Time to farm seeds of change.

A year of action now begins, to make the most of it we will need to capitalize on the valuable lessons of 2020.

Since the pandemic broke, we have been partnered in a sequence of live-streamed discussions entitled, #GoodAfterCovid19, together with Carlo Giardinetti of Franklin University Switzerland as well as Kim Polman from Reboot the Future. The express purpose of these being to provide a real-time laboratory to prepare for life, post-lockdown, and to capture the learnings of this unprecedented time.

More than 200 thought leaders have been involved in this process, UN representatives, activists, scientists, spiritual leaders, business leaders. An adaptive, spontaneous group of free thinkers, beyond brands, organizations, and personal experience, gathered for a necessary conversation: to reflect on the emerging changes and to select the topics that will be of crucial importance in the future.

The series became a sort of Humana Communitas experience that drew on the blank sheet at which we were all staring, during and after this RESET time, contributing with ideas, colors, and suggestions from different backgrounds and beyond each other’s social roles as defined in the previous world. A Humana Communitas that, with courage, dropped personal beliefs on the table, opening up an international dialogue of reconnection so needed to interpret the present and to scan through for the good seeds of a very different future.

Now we are at the starting blocks, and to lay a solid foundation for this moment of new beginning, I believe it is necessary to start with Education.

Education is one of the sectors most affected, tested, and impacted by the global pandemic and that demonstrates a continued need for change to fuel and restart the leadership of the future.

1. Let’s start with the “why”

Learning is the starting point from which to rethink the “what” and the “how”, to restructure the content and bring added value to a new, fairer, and more inclusive citizenship of tomorrow.

If the ultimate goal of knowledge is to serve humanity, to create a better version of ourselves, and to lead us towards a better future, then it becomes necessary to ask ourselves: What is the future we want? What exactly does it mean to restart the future and how can the future restart education?

2. Restoring universal human values

The fragmentation of the current training model, marked by competition, driven by the need to obtain certifications or simply divided into a plurality of technicalities and hyper-specializations, has proved not only to be inefficient but not even appropriate to current needs.

Collaboration, a greater sense of responsibility, compassion, creativity, and reciprocity can all be summed up as needed in the current educational system to nourish and re-evaluate relationships in a deeper and more caring way. To provide a new vocabulary that focuses on ethical and emotional intelligence, respect, trust, and love. To form an ecosystem that recognizes and values the close interconnection of the whole and is oriented to the common good. After all, it is in everyone’s interest.

3. Challenge-based Learning

Human beings are more adept at creating problems than solving them. Yet we have at our disposal a teacher who we all too often underestimate: Mother Earth. Nature can teach us the principles of harmony, balance, and sustainable relationships. It is time for the educational system to move to forms of learning that are based on concrete projects and inspired by the functioning of nature and play. A mode that stimulates the constant learning of students.

“By the time the children leave school we must be sure that they have acquired the confidence to change the world.” — Andy Middleton

4. Lifelong Learning

If we want to redesign the whole learning ecosystem, we need to start considering a long-term plan that is based on a common vision. It is an ongoing process, in which school and academic education are only the first in a longer, multi-dimensional learning pathway. Poetry, art, and philosophy must return to the centre of education, as well as the ancient questions and reflections on the good and the collective at the basis of ancient Greek thought.

Every occasion, context, or neighborhood is an incredible and flourishing ecosystem of learning.

“Learning to live together and prosper together is a process in progress. We must go beyond knowledge and skills to focus on the whole.” — Ross Hall

5. Learn With Others

If everything is interconnected, then the learning process should also follow the same logic. Constantly learning from and with others is its main corollary. This means, yes, learning from the supreme wisdom of the planet, but also stimulating teachers and leaders to constantly put themselves forward with an active learning mindset. This means feeding a two-way channel in which learning is free to convey from one subject to another, regardless of their role. If students perceived that teachers were learning with them, active interaction would be created and positive contamination aimed at collective improvement would result. In the same way, the need to learn from and with subjects outside the traditional educational field has been shared: designers, researchers, artists, scientists, philosophers and entrepreneurs, up to the children themselves: every voice is an added value.

“Co-designing lifelong learning together with those who are in the learning position, to learners would be much more successful.” — Francois Taddei

6. Technologies

Technologies and digital tool are showing themselves as platforms capable of bringing collective intelligence and collective thinking together. At the same time, as we progress towards this new post-COVID world, we should not forget to carry out constant “reality checks.”

Following the provocation launched by Anthony Bennet, children represent the most vulnerable consumers of technology. Rethinking what we teach them is also necessary given the multiplicity of predatory forms already gripping the education-oriented technology sector.

7. Essential needs

Understanding the basic needs of children requires courage, especially from school leaders. It means looking beyond the need for skills and making sure they have the necessary food, adequate technological access, or sufficient quality of connection. It means ensuring that everyone, individuals, groups, and the environment, have the same dignity. Only in this way will teachers feel more like “changemakers” than professionals and their internal motivation will always be nurtured.

“As long as people continue to think of them as citizens of a specific nation, we will not have any change. We are human beings above all else, and as such we share common characteristics, such as the need for peace and prosperity.” — Pavel Luksha

The Future Food Institute believes climate change is at the end of your fork. By harnessing the power of our global ecosystem of partners, innovators, researchers, educators, and entrepreneurs, FFI aims to sustainably improve life on Earth through transformation of global food systems.

We advocate and initiate positive change initiatives in Food Waste & Circular Systems, Cities of The Future, Water Safety & Security, Climate, Earth Regeneration, Mediterranean Foodscape, Nutrition for All, and Humana Communitas, all tied in with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Learn more at www.futurefoodinsitute.org, or join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, or YouTube.

Or attend a program through the FutureFood.Academy!