The Ecological Domain, with Noan Fesnoux

With the effects of climate change all around us, discussion of the future must involve ecological considerations, but our guest in this episode invites us to think beyond environmental concerns, and to treat education itself as ecology.

In this discussion with Noan Fesnoux, we touch on reframing our expectations of consumption and our relationship with our environment, schools as metacognitive hubs, and the role international schools can play in leading change.

Noan Fesnoux is currently Creative Adviser to the Museum of the Future in Dubai. A person who first and foremost loves people and nature, he works with schools globally to embed place-based and project-based learning into their school culture. Starting as the Green Studies teacher at Green School Bali, he evolved and grew the program to become an integrated and school-wide experience. As Project Coordinator at the same school, he created an immersive middle and high school experience, LEAP Academy. 

He went on to seed the vision and start Real School Budapest, a school built around project-based learning. A life long learner who strives to design and build learning environments which amplify the already mighty intrinsic human potential, Noan is also an entrepreneur who is unafraid to take on new challenges as long as the actions are driven by a desire to be more sustainable.

--------------------------------------

Find out more about MSB and download our paper, Futures-Focused Leadership for International Schools, at www.makingstuffbetter.com

You can find us on Linked in at -

Matt Hall: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-hall-msb/

Naomi Ward: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naomi-ward-098a1535/

Transcript

This transcript is AI generated.

[00:00:00] Matt Hall: Hello and welcome back to Principled from MSB. 

[00:00:07] Naomi Ward: This season offers international school leaders a provocation to think differently about the future of education and their role in the creation of this future. It's an opportunity to continue thinking seriously and deeply about the legacy that school leaders leave behind through concerted action in the present.

To frame this provocation, we will be bringing together the latest research and thinking about futures focused leadership, alongside insights from interviews with experts from across the international school sector and beyond. 

[00:00:39] Matt Hall: Each episode, we will explore a different domain. And in the following episode, we will put the thinking through its paces with a panel of school leaders, some highly experienced, some new enroll and some emerging.

We're so pleased to have you join us.

Here we are again. I'm really looking forward to this episode. Uh, I'm gonna, I'm bringing you someone from a really interesting background for this session. Not that our other people aren't, but, uh, yeah, no one's had a really interesting career to date. Naomi. 

[00:01:12] Naomi Ward: Yeah, he's, um, been working at the green school barley and we've invited him here to talk about this domain of, um, ecology.

And I think our learning at MSB around ecology is that it. is transposed to lots of different areas within education. So, uh, yeah, looking forward to hearing someone with so much experience. 

[00:01:34] Matt Hall: Yeah, I totally agree because, um, Noanne's now working Kind of with education, but beyond education. So he's, um, he did work for the Dubai future foundation.

I mean, could you get any more relevant to what we're talking about? And now he's the creative advisor at the museum of the future in Dubai. So take certainly taking a broader ecological look at society and the place education plays in it. So yeah, let's definitely get started.

It's really nice to have the one with us, um, here on the podcast. I can't help but just mention we're recording this on the morning of the 6th of November and there's been some fairly substantial political events, whatever your political allegiances that are impacting us and are on our mind. Um, and we're just gonna, I'm just gonna keep that there and not, not make it the subject of this podcast, of course, but it's present, I think in, in all of us, we're going to today be exploring the ecological domain a little bit further.

In the paper Nguyen, um, Patrick writes there is an argument to be made that the current educational system is profoundly unsustainable exactly because it socializes young people in the expectation that the future should and will inevitably involve participation in consumption and production at the cost of the longevity of the planet.

I'm going to put that at your feet as our starting point and I'm curious to see what you think. What it brings up for you. 

[00:03:10] Noan Fesnoux: Wow. It brings up so much when it comes to this idea that right now we exist in a certain paradigm and that paradigm has been going on now for better part of 70 years. And we recognize that it is a destructive paradigm and we have even named multiple times now.

where we need to go. Sustainable, uh, societies, or regenerative. We, we're still at the talking about it phase, which, when it comes to young people, does not elude them. They are fully aware that they exist in a world where, uh, the problems are real. But the actions aren't there. I've been, uh, actually going to many of the schools in my area.

And this was something that struck me so much was just this idea that these are teenagers are well aware of what needs to be done and yeah, feeling the anxiety that the people in positions of responsibility are not taking the And 

[00:04:32] Matt Hall: what, given your experience in this area, is the implications or are the implications for schools and the, the future of schooling?

[00:04:42] Noan Fesnoux: I guess, uh, a biggie is just be ready, ready for students to shift towards something else. Uh, maybe they already are. The idea of apathy and, uh, burnout, stress is increasing in, in education in general. And these, uh, these kids, as soon as they're given an alternative, I think that alternative. will blossom.

And so, my hope is, uh, in ecology, uh, introduce a new species into an area, and it can be incredibly disruptive. I think that's what education is looking for at this point, is, uh, is the disruptor, something that takes a Somewhat, yeah, uh, unhealthy ecosystem and adds to the mix, whether or not it's going to be a positive or negative.

Maybe that's kind of where we have to start exploring, because see where that goes. 

[00:05:49] Naomi Ward: I feel like we're seeing this in other domains that human beings are not capable of of driving change through the logic of what we know is needed. There are other forces are needed to be that, be that tidal wave almost that makes it inevitable.

So do you see that other factor? Is it the young people and their vision? Is it, yeah, what, what is it going to take from the other forces in the world to drive change? drive us to this, this disruption that you, you, you, you've been working towards for so long. 

[00:06:35] Noan Fesnoux: I can think of some interesting examples and it's neat because they all come through kind of kid culture, the news that they spread between one another.

And this one stuck with me, which was, uh, one week a kid who was, yeah, for all intents and purposes, part of our community stopped coming to school. And, uh, we're like, we're. Where did he go? His dad was a very alternative fellow. Uh, and a couple of weeks later, the kid said, yeah, he's, uh, he's now making something like 6, 000 a month as a, uh, Roblox streamer.

And they talked all about how suddenly this one person who was their peer was. Operating in a professional domain and making a livelihood well beyond his dad. And I think that's where some of the push happens, the people who are willing to jump into new domains and try new things. And rather than us designing towards it, often it's finding the moments where.

Where somebody has disrupted and then seizing those and going, well, how do we actually bring more of this type of energy into our, uh, education sphere 

[00:08:02] Naomi Ward: and thinking about futures, literacy, and, uh, you know, imagining other worlds, sometimes we have to really provoke ourselves, don't we? And that makes me think like, what if kids just stop coming to school?

You, you know, what, how would we respond then? What's the future we would have to create then? 

[00:08:21] Noan Fesnoux: I mean, there's a lot of kids who, I think, school isn't serving them well, and the thing that compels them to come is, okay, there's maybe for the younger kids, it's, uh, the childcare piece, but then once they've reached independence, it's a societal pressure.

And, uh, I think right now is a really. for alternatives to be presented to them, uh, looking at ways to validate those parallel experiences, one that I love. And this is actually some, uh, something that been done in the UK are the cities of learning concept. Uh, maybe you've heard of these. The idea is rather than say, school is a place where you go and you get all of your accreditation through it.

They start to look across a whole community and say, where are the learning opportunities and how do we. recognize those, and then how do we build an ecosystem that can support kids going out to all these different spaces and learning? And that means that rather than you learning about finance or math through a course that follows a set curriculum, you might find yourself, uh, doing apprenticeships.

In an office and learning through the real world application of those types of things 

[00:09:52] Matt Hall: i mean yeah it's really it's really true and i've mentioned it on the podcast before you know i have a daughter who is totally at that age of um self kind of realization in her early teens who is absolutely in that space of what is this is no longer child care why do i need to be here and with that in mind i you know in the paper we talk about probable preferable possible futures um and i know no and your background and your current work is around.

Thinking about preferable futures of schools. I'd love it if you can just to share a little bit more about what, what I see the work you're doing, which is kind of where preferable meets possible. You're looking at what is preferable and you're turning it into what is possible. And I think this is a space that international school leaders who are maybe leading more traditional school settings.

But maybe don't quite know how we might get there. 

[00:10:44] Noan Fesnoux: So to me, a early question that any school should ask is what are some of the main benefits that it provides? And when you start unpacking, it comes down to often a shared commonality, which is Uh, we provide a community and right there, I think is where we, we need to start finding okay.

Schools everywhere do create community. They're actually one of the main ways that bring people together on a regular basis and allow us to interact outside of families, uh, in our current day and age. And so what if the shift was let's take that asset and dial it up to a hundred and talk about these centers where people come to learn as learning communities.

And in that way, sure, they have curriculum, they might do all of these other things, they might pursue, uh, academic excellence and all of this, but if you take that and say that's right there, the core, and then start imagining what else you could do with that learning community, uh, you could invite expertise in and build around a project like that, you could also Use it as a metacognitive hub.

So rather than focus on content delivery in that space, you think of it as a place to come together so that you can reflect on the incredible learning that is happening in the world around you. And so the preferable way of looking at a school. is as a place to, uh, think about your thinking and learn about how you're learning.

Uh, so move it into a bit more of a metacognitive level. Stop worrying about trying to teach kids X, Y, and Z and think about why X, Y, and Z is relevant and how they even absorb those things. 

[00:12:48] Matt Hall: Yes. Um, I'm not wishing to Too much play devil's advocate I can hear our international school leaders who listen to this podcast saying I'm with you totally with you But I've got a curriculum and there's an IB and I've got parents expecting outcomes and there's exams to be done And and I'm subject to that existing system.

How how how might I marry those two? I'm with you on what's preferred help me out here with that. 

[00:13:22] Noan Fesnoux: I mean a system like IB You Has some amazing inroads in it, like their theory of knowledge class, uh, or subject it's, it's one that is beautifully tailored to opening this up a lot more. So there's spaces where every curriculum actually offers these opportunities.

You do need to give a bit of space to the educators that, all right, instead of hitting this list of a thousand learning outcomes over the course of, uh, the last three years, we're going to maybe have some more focused areas and then create a bit more space for the educators to play, give them permission.

And provide them with the support to, uh, really respond to the needs of the learners. So, uh, this comes back really nicely to the ecosystem piece, which is thinking about your educators more, less as kind of strategic, uh, delivery apparatus, uh, a mechanistic way of teaching. And more as sensing and responding to the environment that they're in, because kids will come with so many different angles.

And if the educator is wired to, well, that's fascinating, but by the way, that isn't covered in our content for the day. Sorry, we're going to have to park that. It creates right there, a barrier. And so. I would say to leadership, find, find the spaces that you can create greater latitude for your educators, uh, support them of training and celebrate their attempts, even if those attempts are failures, celebrate those because you're not going to get it right the first time or the second time, but the fact that you're trying.

Speaks to the opportunity to evolve. 

[00:15:28] Naomi Ward: And I can sense some excitement here now on in, in those possibilities. When you've seen that done well, what's the potential then for, for young people, for healthy ecologies, for this preferred future? 

[00:15:47] Noan Fesnoux: I actually should preface that probably the biggest barrier that, uh, primary and secondary education has is tertiary education.

Uh, everybody's worried about what the universities think. How do we get them into university? That's, that's the barrier. It isn't actually what happens during those years as much as will they be able to go on to whatever comes next. I've had the lived experience at green school in Bali of what it can look like when, when you create a bit of space and allow the kids to really drive on more personal journeys.

And while they can get their AP classes and, uh, may have their A levels depending on the system they're interested in. The piece that stands out is they've taken on a personal project or a series of personal projects by the time they graduate, and some of them they've stuck with through more than a year of their lives and seen the, the growth trajectory in themselves, and then have that story to tell.

And this to me becomes really profound. You see 17 year olds who are not just ready for university. They're ready for the world. They often decide university isn't the next step for me. It's starting a business or it's, uh, it's continuing on with the research that I've already done. And so finding ways to.

Give kids the benefit of the doubt. These are intelligent thinking human beings, as we all know, empower them. And then I think we'll be incredibly surprised about what they will achieve when we give them that agency. 

[00:17:45] Matt Hall: And that really chimes with this concept of ecology, I think, because we, you know, we talk in the paper about ecology and from a kind of, um, relationship with the earth, but we also talk about it as an ecology of learning.

Um, what's the ecology of learning and, you know, a sense that, that, that is, was and is a big part of, of the green school approach. 

[00:18:07] Noan Fesnoux: For sure. Um, It's interesting. I mean, in green school's case, they, they created the summit of experience, a capstone project that allowed them, the kids to share, uh, well, there's a lot of fanfare and celebration around it.

An important piece of course, of the, uh, of how you socialize this is the ritual and celebrations around it. But then really it's the journey of the kids have been on that. Makes the lasting impact. And when I, when I speak to many of my former students, I see where they are in the world. One thing that always strikes me is that they, they believe that their.

Role is to make an impact, to do something good. And this fits into our November 6th theme here, which is they bring enormous amounts of optimism and energy for the future. They are not stuck in the past. They're thinking ahead, they're dynamic. And that to me is what our world needs. So much of right now is the agile thinkers that we find in most young people, if they're given the chance.

[00:19:28] Naomi Ward: Yeah. And that to me is that this is about lifelong learning, isn't it? Like beginning that and it just becomes a cyclical iterative process that becomes a broader and broader collaboration. And, and I think what breaks my heart is when that natural impulse is shut down. Cause what you're talking about is like this almost like an impulse to play that we see in children, this impulse to learn and move towards life and justice.

Yeah. So how does this psychology, you know, kind of. forwards, you know, decades into the future. 

[00:20:06] Noan Fesnoux: I, I also feel right there, the sense of community becomes really important because, uh, it will persist. Uh, you build strong relationships and networks, uh, in any community that you reside in. And, and then those become reinforcing because.

You're around people who, when you say, Hey, you know what? I don't think being a scientist was the right move for me. They won't go, but you've spent so much time doing it. They'll go, tell me why, uh, and what else are you interested in? And so they bring a lot of security and validation around that, that sense of lifelong learning and always looking to grow and develop.

And so to me, that's one important piece of the ecology. Uh, I would say that. It isn't limited to static communities either. Dynamic communities now with our Uh, technology can have just as much that impact. They can support each other just as well. And actually I'll use myself as an example here. I continuously find that when, uh, I have moved into other roles, I call up my friends and colleagues, people who I've worked with and say, Hey, this is new for me, what's going on.

And so that lifelong learning becomes part of a culture that we carry in our, in our groups. 

[00:21:41] Matt Hall: Yeah, well, let me, let me give you another prompt then, Noah, um, as we come towards the end of this, this conversation, which is this, again, drawing from the paper, Patrick writes, one starting point for the process of change is a critique of our anticipatory assumptions about our relationship to nature, framing our place in the world as part of an ecosystem, rather than viewing the natural world as a sphere of resource maximization.

It's an obvious place to begin. 

[00:22:07] Noan Fesnoux: I think that right there is so fundamental. This idea that we're part of something, the. Ego versus eco piece and not looking at what's around us as things that we can capitalize and manipulate to make the world we want, but rather they're deeply informative and instructional and they are also our teachers and giving ourselves space and time to, to sit with that, to sit with the complexity of the natural world to me is something that.

We're losing, we've, we've actually lost in a lot of cases. And I feel like it even connects to another piece where our world is getting worse and worse with uncertainty, even though we're needing more and more to become comfortable with uncertainty. And I feel like part of that comes to our connection to nature because nature's complexity, the natural world around us is.

So unpredictable that it kind of leaves us in a space of resignation to it, but a really happy resignation to it. And then as we start to appreciate that, when uncertainty comes in our life, we also find ourselves just accepting it and being like, okay, this, this doesn't feel super uncomfortable. Hmm.

[00:23:40] Naomi Ward: Another aspect of ecologies in the paper is around. This idea of wellbeing, you know, none of this is possible if we are not well. And, you know, going back to the context we sit in today, there's something around our collective nervous system that just needs soothing. And so I love what you're saying about the natural world and also about community and also agency.

So it feels to me like this conversation is sort of bigger than school. It's a, it's kind of a way of being human. 

[00:24:15] Noan Fesnoux: I've always thought about that, uh, in my role isn't actually about school or about educating kids, it's actually leveraging something that is far deeper and older, which is, uh, uh, a community space, a space where we share ideas in real time, uh, are still able to connect via pheromones and body language.

Uh, and that space I think is so vital for our wellbeing at its core. Uh, I don't think you can fully substitute anything for it. And school and church would be two of the last sort of spaces for that. And if you were to take one that offers the greatest hope of being more open to many types of people, it would be school.

That is the ecosystem to allow for. Okay. Healthy individuals and healthy society. 

[00:25:15] Matt Hall: And that's why we feel international schools in particular, but not exclusively as just so well placed to be exploring this work because they are such intentional places of internationalism. They are so deliberately. Um, international and, you know, caveat here, I'm not saying that, uh, a UK state school or a state school in any country doesn't have a range of students from a range of backgrounds, but there's something really specific about, about international schools that deliberately bring people together from a range of different, um, nations that, that are often also not always, and I know, um, I can hear a lot of the voices of the people we work with in our head as I say this, but also often working in, you know, Environments that have fewer educational restrictions than say a UK state school by way of example, and that's where I, I feel really hopeful that international schools have a place in leading this thinking and leading this work and showing that these changes are possible.

[00:26:19] Noan Fesnoux: That's awesome. I, I totally agree with you. It has the, uh, instant opportunity to learn from a diverse set of peers, uh, and a lot of international schools already leverage that. Maybe not to, uh, where I would take it, but they're getting there. Uh, and then likewise, like you said, they're getting there.

They're under less scrutiny from, uh, governing bodies, I guess is what I would say. Uh, because they still have their accrediting bodies, and they still have the parents that scrutinize them. That opportunity to not have that third party, which, uh, which is a biggie, uh, having Oversight and influence allows you a bit of space to play.

[00:27:12] Matt Hall: No. And thanks so much for the conversation today. We could have talked for hours as always, but, uh, it's time to press pause, but thank you. I've really enjoyed it. 

[00:27:20] Naomi Ward: Yeah. Thank you. No one. 

[00:27:21] Noan Fesnoux: Yeah. Thank you very much for the opportunity.

[00:27:32] Naomi Ward: So another conversation diving into these layers. Of ecologies and, and themes arising that were quite surprising. What, what's staying with you from that conversation, Matt? 

[00:27:43] Matt Hall: Do you know what? I'm actually surprised at how hopeful I feel. Uh, and I find that any time my doom and gloom Pessimism sets in, in any of these conversations, the moment, one of our guests, whoever they are, brings it back to what kids think and how kids are seeing things and what kids are doing.

I'm kind of reminded that, that my reality is not theirs and that makes me really optimistic, uh, that they see the truth. They see what's going on. They have aspirations for change. They have aspirations to make an impact. And. And, and all the cliches about, you know, the future being in the hands of the next generations exist for a reason, I feel hopeful.

[00:28:35] Naomi Ward: You're heading back to working in a school, Matt, in the near future by the sound of it? 

[00:28:40] Matt Hall: Well, I mean, maybe, but for now I'm very, very happy, very happy creating these conversations and creating meaningful conversations with people in schools. 

[00:28:53] Naomi Ward: Yeah, and I agree with, um, what you say there about the energy of young people and it reminds me of what coaching is for, you know, that we get out of the way so that people's natural life force can do what it needs to do and maybe this is how the role of teacher is evolving.

How do we create spaces, create conversations, the critical consciousness, get out of the way because young people are more informed, feel sharper, feel more attuned to the world than I think I was, so we need to trust them. 

[00:29:33] Matt Hall: Yeah, I agree. It takes me back to a quote, and I can't remember who it was, but, um, the future belongs to those who can connect, which I think Noanne was partly getting at.

Uh, and, and, and maybe that's the role of, of. Schools now, if we are creating our futures now, if we can do everything to think of community and connection, and then the rest of the trust, the rest will follow, uh, which again, goes back to the philosophy of this research paper, which is it's a provocation.

It's a series of questions. It's an attempt to open up dialogue. It's not an answer. And I can feel my, my, my kind of brain sometimes get hijacked in this conversation to, Oh, we need to answer this question. And then, yeah, that shift to, no, just, just trust the kids. 

[00:30:26] Naomi Ward: Yeah. Yeah. So what if schools were places for connection and community above all, where that might take us as an intention?

[00:30:36] Matt Hall: See you next time. 

[00:30:38] Naomi Ward: See you next time. 

[00:30:40] Matt Hall: You can download a free copy of our paper, Futures Focus Leadership for International Schools, by signing up on our website. makingstuffbetter. com. And don't forget to like and follow Principled so you don't miss an episode. 

[00:30:55] Naomi Ward: You've been listening to Principled from MSB.

The podcast was produced by Emily Crosby Media with music by Lucy Farrell, released on Hudson Records.