In the closing segment of the "New Forms of Education" podcast episode 23, host Virginie Glaenzer leads a tour‑de‑table where participants share final reflections on re‑imagining education. Virginie emphasizes that education is for everyone, not just children, and highlights three core ideas: (1) play is a natural mode of learning and being, (2) the language we use (teacher vs. facilitator) reshapes adult identity and power, and (3) adult privilege involves letting go of control and trusting children’s innate biological drive to learn. Heather expands on the need to trust kids and to view school as a recent, industrial construct, urging adults to educate themselves via resources like unschoolingschool.com. Kristin underscores the importance of honoring multiple intelligences and focusing on process over product, arguing that diverse talents should be valued rather than forced into a uniform "well‑rounded" ideal. Max adds that diversity of thought outperforms raw intelligence in problem‑solving, citing corporate innovation labs, and calls for a connected community of educators to collectively drive an education revolution. Throughout, the participants convey enthusiasm for shifting toward facilitative, trust‑based, and diverse learning environments, and they invite listeners to explore alternative resources and join collaborative efforts.
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Before we end, and I want to thank everyone for this insightful conversation, I took so much, so many notes. As we come to the end of this hour, I'd like to finish the discussion the way we begin, with another tour de table. This, the intention for this podcast is to help each of us become the self-authoring leader of our own lives through meaningful actions. So let's pass the mic and share any reflection that may have emerged from this conversation, any last thought you want that you feel was left unsaid that you'd like to leave other teachers with, anything that you think could be heard by teachers or parents and make them want to take an action. And I'm going to start by sharing my own takeaway to give you a moment to collect your thoughts. This is kind of the summary or the takeaway ways of this conversation. So first of all, even though I have 3 daughters, 2 daughters in college and one high schooler, my interest really comes from applying this understanding what I'm hearing to the business world, and onto myself as, as a parent and as a, as a professional in my own self development. We always think that education is for kids, but I'm a big believer that education is for everyone and adults especially. So I really enjoyed this conversation. I took so many notes. And, you know, for example, play is a national way of being. It's a national— play is a natural way of learning, but it's also a natural way of being. And I think if we bring that back to a class or a meeting, it could literally change our lives. So that's something that I want to focus on. And then Changing, using new words to open a new space. You know, we're not teacher, we're educator, or we're facilitator. And same thing, we're not leaders, we're facilitators. That changes the way that you perceive yourself and the way that other people perceive you, and that's a game changer, I think. Um, and then really what I'm arriving at is that this adult privilege that you mentioned Max, this is about letting go of control, and it's also about redefining our sense of power. What, what does power mean? So I'm definitely going to take all these nuggets and, and go back to my own classroom and, and try to, to see where that brings me. So thank you. So why don't we begin the tour de table, and Heather, do you want to go first and give us Anything that you'd like to leave us with?
Well, I really like what you had just said there. And I think that the word, you know, this idea of letting go, of letting go that we are the, you know, the adult privilege and all of that kind of thing. What you need to do that is trust. You need to trust kids. You need to trust biology. I'm pointing at Kristin. You need to trust biology. School is an incredibly recent invention, and it was designed to produce factory workers and obedient people that could read the Bible and do what they were told. That is why we have the school system we have, period. We have been learning as human beings for millions of years, or, you know, becoming human beings, and that has always been done through play and through parents and families and community, because kids were raised much more communally, you know, in previous millennia, and it's by trust. It's knowing that there is innate biology which pushes kids to want to figure life out. Everybody can see it as a baby. You watch a baby, you cannot stop them from learning. They get up, they fall, they are driven to walk, they get up again, even though they're hurting themselves. They just have to do it. It's like that with everything. We just need to get out of the way and be there as a support, as a guide, as a helper, as a, hey, you want this information? You know, parents and adults have a huge role in this, but it's as a support or a facilitator. It's not, it's not as the star. We need to trust kids that they'll figure it out. And I think the only way to do that is for the adults, teachers, parents to get educated themselves. We have put together, I mean, start with unschoolingschool.com because we have a huge section on resources You will be amazed at where you go from there because there is so much out there on this. Like there is proof that this is natural and that it works. But you have to, you have to be willing to go there and learn more. Even if this whole conversation is offensive to you, even best then go and start and take a look at what else is out there. You know, because we don't need to keep talking to the converted. We need other people that are questioning this and say you're crazy. Well, See if we're crazy. Go and take a look at some of the information that is available.
Thank you so much, Heather. I will definitely push forward your website for everyone to benefit from it. Kristin, would you like to leave us with final thoughts or any idea?
I just, I love the fact, and you mentioned it, that all of us are repeating the same thing from just a bit of a different spin. I really like what Heather said there about, you know, the adults need to trust the kids that they can do some of these things, that they don't need to be handheld and monitored, and they don't need to be told exactly what to think. I love that. And I think sometimes as teachers and maybe even as parents, maybe even as a society, we forget that We talk about multiple intelligences all the time and how important they are that we have people that have kinesthetic abilities and people that have, you know, spatial abilities, and then we try and make that disappear in formal education. And I— why? I mean, we like all that diversity of knowledge and abilities and skill, and I just, I love the fact of Having a group of young people come through and maintaining those skills and being confident in those skills that they have value. That it's not just the kids that have a 98 average that those are the ones that have value or the ones that can throw a softball at this speed that those are the ones that can have value and it's, it's so much more about the process and not about the product. I mean, as a science person, that is the scientific method. That's where I keep coming back to. And as a business person, I mean, I can see how that would apply to all that as well. I just— that is the key to it all. And if we can figure that out, man, can we do some pretty cool stuff with kids.
So trust and then diversity.
Yeah.
Thank you very much. That's beautiful.
Virginie, can I say one, just one thing? Kristin said something that just sparked something. And that is that part of the trust is that we, there's all these multiple intelligences, there's different ways of being smart, but we seem to be driven to make everybody well-rounded. We wanna have this well-rounded person. So name me any adult you know who's well-rounded. It doesn't exist, nor is it really good. We want people to be really great at a couple of things. Do I care if Bill Gates can play the flute? No, he's pretty good at some other stuff. Let's let him do what he wants. Like, why do we insist that everybody has to be the same on all these things? It's a weird idea.
Adult privilege. Yeah, adult privilege.
Even though we're not.
Yeah.
And then last but not least, our evil genius, Max. What are your last thoughts?
I want to touch again on what Kristin said about diversity. This is a misunderstanding in the education system. Most people don't understand this, that when it comes to problem solving, diversity will always— diversity in thought and approach will always trump intelligence and knowledge. Okay, and the education system doesn't get that. The most innovative companies in the world—3M, you know, General Electric, whoever it is—they have labs full of experts. They all think exactly the same, but they get stuck. And all they have to do is crowdsource their problems, and a plumber comes up with a solution for it, right? And the education system doesn't understand that truly. And that's another barrier, I think, to the system. But, uh, final thoughts: if any other, uh, people like us who know this secret are out there, for God's sakes, get online, get connected with everyone else, because the only way we're going to bring this wave, this education revolution, is if we stick together and make it happen. We can't keep banging our heads against the wall by ourselves. We've got to connect and do things together.
Absolutely. Yeah, that's why communities are so powerful. When people get together, they multiply their own work. Well, thank you very much again for spending time, and I'm hoping that those who are listening or reading this blog and this video will share it and help you guys and everyone change the system and create something that really creates joy both for teachers and for kids, because we only have one life, so it matters. Thank you very much.
