November 16, 2016

(Photo credits: top photo – Ashoka Spain; middle – @jimpknight; bottom – Moira Malone)

During the week of October 17, Sammy Magnuson, Inspired Teaching’s Manager of Strategic Initiatives, traveled to Killarney, Ireland for Ashoka’s Changemaker Education Summit. Inspired Teaching is working closely with Ashoka to promote a collective vision in which every young person builds the skills to thrive in, and contribute to, our complex and rapidly changing world.

The Summit convened a select group of innovators and leaders in the fields of education, social entrepreneurship, business, and government to share best practices in support of each other’s work, generate partnerships, and develop concrete plans to work towards systems-level change in education.

Sammy Magnuson (right) helps organize plans to collaborate with global change leaders.

Sammy led a session entitled Changing Mindsets in the Classroom and Beyond. Participants experienced Inspired Teaching’s intellectually, emotionally, and physically engaging professional development, through which we help teachers radically re-think their role in the classroom and community. By the end of the session, the group had generated a list of concrete strategies, identifying what works best when asking teachers, leaders, and the public at large to look at something familiar – like school – in a new way. Their reflections included:

“Our goal is not just to change the mindsets of the people we train directly, but to also think about how they can become changemakers themselves. We can’t just change their minds about what are the pedagogies they use. You also have to train them on training others.” 

“Changing mindsets must happen through hearts and minds. One of the best tools to use is modeling the attitudes and dispositions you want to see in others. Be the change you want to see. We must also create safety for people, in order to enable them to be ready to change mindsets.”

As Inspired Teaching works to shift the norm so that the education system promotes engagement, rather than compliance, among all children, working with aligned partners is critical. The Summit revealed the power of exchanging best practices, grounded in experience, and working together to change mindsets towards our shared vision.

Participants at the Summit discuss ways to collaborate toward global systems change in education.

We look forward to continuing our work with Ashoka and other innovators and leaders in our field, similarly dedicated to shifting the norm in order to build a better world with our young people. Ross Hall, Director of Education for Ashoka Europe, called participants of the Summit to focus on our common goals, which continue to guide our collaboration:

• “We need to transform the very idea of education so that it is understood not simply ‘as the acquisition of knowledge and the development of skills, but also in terms of the development of vast and powerful potentialities inherent in the very nature of every human being.’
• “We need to transform the idea of education systems so that they are understood as engines not only for employment and economic growth but for making a better world.
• “We need to build new learning ecosystems that ensure that every young person is benefiting from experiences inside and outside of school that are explicitly intended to empower them to make a better world – to go about their lives making decisions and taking action that improves our collective quality of life.”

Learn more about the Changemaker Education Summit here or watch the video below.