Education as a Force to Unite - A Conversation with Faith Abiodun

Welcome to the Future Learning Design Podcast.

So the UWC mission is so aptly written that it offers us both a call, a challenge, and a desire for wanting a better world. And if education is the way the society evolves itself, we have a leading role to play in driving that evolution. And may we not miss the moment.

Hi everybody, thanks for joining me for another episode of the podcast. My name is Tim Logan and the podcast is brought to you in partnership with Notosh. For this week's conversation, it was a huge pleasure to speak with Faith Abiodun, who is the Executive Director at United World Colleges International. Faith brings a wealth of experience from his time spent as an education and social enterprise leader in International Affairs Analyst, writer, and speaker. Prior to UWC International, Faith spent nearly a decade at the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he served as an executive leading— where he served as an executive leading the recruitment of thousands of young leaders from all over the world for ALA's programs. He also headed the Communications, Marketing, Program Recruitment, and Partnerships Department, helping to build ALA's global brand and developing strategic partnerships with governments, corporates, foundations, NGOs, and schools. Earlier in his career, Faith was a journalist for The Guardian in Nigeria and also founded The Speech Academy, an elocution and public speaking institution, and Future Africa, a public sector leadership organization with a network of emerging leaders spread across more than 30 African countries. Well, thank you, Faith. It's really a great pleasure to be able to chat to you today, and it's The UWC movement is a kind of an emotional one for me because it was the very first time I, as a teacher in the UK, discovered the international school world when somebody introduced me to somebody who was working at UWC Waterford Kampelaba in eSwatini, Swaziland as it was then. And I was just blown away, blown away by the work that was going on there. And that's what kind of kicked off my exploration into international education. So I have a, there's a place in my heart for UWC in that regard, but really happy to be able to chat to you about it, just to, you know, find out a bit more about the movement in general and you personally and what your vision is for that. And also just to hopefully spread the word about the amazing work that's going on there. So thanks for joining, firstly.

Amazing. Thank you for that. And it really is a privilege to connect with fellow practitioners and fellow enthusiasts of international education and, and also to find our shared connections to, to a mission that is so powerful. And continues to drive us forward, inspire us, and we can see the impact of what we are doing on such a daily basis. And that's the joy of what we are doing. So this is great.

Fantastic. So I mean, if we start with that kind of mission and the why behind UWC, obviously last year, for people who are not aware, it was the 60th anniversary since 1962 of the opening of UWC Atlantic College in Wales. So maybe for those who aren't so familiar with the movement, perhaps you could give just a brief kind of color on, you know, in terms of what was the why behind it, setting up, obviously, in terms of setting the scene, it'd be interesting because it comes from a really important and values-based place, I think.

Absolutely. UWC stands for the United World Colleges, and today that is a movement of 18 international schools sitting on 20 campuses on 4 continents, supported by about 156 national committees working in all parts of the world. And they support UWC schools by helping to identify students who come to study there as well as run the selections process, supporting with some fundraising, and then some student support on an ongoing basis. So essentially, when we think about UWC, it is the connection of individuals, organizations, schools that have been spun out of that singular vision that was born in Wales in the, in the early 1960s. As far as we can trace the history of the UWC movement between the late 1950s and early 1960s, when a number of things came together. You had individuals who were education leaders and passionate at wanting to make the world a better place through education, as well as world leaders who were interested in helping to rebuild a new world order on the back of the Second World War and, and the Cold War, which was at its peak at the time. And there was this confluence of minds that came together realizing that as NATO was being formed and there was this idea of bringing people together to rebuild approaches to peace by people and nations who were on opposite, previously opposing ends of the conflict and thinking about what a new world order could look like based on multilateralism, international understanding, and led by three gentlemen, Kurt Hahn, Lawrence D'Arval, and Desmond Hall. And the three of them brought together the best of both worlds really. Kurt Hahn being an educational leader and Lawrence D'Arval and Desmond Hall being naval leaders. And the idea of the Confluence was bring together at the time young men only who had come from the countries of the North Atlantic, you know, so North America, parts of Europe, et cetera. And that grew over time, but originally was a small number of countries where you had young men selected to represent their countries in this new institution through which they would discover the world anew, discover each other, and learn to build peace and commit service together. And that vision survived by itself until girls were allowed to join the school as time went. And then it became a full-fledged school that was built partly on the ideas of Kurt Hahn, who had been a revolutionary German educator with lots of great ideas about challenging young people to seek purpose and pursue service and seek the best of each other. And those ideas overlaid with innovative thinking and education at the time originally doing the Cambridge A Levels, but growing over time to develop new ways of education, which gave birth in part to the International Baccalaureate. Yeah. So those, those early days were just really revolutionary in terms of what they were making possible. And written into the founding documents was the desire that this would not simply be one school. It was going to be the foundation for a growing number of similar Atlantic colleges at the time in multiple parts of the world. And towards the, the late 1960s, around 1967, the, the board of Atlantic College determined that it was time to begin the expansion after the first 5 years and go set up more Atlantic Colleges. And so the chair of the board, uh, George Shuster, uh, was tasked with finding the person who would lead the global expansion of the UWC movement, or then Atlantic Colleges movement. And so they found Lord Mountbatten, who had been obviously in many ways influential in parts of Asia representing the, the British Kingdom. The last Viceroy in India, and then Burma. And so Lord Mountbatten came on board as the first president of this global expansion, which he aptly renamed United World Colleges, and their sense of building a united world through education. And so that was the birth of the UWC movement. And first you had expansion in, and there's a bit of a debate about which one came first, which I will not get into. But essentially, we had a school set up in Singapore and then a school set up in Canada. And then you had USA and Italy that came afterwards in the, in the 1980s. And then you had Waterford KampLaba, which you referenced, which joined having been founded actually only 5 months after Atlantic College was founded. Yeah. But in a very, very different time in apartheid South Africa. And the school was founded in Swaziland at the time. So that movement has just grown really from 1 school to now 18 schools and 20 campuses in total., but really find this incredible endeavour which has survived now 61 years and hopefully many more to go.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's, it's incredible. And just listening to you there, there's so many interesting resonances with the moment we're in now in terms of the polycrisis, the metacrisis, whatever you want to, loads of, you know, global challenges. And that, I think actually that's part of why I really was keen to talk to you, because I think there's, there's something now that seems to be happening and, and I, I see UWC taking on again that kind of that work of rethinking, rebuilding, you know, just really reflecting on what should education look like now? What does the world need now in all these different aspects? What do young people need? And there's a lot of interesting aspects there. There's also the kind of colonial aspect, which obviously comes through in what you're talking about, which I know is a big unraveling in terms of an important piece that you all are doing in terms of reflecting on that process of decolonizing and understanding. And yeah, just fascinating. And I mean, your, your mission says "Force to Unite," and just reflecting perhaps on partly what I've just been saying about this moment we're in, where do you see, what do you see the role now, particularly of UWC, given that phrase, "A Force to Unite," because it feels incredibly polarised out there. You know, we've talked about this before, you know, in terms of young people or social media and all of the different ways that education is happening, debates around education, but also politically, economically, socially, just a lot of division and polarization, that force to unite feels quite urgent right now, right?

Yeah, I think firstly, our education must always reflect the times in which we live. And what was established in 1962 was absolutely necessary for that time. I was listening to the Director-General of the IBE, Oli Pekka, and he made a statement that sat with me deeply a few weeks ago. He said that education is the way that society evolves. Education is the way society changes itself, right? So not only do we recognize the moment we are in, we also have to think about the moment we are growing into and how education itself leads us towards a new society. Look, the world is incredibly polarized today, and that polarization has been accelerated by lots of things. I think globally we are dissatisfied with leadership and images of leadership, and there is a sense that we just have a vacuum of trust in individuals, in institutions, in processes. Things don't move quickly enough. There's just so much need in the world.

Yeah.

When you think at a meta level, the world is going through a series of evolving crisis, and you said meta crisis, are this all at the same time? You know, the political moments in which we live, you know, in the world today don't inspire a lot of hope in people because you just see concern after concern after concern. And when you're a young person consuming all that information, it just numbs your mind in in some way because you begin to just assume there's so much negativity in the world and you face it everywhere. Yeah. Now when you look beyond economic and political concerns, the environmental concerns around us are perhaps more pronounced now today. You know, this summer alone, the number of wildfires and extreme floods and rainfall that we've seen in the world has perhaps come quicker than any time in recent history because you, it's like you switch on the news, it's happening in India, in Japan, in China, in parts of the US. So you're thinking, It's all happened at the very same time. Wildfires in Greece, in Hawaii, in parts of the US and Canada. Boom, this is a moment, we really can't avoid what's going on. So as a young person, you're just overwhelmed by so much concerning, you know, data. Where do you go? How do you navigate this period? And what is the role of education in helping to both inspire hope and also offer a pathway you know, to tangible solutions. That's the way we are thinking and we should be thinking at UWC about what it means for us to draw from our history. Again, going back to the 1960s when the world itself felt very hopeless, you know, and it, it looked like we're going to be caught up in this endless cycle of conflict. And the intention at the time was to provide a counterweight to the dominant narrative of the day, to say if the world will find its way out of this, we can, through education, offer a pathway to solution. And peace was the dominant need of the day. Peace with each other, peace with the environment, peace between nations, and offering a way to sustainability. So the UWSA mission is so aptly written that it offers us both a call, a challenge, and a desire for wanting a better world. And we are living in that moment. And I'm very hopeful that what we create out of this moment will not only serve our institutions, but also form inspiration for the rest of the world. Really believing that we all can't give up, we all can't be despondent. And if education is the way the society evolves itself, we have a leading role to play in driving that evolution. And may we not miss the moment.

Yeah, it's fascinating that exactly that movement and that evolution, because as you said, education has a critical role to play in that. But it also often plays quite a conservative role in the movement of in social movement, if we can call it that, right? That's right. So it also plays this kind of economic role, obviously, in terms of serving the economy. And we know that there's a lot of talk around, does the economy, you know, the way that the capitalist neoliberal economy is currently structured, is that serving us? So the education system is also battling with serving the current economy. But, but I think what's fascinating is, to me perhaps, is that there's been in that other space of, as you were saying, what, how can education support what might be coming next and kind of giving birth to that next this thing that is a more progressive, uh, rather than this conservative. And it's balancing those intentions obviously all the time with exams and the need to support young people to live their lives and careers, of course. But that's where I see UWC really fascinatingly is in that space of the kind of the avant-garde, right? Moving out into that space of, well, what does education look like and mean and how can it serve to build? And I think that's a fascinating place in which you are situated. And as you said, the mission is fully, is on the money in terms of doing that. But it obviously has to translate into practical reality for the young people. So I don't know if you wanted to jump in on the reflection, but I'd love to ask you about the, then where does that go in terms of concrete implementation of that?

I think firstly, we recognize the role that we play and the opportunity we have to experiment and try things out and lead. You know, us against what might be, you know, government-driven institutions that have a core curriculum to teach to and all of that, and all the private schools that probably just chasing academic grades and things of that and reputation. Sure. We sit in between those worlds in which we are able to elevate mission first, really think about how best to operate in the service of young people and operate in the service of society. And if we do anything right, it's to foster space for dialogue, for debate, for hard questions. We can give ourselves the gift of time and bring young people into space with each other, with the issues, with adults, with, you know, in a trusting environment and allow people to sit with that complexity and not try to zoom past it as we tend to do in society. You're quick to get onto the next exam, the next purpose, the next big thing. But within UW schools, we are able to foster space for difficult conversations. And within that, also cultivate within young people the capacity to try to work through those things. We have forums, we have all the settings that challenge the mind and really drive heart, at the heart of what is possible in society. So that is almost a philosophical approach. Yeah. The practical approach is, is how we look at curriculums, for example. And you, you'll touch on this shortly, I know, but it's about giving ourselves back the gift that we had the beginning of the UWC movement, which was pursuing innovation, not for the sake of it, but being able to step ahead of others and imagine what should be, and then doing the hard work of codifying these ideas of what should be into a curriculum of today, not knowing for sure where we are going. Yeah, because we're in a world in between times. We don't know what's going to be, but we know that what is will not be for much longer. Yeah, right. So we have to kind of traverse these two worlds of sitting with the established orthodoxy of education while also knowing that what we are doing right now will not last much longer. You know, look, look at the way we think about artificial intelligence today. You know, a year ago we weren't having the conversations we are having today. Imagine what we're gonna be doing in 5 years' time. We can't actually fathom how much interventions like AI would upend the simple things that we are so used to now. It will not look anything close to what we're doing in 5 years' time. And how do we begin to create these educational spaces in advance of that transformation? It's just one of the questions we sit with. But more importantly, it's thinking about what the constant needs of society will be and how to integrate a systems-based approach into our conversations because nothing sits in isolation any longer. Our politics and economics and geographies and climate concerns, all of those things are interwoven. So we, we do have that challenge of helping people move beyond their comfort zones, beyond their little silos of thinking, and always playing at the intersection of how society is organized.

Yeah.

And those are not easy challenges because we are doing the hard work of pioneering.

Yeah.

It's a lot easier to follow, but we have the responsibility to lead. And, and that's what I'm proudest of, that we're able to sit with that complexity and have really difficult conversations. And when we are successful, the world can borrow from what we have pioneered and we are grateful to be in this place where we can really influence a lot of others.

Yeah, no, it's amazing. And I mean, obviously goes without saying that not all of it will work, right?

No, because that's inevitable.

That's inevitable, right? Exactly. But also I totally agree with what you're saying about that kind of space for emergence, right? We hear this word emergence quite a lot and it can be a bit jargony, but at the At the same time, without knowing what is coming, what will arise from sitting with the question, as you said, right? Sitting with the complexity, working with young people, listening to them, something will arise from that, but we don't necessarily, and it's, you know, again, it's these polarized debates. It doesn't mean that we're therefore leaving the young people to figure it out themselves. It's a dialogic process, as you said, it's about dialogue, right? But it, that's such an important insight, I think, for people is that If we think we are still passing on knowledge and wisdom to the young people, clearly there's, there's no space. Exactly. There's no space for the emergence there, right? It's got to emerge and, and allow space to arise something new. But interesting. So if we get concrete and, you know, practical, obviously I think, I'm sure people will be really interested to hear what are some of the specific examples of how that gets manifested. And I, I'm personally interested also in across those 18, 20 campuses, 18 schools around the world, they all have different cultures, different settings, different contexts. They're also bubbling up different innovations and different ideas as they evolve in their particular context based on the need there and the particular cohorts they have. So also I'd be interested to hear other than the, the programs, but also how do the different colleges have different personalities and the autonomy within the network to develop those different aspects?

The first and foremost thing about the UWC schools is that they're relevant to the locations where they're, where they're based.

Yeah.

And that's, that's very important that you, you don't lead globally unless you can lead locally. And so our colleges, schools find lots of ways to be authentic to the local environments. And if you're the school in Costa Rica, a nation that is built almost entirely on the concept of sustainability, it's written in the constitution, you have protected spaces How do you lead authentically as a school built around sustainability? It means that firstly, you develop your own sustainability framework as a school, you build a curriculum around it. And now you rebuild an entire campus around the concept of sustainability and reciprocity with the environment. Yeah, you know, it was the first time in my entire work in education that I went to a school that had determined that by the time the school— and they're building a whole new campus, this construction project would have created a better home for the plants and animals that were there before they showed up. That's not typical in education, right? You show up and you plant something there and forget about the plant species that were indigenous there. But to make the commitment to say, this is who we are, what it means to be authentic in this environment, we're going to build the school on the edge of a national park and ensure that the plants and animals and birds and butterflies that were indigenous to the environment have a much better home when we are done. That's genuine and that takes work. It's not a simple statement that's out there. If you're the school in Thailand and you recognize the importance of mangrove planting for that part of the world and you've seen what deforestation has done to the country and you commit to mangrove reforestation and every single year every child from the age of, you know, 2, the youngest students who are in the school, all the way to 18-year-olds are involved in sustainability projects, a lot revolving around mangrove reforestation, you begin to fall in love with the idea of, you know, walking the walk, right, and doing what it means to actually make the environment a whole lot better. If you're the school in Germany, and you're concerned about carbon footprint, because you know that part of our model means that we have international exchange, kids come from all parts of the world together, and you commit to replanting trees and carbon offsetting for every single bit of emission that you're responsible for, that's authentic. So all of the schools are finding ways to be responsive to the local environment, and finding ways to develop their own ways of being, ways of organizing, and also ensuring that the local communities around them are profiting from this new thinking and profiting from the, from the expertise of the schools, not just the locals, but local schools. So seeing UWC schools being hubs of innovation teaching other teachers around them how to teach the way we teach and offering our spaces as incubators for others to learn how education can be done differently. They're just examples from all over the world that make me incredibly proud to belong to an organization so determined to go there to do what needs to be done. I just returned from Waterford Complava, the school celebrating its 60th anniversary as well. And on tour, the facilities manager was showing me the sustainability projects they had, the solar plants they had everywhere, you know, so they don't have— they can be off the grid. They've got their own campus farm. And I'm thinking, this is great. There's a biodigester over there to kind of recycle. The first question I asked him was, how are the students learning about what is being done? Because it's possible for us to be walking the walk, but the students don't actually accompany the school on this journey. They might ignore what's going on. He said, no, that's actually not the case. So you bring the students in to see how the school is living up to its own mission. And that's, that's where I think the real work is being done. We don't simply put up signposts to say, you know, please switch off the lights. We actually do the work and educate the students alongside the practitioners. And at the end of the day, they become much bigger champions. They turn their advocacy first on us, which is the proof of our success.

Yeah.

When the students challenge us for not being more sustainable, we know we're doing a good job. Because their orientation has been switched on and they can then identify the other gaps that we should work to fulfill. And, and that's, that's what gives me a lot of delight. Yeah, of course.

It's amazing. And the other— I mean, I had the great pleasure of working with that community for a little bit last year, which was amazing for me. But also the question of how does what they're learning as a community there support and enable and filter out into the local environment of Eswatini more broadly, because I think that can be a challenge for international schools as this kind of somewhat a bubble, right, of, of privilege. And, you know, we'll come back to that in a minute. But the— that's a really important dynamic as well, is how not only the environmental and local context in that sense, but also the local context in terms of the local society and politics and local councils nearby. And communities nearby, and that's an important dynamic too, that in terms of those young people in the college also understanding how do those connections get made or, you know, supported.

Yeah, one of the best things about UWSS schools actually is the intense connection to service. I think more than I have encountered in international schools or schools generally because service has been written into the DNA of UWSS schools from the beginning. You know, we are constantly on the hunt for opportunities to partner with local communities, not in a transactional way, but in a way that, you know, collaborates, builds with them and allowing them to see the school as their own space. You know, not just in Eswatini, which by itself is fabulous, you know, from observation, having space there. They're about to host a camp called the Brave Girls Camp, which is a camp for girls from the community to come to the school. They would not otherwise get a chance to come to the school. They come to the school to experience a UWC education and go back home. They just hosted a careers fair, again, nationwide careers fair at the school. Come learn about how to plan your career at the school. They have a huge project, you know, with refugees, folks who are much far away and who wouldn't dare to dream of a UWC education, having the chance to come to UWC campus and dream. So those are all things that are authentic to Eswatini. But far beyond that, You know, I've seen it in UW campuses where students from local schools who don't have laboratories of their own, you know, because the schools are under-resourced, they can come to UW schools and use the laboratories as part of their learning. These are all authentic ways of partnering with local communities and being of those places, not just passing by and bringing international students to see them. I had a chance to go to UW Dilijan in Armenia as well, and that part of the world, you know, is, you know, often forgotten, ignored, and all of that. You can see how the existence of a school transforms the entire local community because the school is now being staffed by people from that part of the world who would otherwise not be able to encounter kids from all over the world and faculty from all over the world. So this is, this is really authentic to UWC, and it's, it's something that we are proud of, and, and we seek to encourage for a lot of others who are doing international education to not be passersby in local communities, but to really deeply engage with those communities and leave them much better than they otherwise would have been unless they showed up.

Is some— I wonder if it's worth just letting people know just in terms of how does it work logistically for the young people going to a college, because this was something I learned that was slightly changes the way you view the colleges that but students are not applying to a specific college in a particular country. They're applying to become a UWC student. They are then allocated somewhere. It could be anywhere in the world. Is that correct?

Yeah, yeah. It's, it's a fascinating feature of the UWC movement that the original design was the students were chosen to represent their countries by these national committees that in a the best in quotes across each of the countries, and then they, they assign them to the colleges where they are best fit and where they can most learn. And so today, if you are a young person in Argentina who heard about the UWC movement, you can apply to the UWC Argentina National Committee. You go through a rigorous selection process, and then once you are on the shortlist to go to a UWC, you might be assigned to go to UWC Southeast Asia in Singapore or you might be assigned to go to Waterford Kamphlaaba in Eswatini, or you might be assigned to go to Atlantic in Wales. And you join the UWC movement, and then you are marched to a school, which is a, it's a fascinating journey. It's a chance for young people to also kind of let go of some of their own inhibitions and biases against the world. Some kids wouldn't dream about wanting to go to Thailand for school. But when it's your turn, and you're picked to go to Thailand, you have to bring the best of yourself to Thailand and also fall in love with Thailand. And what has been one of the most fascinating experiences for me, seeing— and I'll pick Eswatini as an example again. It's kind of small part of the world. The Waterford alumni are some of the most passionate, proud, you know, utterly loyal people that I have met, because it's like they fell in love with the place. Now, if you'd ask them to randomly pick where in the world they would love to go to school, they most likely wouldn't have picked Eswatini.

Sure.

But having gone there and experienced the culture and the environment, It's the one thing in their life that they think about as transformational and they can't wait to go back there. I see the same thing with Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Again, not a part of the world many people even can identify on a map or dream about going to.

Yeah.

But once you've been there and you've had that experience, you come back thinking that's the best school in the world, but it wasn't what you grew up dreaming about. It's just, it's what's possible when this magic happens. Yeah. And people are matched to a location and they fall in love with the place, transforms their worldviews, the people, the location, the service. It's just a powerful conference.

No, absolutely. And I wanted to ask you about this later, but maybe we'll do it now because it's relevant. But there is a perception around significant privilege and elitism, or not elitism, but of an elite organization, right, with the UWC movement. And I think that's my observation externally is partly that is because of some of the press that some auspicious students get.

Yeah.

But actually, given what you're talking about, there is, with these national committees, there's a significant operation there to take the concept of diversity and really be very intentional about what that means socioeconomically.

Yeah.

In all sorts of ways. So perhaps you could, could you just say a little bit about that and even just in terms of what the percentages are there and how that works? Because I think it's a stereotype that I'd be interested to challenge.

It's fascinating because when you think about who's been a typical UWC student or something of the nature, some of the names of the press, you know, easily jump onto would be the more prominent families. But realistically, and sometimes higher proportion of students who come to UWC are on scholarships. And we're talking about thousands of people. This, you know, it's not one or two students. The vast majority of UWC students have come from backgrounds where they probably typically wouldn't afford it, the people who have shown by virtue of hard work and commitment that they wanna help to make the world a better place. And the idea of deliberate diversity means that we don't exclude anyone, particularly those who've come from more resourced backgrounds, because by having them educated alongside people from vastly different environments than they are, their consciousness is also adjusted, improved, upgraded, if you like. And so we have students from every socioeconomic level imaginable. You have, you know, people who have come from absolutely nothing and who have, you know, had their entire lives transformed. And there are people whose families can afford a high-quality education, and UWC is still the right place for them to go to school. And when you come to the schools, everyone is evened out one way or the other because you are not distinguishable by virtue of what your parents' name is or what your last name is. It really is your commitment to helping to make the world a better place. And so we have thousands and thousands and thousands of students who come through every year. We receive north of 20,000 applications every year to come, you know, through our 2-year colleges. And we're able to bring in about 2,000 or thereabouts of them each year into UWCs. And many of them are sponsored, you know, through fundraising by the national committees or by the schools and colleges, or those of us at UWS International. So this is not by any means an elite group of schools, and elite here in the sense of being disconnected from society. I think about the different kind of elite, and the kind of elite here is, you know, conscious about the needs of the world, passionate about helping to make a difference, and empowered, encouraged, enabled to go out and actually begin to make a difference. If that's what it means to be elite, then by all means we're elite, right? Because we're really out there doing the work. But if it's all about being ostracized from society and being out of touch, this is not one of those. These young people are really doing the work to make a difference in the world.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And it's, I think it's important what you were saying about the kind of bidirectional, you know, often we get these siloed socioeconomically, particularly siloed schools where, you know, people from very, very privileged and affluent backgrounds are not interacting with people from vastly different places. And I think that's such a valuable experience in all sorts of ways in order to, you know, build empathy, but also just, you know, just kind of really understand diversity in all senses of what that means. Yeah. Fascinating. Absolutely. So, I mean, slightly going back to the, as you said about that kind of idea of innovating and building curriculum. And I, from an educational point of view, I'm also very interested in the way you mentioned Costa Rica and with the sustainability framework and how that's weaving itself into the curriculum. What you're doing particularly at Atlantic College in Wales with the IB, but also I know is coming in UWC Singapore next year, is this an evolution, let's say radical evolution of the, of the IB Diploma. And I think that experimenting, that innovation there is, is a really fascinating moment. Yeah. Going back to what you were saying earlier about the kind of the moment we're in. And with, with the UWC Atlantic College course being Systems Transformation, which is even the, even the name there is, it speaks to something of this time between worlds that you were talking about. So perhaps you could say a little bit about, yeah, how do you see that relationship with the IB and also most importantly, that work of evolving curriculum in such an important way to address where we are?

I think it's a, it's a great time to be having a conversation about innovation, especially again, as a counterweight to this loss of hope and disillusionment about education by itself, you know, being out of touch with society. If you listen to commentators, they would almost always say that what is happening in schools right now don't reflect the needs of society. And we're learning math and history and classics and all that stuff. But the world is moving so much quicker. Now, the IB by itself, faces these questions of being out of touch and being stuck in the model of the 1960s and 1970s. And, and so the IB is on a pathway to, you know, evaluating and, and redeveloping our program. Yeah, there's no better partner for the IB than UWCs, which were there from the very beginning, helped to kind of co-create the IB, and Atlantic College being the home of all that work. So it's just a fabulous time to have the spirit of rethinking that's crossing through the IEB itself and through UWCs, and now taking advantage of the space we have to pilot, and also just the locations, the ideas that the capacity to use the full strength of an institution like UWC Atlantic and its unique position on the body, on the edge of a body of water, and thinking about what sustainability and systems look like in that part of the world. The practical bits about this is taking the idea of systems transformation, and question what those key systems are in the world that have to change and how we can create space on our campuses with groups of students who will still go on to university, will try things out on their own and pursue their own personal ambitions, or use their time while they're going through the IB to take part in this interdisciplinary way of coming at systems. So let's take food systems, you know, for example, what are the multiple ways of thinking about provision of food in society. You have to think about the ecological systems, you know, when you think about food, think about the economic systems, the agricultural systems, the distribution systems. All of those systems operate together to guarantee food security in the world. But when people come at these conversations, you often come at them from, you know, from a single subject point of view, a siloed point of view, which is disconnected from the other pieces around it. So it's important to be educating people as systems thinkers because that is really how the world operates. And so that in itself is a challenge to what was, you know, what remains the dominant IBDP approach of studying this confluence of subjects and, and, you know, hopefully you become a more rounded person. It's actually pushing on that approach and creating room for a multidisciplinary approach to learning. And so Atlantic College is taking the lead on that. Uh, this summer, actually in the next couple of days, we've got the first cohort of students who are going to start this program. And for the next 2 years, we're going to be keenly observing their journeys and, you know, watching their reflections and really seeing, can we rethink the way we learn and the way we expose young people to knowledge? And can this system's way of thinking and learning push them to develop new skills and make them more future fit and, and equip them for leadership and entrepreneurial approaches in the world? And, and when this is successful, because we know it's going to be successful, we can then learn from that and influence the work of other schools within UWC. And like you say, there's another set of pilots about to begin in Southeast Asia. So the spirit of innovation is kind of flowing through the movement, and I'm very keen on, on this particular pilot because I think it informs the IB, it informs other schools around us, and it inspires us to reclaim this spirit of innovation and trying things and being on the front foot. So very exciting.

No, it's very— it is absolutely very exciting. And I mean, the interdisciplinary aspect, absolutely. I mean, I that interconnection, the systems aspect. But I also wanted to ask you, 'cause I think this is something I've also noticed in dialogue with some of the young people in these different UWC schools, is that the systems word, right? So you've got systems transformation, right? The systems word, fine. We can all kind of accept that systems are interconnected and we need to understand, we need to be systems thinkers to kind of interact with this globally interconnected world. But it's the transformation word is quite loaded.

Right?

Because implicit in that word is there's something wrong with the current systems and they need to be transformed. So I just, that's an interesting one when as an educational organization in terms of clearly very heavily values-based as we've heard already, but I wonder what your reflections there about that, that idea of, is there an implicit acceptance already with the course itself that something's wrong and needs to be transformed? Yeah, there's some interesting tensions there, I think.

I think that you can live with two tensions. One, an eagerness to make a difference, and secondly, a recognition that things don't change overnight, right? So it's, it's almost an evolutionary mindset that has to be built in. And when you're a young person learning about the world, not even as a young person, any one of us who observe society, we're much quicker to see what needs to change than embracing what needs to stay. Right. So I think, yes, look, if we think, if we, if we think at, at a macro level, the world does need some transformation and the key systems that we live with need to transform. How quickly will those transformations occur? None of us can predict. We can co-create the future, we can't predict it. So I think, yes, we recognize that our economic systems need to be transformed because if we are constantly leaving people behind, unequal societies, unequal societies, then transmission needs to happen. The climate crisis is a constant reminder that some things we are doing are not really working and we have to be keen to address them. You look at the cycle of global conflict in the world, we know something needs to change. We look at consumption patterns, we look at deforestation, we know that things need to change. So yeah, I think, I think we acknowledge and we own the narrative that some change needs to happen, not all at the same time. Not overnight, and we can't drive ourselves crazy because things haven't changed the way we wanted them to change. But I think it's an acknowledgement that if you're observant, the world is really going through some difficult times, and we want to be part of that transformation, and we want to help people find that interconnectedness.

Yeah, but I think, if I can, that's what I think is really exciting about it, because it's courageous. So that acknowledgement is courageous, right? Because you don't make that acknowledgement publicly in such a strong way without pushback. So for example, take an example of the Daily Mail in the UK, quite a right-wing newspaper. The headline that they came out with when they heard about the Systems Transformation Course is "Hippie Hogwarts Gets Hippier," right? Great. I mean, brilliant headline, right? If you're a headline writer, like, touche, right? It's amazing. But inevitably, because of the kind of dialectical, you know, the way that the conservative progressive forces are at work in society always, always are, always will be. Inevitably there will be others, others who say this is overly political. This is preempting. It's not what education should be doing, right? Because you're, you're politically preempting the things that need to be taught. But actually, you know, there's a, there's a lifetime's worth of debate around that. But I think it's, it's an interesting one that it's the courageous acknowledgement and just stepping into that space and saying, yeah, absolutely. Things are. Evidently things need to change in some ways.

Realistically, we can't afford to be naive, I think is the point. And we feel the effect of these changes in society already. We already know what we are dealing with. We know that environmental justice is not a fad. The impact of human activity in climate, in the environment, the impact of human activity in what has fostered conflict in the world, these are not political statements, they're just fact. And it's on us to, yeah, it is, it is courageous, but we can't be naive about the cycle of conflict, the cycle of climate degradation, environmental degradation. We can't be naive about the need to bring people together, to work together closer, to be futures-focused, to think about biodiversity. And again, to borrow from Costa Rica, the concept of reciprocity, that we must leave our environments better than we found them. And so I think our job here is to be responsible. And not to follow, not to be discouraged or disheartened by, again, the toxic, you know, public space that is driven by extremist ideologies. It's on us to think responsibly on behalf of the young people who are entrusted to us, on behalf of the future of our societies, for the future of the world. If we wouldn't do it, who will do it? We have all the ingredients, we have all the motivation, and the world is looking to us. To not shirk our responsibility. And I think our schools will not do that.

Absolutely. No, I mean, it's fascinating. I mean, you know, don't get me wrong, I'm very much in support of it, but I think it's, I think it's just an important thing to acknowledge is that there are these aspects to this step that's important. And I have heard, you know, I'll be honest with you, I have heard young people within UWC colleges talking about this it's quite a challenging balance to create an open environment in which multiple perspectives can be held, right? Because when you have quite a strong value statement around progressive ideas of change and transformation, you then potentially create a space where, well, can I be a UWC student and be holding these more conservative views that I would really like to express in this space? But it doesn't— I don't feel able to express these conservative feelings and ideas. And I have, I've heard young people reflect on that in an incredibly mature way. The fact that they're reflecting on that is phenomenal. But I think it's an interesting challenge to, from an educational point of view, trying to create those spaces where genuine emergence can happen, as we were talking about earlier, and not kind of preempting what can emerge because you're constraining the space with certain values-based ideas.

Oh no, that's, that's, that's powerful. And I think it, look, I think when you come to any of these communities where we are creating the space to sit with uncomfortable conversations, they get really uncomfortable because who's brave enough to step into the middle first, you know, holds onto their line. And I think this is, it's a process of getting better introduced to self and then getting introduced to others and getting introduced to big concepts.. And that transmission happens at different paces for different people. So you can't question the fact that when you come into any space like a UWC environment, some people will be further along than others. And it's not a race to who flips their opinion, you know, 360 or 180 first. It's about acknowledging the different paces and where we've all come from. Diversity could be challenge times. I mean, to work with diversity and work with complexity. Without doubt, what I have seen is that by the end of a UWC journey, everyone recognizes that they have shifted one way or the other. Because if your ideas are so clear to you, but they haven't been put up for challenge, how clear really are they? Exactly, right? How powerful are they? And everyone goes through that. And you don't come to UWC to change your ideologies. But to question them, experience multiple ways of thinking, different ways of approaching this conversation on any subject. Yeah, about politics, about religion, about gender, about race, about any construct of human existence. By stepping into these different spaces, everyone experiences some measure of discomfort, and that discomfort could be a powerful catalyst for learning to work together, which is the ultimate purpose.

Yeah, absolutely.

Not a single one of us is going to change the world by ourselves. We always do that in community. And you have to learn how to do that. Sometimes those really uncomfortable experiences of having your clear ideas being challenged would propel you to becoming a much more conscious member of society. And that is worth fighting for.

100%. Amazing. Absolutely love it. Yeah. And it also puts a huge onus on the art of the practitioner in terms of the educators to hold those spaces. And that's another— and we haven't got time for it now. But that's That's another piece to it, which I think is amazing. So just to finish with, I know that you've been engaged, you engaged Harvard University to look at some of your work. And I think we've talked about, I mean, some amazing work that UWCs all over the world are doing. I guess the question to end on is how are you kind of holding yourselves accountable to that work? And how are you knowing that that is, is having an impact and is, you know, is making the difference that you say it is?

I think firstly, when you come into what is an empirical study rather than, you know, a PR job, you've got to be prepared for what is a study. And a study almost always has recommendations. And no matter how squeaky clean you hope you are, you know, a study will unpack some of the areas in which you have to improve. And I think I'm grateful that we exposed ourselves to scrutiny and allowed some of the world's best researchers to have a look at our operations. And over the course of 5 years, they accompanied UWC students— observation, a lot of deep investigation of what happens in and out of the classroom, and then overlaying that with the voices of alumni who, who across generations from every decade over the last 6 decades, and then having control studies as well with students from other schools that are not UWCs. Trying to really investigate what happens over the course of a person's UWC education that propels them towards becoming pro-social, ethical, entrepreneurial change agents for the world. Some of the findings from the study were just absolutely fascinating. And for us, they reflected some of the things we knew well and some great reminders of what to continue to focus on. The first thing for me, which was a big headline from the study, was the power of the mission. The fact that of all the reasons people come to UWC, absolute number one by a country mile was the proportion of that mission, the sense of purpose. And that's just, it's a nice place for us to go back and think, wow, amazing, thank you. Because how many high school students think about the mission of their school? How many adults reflect on the mission of the school they went to and question it, debate it, sit with it, You know, argue about how well it's been lived up to. The fact that the mission is such a point of tension is a major endorsement that the mission is working, you know? So that, that for me was just great to sit back and realize I don't recall the mission of my high school, but here are young people who are sitting with engaging the idea of a mission. That's number one. The second thing, which was super important for us, was that across generations, the absolute number one takeaway but everyone had from the UWC education were the connections they made with people. And not just anecdotally, the evidence is abundant. I was reflecting in a conversation yesterday about some UWC alumni who were enthusiastic about the 50th reunion, to go back to Atlantic College for their 50th reunion. I'm thinking, wow. Yeah, you know, and more than half of the class of 1973 at Atlantic College showed up for their reunion this summer. Yeah, across generations. This is happening everywhere. It means that those genuine connections they made are lifelong connections. And if you go all the way back to 1962 when Atlantic College was being established, you had this first set of young boys coming together, all different parts of the world, and you're wondering, will they learn enough about each other? Will they bond? Will they represent the picture of a united world where you can actually connect people across countries, geographies, backgrounds of race, religion, socioeconomics, et cetera. Well, there's the proof. For decades, they have stayed connected. They have worked together, gone into business together, run governments together. You're thinking it's working, you know, it really is powerful. And now you hear that same reflection through a study conducted by Harvard that the number one takeaway from everyone was that they built true lifelong connections. I think those two things is great proof that it's possible to have a powerful mission to attract people, and at the same time, it's possible for strong bonds that are formed to last the length of decades. You realize we're onto something. In between all of that, you have to live with the more uncomfortable tensions around, you know, wellbeing, around the best expression of a curriculum, around, you know, living up to the mission and sustainability and all of those things. So there's a lot of reminders for us saying that there's a ton of work to do.

Sure.

But at a meta level, it's a fascinating exposé into the power of mission-driven institutions to last for a long time.

Yeah, that's fantastic. And it's so interesting. So we'll, we'll link, I'll link to it in the show notes so people can read it if they're interested as a document. But just what you were saying there, I think from a complexity lens is really interesting because you are building informal networks and you've, you're setting direction. And those are two really interesting principles within complexity science.

Right.

And it's sometimes difficult to build informal networks explicitly and intentionally. It almost happens as a byproduct of something else. And that's right. And it's, that's such an interesting reflection that just, yeah, it really, it really connects there with, with the complexity science. I really appreciate that. Faith, thank you. I mean, this has been absolutely fascinating for me and I just, it makes, it leaves me with lots of questions like how, how can we not be turning away 90% of the young people who are applying to UWC? Where, you know, how do we create more schools like this where we can get young people into, right?

Yeah, no, this, this is the same tensions we deal with. And I think we're just incredibly grateful for what we are a part of, what we're able to help to contribute to the world. And most importantly for us to inspire others to come on the same journey. UWC will not transform education by itself. We'll do that with partners.

Exactly.

And we are grateful for the partners who have supported us at the beginning of the journey, at the end of the journey, you know, those who are helping us find these incredible people, those who are supporting the education, next steps. There are lots of people who make this whole thing work.

Sure.

And we wanna do so much more of this. Let's continue to find ways to inspire each other to greatness and to build this systems way of thinking.

Yeah.

That these 18 schools by themselves are not the solution. They're part of the solution. And others can be inspired as well and partner and challenge us to find ways to keep doing better. So this has been great.

Fantastic. Thank you so much, Faith Anobi. I'll be watching along and supporting with the systems transformation work. Absolutely. So brilliant. Thank you so much for your time. Amazing. Absolutely.

Absolutely. You too.

We hope you've enjoyed this episode. Please feel free to continue the dialogues with our guests, with us on our blog or on social media. Or within your own networks.