, a few tears, open space discussions, news and idea sharing, introductions, focused thinking and reflection, and even a disco speed-mingle!
By the end we had set the context for the EU movement, amassed our collective thoughts about the challenges we face, and captured our collective hopes for "Education" in the future.
Most of what emerged during the event has now been uploaded to the Educators Unite Miro Board. This board is a space where we can continue to share, in-between gatherings (whilst we work on our online platform, more on that below). The invitation is for anyone to explore and contribute, like a giant pinboard!
The Three Horizons...
During the gathering participants were introduced to the ideas of the Three Horizons, as a framework for mapping the context of where we are now, and the vision of where we would like to get to.
This is a useful tool for unpacking the pathways that need to happen within Horizon 2, in order to un-learn and leave behind the unhelpful/harmful characteristics, patterns and dogma of the Horizon 1; as we move towards, and co-create, a new Paradigm in Horizon 3.
This model also enables us to get beyond the challenges of having ideas that seem unrealistic, plus the overwhelm of not knowing how to begin.
News was shared about the strategic aims of the Bristol Commons; to act as a vehicle for growing the culture and praxis of commononing, and, to bring into community ownership the type of infrastructure and governance we may want and need in Horizon 3.
The manifestations of the Bristol Commons may help to hold, resource, weave and bolster the work of Educators Unite, as much as Educators Unite may inform, skill-up, train, educate, connect and bolster the work within and of the Bristol Commons.
Within Horizon 3 we placed Manfred Max-Neef's Human-Scale Development framework - to help us think about what humans need to survive and thrive, and to consider their relation to Education.
On the Miro Board you can zoom into each of the Horizons and read everyone's thoughts and ideas - which has started to illuminate our starting point and some eventual goals.
What's next for Educators Unite?
Planning a gathering for spring 2025 and building on our online presence:
Emergence and Shaping...
Educators Unite is a seed that has been newly planted in the garden of possible emergence, alongside the seedlings of the Bristol Commons, Shift Bristol, and the Bristol School of Commoning.
This garden needs caretakers, growers, waterers, stewards, birdsong, pollinating insects, mycelium roots stretching out to other networks, and all the other life-affirming involvement and support that you may bring.
What can you offer? What do we need?
What can we offer? What do you need?
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In the beginning, there was the Callout...
Early 2024 Shift Bristol sent out the below callout for a gathering to it's educational networks.
Over the last year it has become apparent that the World/Ecosystem is ready for a different form of 'Education' to emerge, that plugs into regenerative systems for a better world - believing that the old paradigms are dying and the potential to be building a replacement.
Shift Bristol has been contacted by various people in different circles, organisations, projects, institutions to talk on this subject.
Asking how we bring together all the threads of education from our different perspectives and desire to cross pollinate - and how from that something spectacular will emerge.
This is about holistic education that engages humans through their heart, head and hands; that is connected with the natural world and framed through looking at the niches we play in helping humanity and nature to thrive, whilst meeting our needs for food, shelter, comfort, culture and connection.
This is about developing systems where humans are educated in ways that centres on their innate joys and passions (their regenerational energies), and how humans are held, facilitated and mentored into following pathways to develop roles/crafts through a successional pattern.
It is recognising that this successional pattern changes over time, that at different stages we evolve through; student, to apprentice, to expert and then mentor. How this is a cycle of self actualisation and then passing the baton to the next generation; through legacy and inheritance; connecting youth work, right through to the elders.
This is about how as educators, we can redesign systems to facilitate and illuminate these pathways and cycles; and how we can integrate them within our living systems - both the natural world and how we live as humans within villages, towns and cities.
How this is about how we need to look at education through the lens of intersectionality, and identifying the various blocks to education for different humans, and how we take responsibility for dismantling those blocks so that we can unleash the collective genius that resides within us all.
This is about making space for emotion, vulnerability, humility, and letting the curtain fall that educators need to have all the answers and hold all the power.
There are many, many models, approaches, and strategies that education is taught through, and we each have our own language, narrative, identity and inherent 'shape', and because of that we each have our own recipe cards for creating the most delicious educational experiences.
It is time to get into a room together and share these tasty ingredients, and allow space where we can dream up feasts of future education that are super sustaining and nourishing, with a view to planning the emergence of a 'Commons College' to be piloted in Bristol, as part of the Bristol Commons movement.
Those who have been invited to this event come from the following educational backgrounds;
- Permaculture Design
- Transition Towns / Together
- Biomimicry
- The Work that Reconnects
- Land Workers Alliance
- Sociocracy / Huddling
- Working with marginalised groups
- A plethora of courses teaching hands-on skills
- Commoning
- University lecturing
- Academic Research
- Mentorship
- Circular Economies
- Story telling
- Consultancy
- Coaching
- Integrated alternative course providers (like Shift)
- Systems Design
- And others that we’re not aware of!
Huge gratitude to each of you, for the work that you do, and we look forward to seeing you in a couple of months!