Benjamin Freud on the Biomimicry for Regenerative Design Lab at Green School Bali

Join us on the Getting Smart Podcast as host Mason Pashia dives into regenerative design in education with Benjamin Freud, Head of Upper School at Green School Bali and co-founder of Coconut Thinking. Together, they discuss how schools can move beyond sustainability to embrace regenerative practices that create conditions conducive to life—not just for students but for all living beings. Explore the difference between sustainable and regenerative design, how to foster emergence in learning, and why the future of education requires a life-centered approach. Tune in to rethink systems and embrace the messy, transformative potential of education!

Outline

• (00:00) Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
• (03:58) Regenerative vs. Sustainable Design
• (06:53) Principles of Regenerative Practice in Education
• (11:03) Challenges and Contradictions in Regenerative Education
• (22:10) Exploring Growth Synergy in Education
• (25:52) Collaborative Learning and Assessment
• (29:38) Scaling and Adapting Educational Models
• (33:55) The Four S’s Design Principle
• (37:39) Creating Conditions Conducive to Life

Introduction to the Podcast and Guest

Mason Pashia: You are listening to the Getting Smart podcast. I’m Mason Pashia. I recently asked Benjamin Freud, today’s guest, to write us a blog on the Biomimicry for Regenerative Design Lab at Gcreen School Bali, where he is head of upper school.

The blog he sent over was great, full of insights, and it made me want to go deeper on some of the more confrontational points. I wanna frame our conversation today with three distinct laws or observations about the world. So one of these was provided to me from Benjamin, which is the idea of change without change.

It’s a concept in physics that Benjamin brought to my attention, which says you can alter how you describe something mathematically, but the actual outcomes remain exactly the same. Another one is Goodhart’s Law, which is when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. And lastly, I wanted to bring Audre Lorde into the conversation.

The Master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. So those, I’m holding those three observations and laws as we kind of navigate the conversation today. We’re gonna try and tackle two incredibly tricky questions as North Stars for our conversation. One of them, which I also recently discussed with Will Richardson on the podcast is, what does a school or organization that truly changes the system look? The question that I often use is my own North Star. To paraphrase one of the core biomimicry design principles, what would it mean for a school system to create conditions conducive to life? Our guest today, Benjamin Freud, PhD, is head of Upper School for Green School Bali, the co-founder of Coconut Thinking and has years of experience in international school, PBL School leadership and more.

He’s also one of my top five favorite people to follow on LinkedIn where the comment section is an emergent space. Benjamin, welcome.

Benjamin Freud: Hi, good morning or good afternoon to you.

Mason Pashia: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for being here. For those not watching video, you are missing out. Benjamin is at the school and it is beautiful and a fascinating place. So Benjamin, I’ve always been curious about this.

You’re someone who is incredibly intentional with your language. You always use it to better orient yourself among all the other living things on this planet. As a poet and lover of poetry, I really appreciate this intentionality around language. Where does that instinct come from for you?

Benjamin Freud: That’s a very good question. And the language part is something I really struggle with actually. And I’d even say that I really am interested in this idea of contradictions that are complimentary. Right? And like, I think I’ve read I think in in the Gilchrist book or something, who got it from someone, this idea that.

That like the real things that we deal with and grapple with in life. You could hold different truths that are, that are oppositional. It’s, it’s those inci superficial truths that really are black and white. So language is something that is intentional. Words really mean a lot. I love etymology the roots of words.

At the same time, I also know language is just nothing but something that limits our thinking. It’s something that frames our thinking in ways that make us misunderstood. Words themselves are never quite. That useful. And, and they’ll never get to the thoughts that we actually have under, under the words.

So the language is, is something to play with. It’s a game in many ways. One that we have to take with irony, but at the same time, it’s so very important in order to, to really get at precision. So we, we, we dance this, this two things of language is actually unhelpful while at the same time being super helpful.

Mason Pashia: Yeah, I, one of my favorite books of all time is spell of the Sensuous by David Abram where he spends a lot of time really thinking about our evolution of language and how that’s been. A distancing mechanism from the rest of the world. So highly recommend to our listeners if this, if, if any of this has piqued your interest so far on the subject of language.

Yu have really helped push my thinking on the distinguishing factors between regenerative and sustainable. 

Regenerative vs. Sustainable Design

Mason Pashia: I think that those two words oftentimes get, kinda like thrown into a bucket together can you help break that down for our audience a little bit? Like what is the, the difference in regenerative design and sustainable design? Yeah.

Benjamin Freud: Yeah. So they’re not opposites, which is, which is actually super important, right? Sustainability you can think of is let’s do no harm. We can look at the Brulin report, which, which I, I have trouble with the language that says, we’re not supposed to this current generation meets its need without, hindering the, the opportunity for future generations to meet their need.

I don’t like the word need, but even if we think of sustainability in terms of saying, having. A net, net carbon zero or things like that, that’s sustainable. So this building that I’m in right now is probably sustainable. It’s made of bamboo. Yeah, it had some carbon, in, in terms of transportation.

But ultimately you, it tries to minimize the impact. Re regeneration is, is more on a continuum, so it, it starts to think differently about. How we participate in the world. Now, I also think regeneration is the word that’s being co-opted. I think it’s also something that people are seeing in terms of healing, in terms of restoring, but I don’t see regeneration in terms of healing, and that’s because I worry that this idea of healing is trying to go back, like there’s a wound and we have to heal in order to go back to the status quo.

On status quo. That is how things were before that, that that’s not it, because nothing ever goes back, right? Like, like we, we flow towards perpetual change. So it’s not a question of healing. Regeneration is more the, the idea of working like nature works and it’s as simple as that. How does nature work?

Nature if we think about it, not as something that’s out there, but as a process of enlivening something that’s been around for 3.8 billion years, it’s absolutely perfect right now. And I don’t mean this in a woo woo way. I mean that it’s perfect because nature understands and feels the signals of change and adapts immediately.

It adapts immediately to find a state of homeostasis that is a state of not equilibrium, but at least being able to have some kind of a of, of, of balance. And, and in that sense, it’s perfect because it is exactly where it needs to be right now and it will change ’cause it forever changes to something else.

So regeneration is about working how nature work. If we.

Erect a building, it’s thinking, well, if this building wasn’t here, what would happen? You’d have probably, you’d have jungle, you’d have you’d have fireflies, you’d have butterflies, you’d have snakes. So how might the building create conditions for those living things to, to, to thrive, really?

And that’s regenerative processes. And, and that’s really quite simple, but also tremendously complicated.

Mason Pashia: Totally. I think that already gets back to that one of those early questions, right? The creating conditions conducive to life. It’s, we’re thinking about environments, school environments, specifically in this conversation. I wanna read a quote from something that you wrote recently on, on your blog. So, bear with me as I read off this page.

Principles of Regenerative Practice in Education

Mason Pashia: So it says, your words, what might regenerative practice look like in education? I use might not does because regeneration practice is not a model. It cannot be replicated because life cannot be replicated. Life emerges in its unique way through its responses to the specific conditions around it.

Regenerative practice is based on principles, not rules. It cannot be planned. Rather, it grows in spaces that provide the conditions for it to thrive, and so is life affirming. And then ellipses, you go on to say this disorients our notion of education because we no longer ask individuals to follow one linear path toward a predetermined goal.

Rather, we rewild learning. In the wild. Nothing can live on its own. Non-linearity complexity, biodiversity, this is what life needs to thrive and these are the seeds of any regenerative practice. We are all, but not too. I love this, Benjamin. I think this is a really interesting and effective distillation of what regenerative practice looks like in education.

I’m curious if you have anything you’d add to that before I go on to the fra. The A framework for regenerative practice that you actually outline in that same piece.

Benjamin Freud: Yeah. And I, I, I think the only thing to, to really think about this is, is in terms of what place is, and place isn’t a physical location or geographical location. It’s something that comes about in this moment in time with all of the agents human, other than human, non-human. That, that are, that are in this moment, in this space time.

And, and that’s why the models, these IKEA boxes that we have in so many educational system that try to replicate it, that, that do the same thing in Japan as they do in Chicago. That’s nothing, nothing to do with regeneration. And, and if we continue to think about it in terms of those models of what, what might a regenerative, system look like?

How can I import it? We’re, we’re already asking the wrong question.

Mason Pashia: Yeah. So at at risk of getting dangerously close to that question throughout this conversation I, I want to go you po posit this framework for regenerative practice, and I kind of wanna just drill into each of the three elements that you lay out and then ask you to kind of reflect on how you’re living into this principle at your school.

So the, the first one is to create space for emergence, and I can, I can give you more of your words if helpful. Or feel free to kind of ad lib off of that.

Benjamin Freud: So even this, where we talked about language at the beginning we can use the word framework, but even framework means that it’s fixed, right? So, so we’re just gonna use it as an expediter here. And, and understand each other that it’s, that it’s that it’s certainly an imperfect word. So, so emergence is this idea that’s everything that happens in nature is emergent, right?

It’s, it’s a question of, we talk about ecosystems. What really is an ecosystem is everything that’s interdependent. I’m not even gonna use the word interconnected, because interconnected means that. Or, or it suggests that we have things that are connected to other things where actually we emerge from our relationships.

The, the relationships comes first, and then whatever entities come out of it are secondary. So that’s a different way of, of, of looking at it. So the interdependence. The emergence is we don’t really know where it’s going. We don’t know when we plant a tree what it’s going to look like. It emerges based on something that it’s internal to it, but also external factors.

So when, when education is emergent, we appreciate that everyone’s an individual. Yet we are also part of a human collective within, a, a more than human, greater collective. And then there’s other conditions like weather and, and like, materiality and, and all of these things that create conditions that are unique.

Every single one is unique, so we’d emerges ’cause we never know where it goes. The problem with a lot of education system is this linearity, I think for instance, and we can get into this like, like portrait of a graduate. Like you, you’re trying to get to this linear place without, not just without knowing, oh, we don’t know what the future looks like, but without offering possibilities.

That the uniqueness of life will take on its own form. That will never be fossilized in, in the moment. It will continue to, to, to, to go forward. So, so that’s what emergence it. It’s, it’s looking at it the other way that most educational system looks at, rather than looking for an outcome, how do we create conditions for us to thrive as individuals within a community of, of, of of life forms.

Challenges and Contradictions in Regenerative Education

Mason Pashia: I, I definitely want to keep tagging back into that kind of, throughout this conversation, but can you give me an example of how you’re living into this principal at, at your school? I’m sure you’re do it in a lot of different ways, so feel free to just pick one specific kind of scenario.

Benjamin Freud: This week we have our capstones. So our capstones is our green stones. I’m the, the, the adult in the room when it comes to these grade twelves who are, who are presenting their capstones. So I have zero idea of what these things are going to look like.

One kid started off trying to do a wind turbine. He ended up doing a hydro electric generator. I mean, okay, that, that might be simplifying things, but he just went with his learning.

I could think of other projects where we’re saying, okay, we’ve got this. Problem that we’re going to try to respond to, but we have no idea what it’s going to look like. So we let the learning unfold on, on a basis of when we need it, how we need it, but the but the purpose or, or the intention is to respond to a local problem in order to create more positive conditions for all life.

So that’s how we emerge, which is, which is completely different from saying, preparing for a test. Now, there’s nothing wrong with tests sometimes, but that’s not the end. That’s a means to take that knowledge and, and use it for, for, for other things.

Mason Pashia: Yeah. So something you said in there actually kind of surprises me, which is that you. Identified grade 12 as being still like the signoff point in. In your, to kind of live fully into these principles, does the linearity of grades, I assume would kind of have to go away as well? Is there a way to bake in that dynamism within the school to actually kind of give people permission to exit this kind of ex, this place that you’ve made for them?

When they feel ready, when they’ve demonstrated readiness, like how do you think about that component?

Benjamin Freud: That’s such a good question. So we have capstones for grade eight, we have capstones for grade five, and every grade has projects. So, let, let’s face it, we’re still, still, we’re still in a system where we have to, think about what the world is outside. If we live too much in a bubble, then that’s unrealistic.

That doesn’t actually prepare. So there’s a tension there. I’m also thinking that, in our middle school we have mixed, mixed age math classes. All our high school is mixed age as well, so, we’ve got 9, 10, 11 twelves who are in the same the same classes, but they’re still called grade 9, 10, 11 based on their age.

Because of the way we work before graduation, we do have. Kids of all ages working together on some of these projects, not just in high school, but across middle school, high school and, and primary school. I don’t know if I’m really answering your question so much, but, but within the box, we can play around, but unfortunately, we still live within a system where we have to get them a piece of paper that says that they’ve done s, such and such in terms of quality and quantity to be able to go out in the world.

Mason Pashia: Yeah. No, I, I think that what addresses my question well, and I know it was a, a tough one, but I I, I do think this living within contradictions is gonna keep coming up today. ’cause it, you’re basically trying to, to. Imagine a different system from within the one that you’re currently in, which is kind of, and I think that that’s sort of the, the tension of the Audre Lorde quote, right?

It’s the, the master tools cannot dismantle the master’s house and yet all of us here are kind of toying with the, the levers within the system to try and adjust the system within really questioning the broader implications of like, what is the system built to do? Like, are you still participating in a meritocracy?

Are you still participating in an extractive environment? So I just want to flag contradictions are gonna come up a lot and that’s totally okay. Let’s go to the second piece of your sort of quote unquote framework, but yes, fully, fully fluid which actually works well because this principle is fluid and ever morphing.

So give us a little bit about what that means to you and then again an example of kind of how y’all are leaning into this at, at the school.

Benjamin Freud: So. I, I, I really do appreciate this idea of contradiction. I think that when we talk about the biomimicry for regenerative design piece to it and what we’re trying to do, it’s a physical space, but it’s also an approach to learning. And I think that the contradictions are gonna be fully there.

And what’s wonderful about regeneration is unlike sustainability, sustainability is a destination. Regeneration is, is a process. And that’s also a very important point you could get to net zero, that’s a destination we stake there, whereas regeneration, because it’s, it. It is how nature work. It never stops.

So, the, the, the con contradictions we’re, we’re always implicated. We’re all, we’re all we’re entangled in this world. I mean, shoot, I took a car to get here, right? I’ve got lights on. We’re, we’re never gonna be completely clean. And, and because there’s no such thing as, as, as, as purity, there’s no such thing as being clean.

So. I think that once we, we give up these ideas of, of black and white good and evil systems, even this idea of the system is broken is, is, is a false narrative that, that we need to, to consider. But the, the biome for regenerative design lab is, is really trying to open up dialogue with every. Member of the community, and that’s human.

And other than human and trying to understand if we’re going to work like nature work, how might we include the voices of, of that community? How might we consider the big questions that while they can’t be replicated elsewhere, might provoke, might stimulate others to ask the same questions, how we might.

Consider products. I, I don’t like the word solution, but I’ll use it here anyway. Solutions or, or, or non non-material things to, to, to work like nature works, be it the way we communicate, the way we govern the way we, we, we organize. How, how might we do that in ways that take into account the interests of not just humans or, or the student, but, but all, all living things now.

And later on. So the question that we ask might be, how does a, what would a Firefly think of this building in 2050? Those are very important questions. What might the river think? I know the river’s not a living thing, but we’ll just, we’ll just take it as a, as a place where there are so many living things.

And, and then of course, storytelling, which is the most important in my view is, is like, how do we, how do we influence others and how might we let ourselves be influenced by others? So, so it, it’s, it’s just a different way of thinking from, say. Design thinking, which starts with like empathy with the user.

It doesn’t even start with like getting to know who we are, right? It starts automatically with empathy. It doesn’t even start with our own positionality or situatedness, but, but it’s so linear. It’s about user. It’s about like, how might we solve a problem? Whereas regenerative design is, how might we take into account all those externalities?

How are we take into account how our actions. Will affect other life forms that we might not take into account. So, so we try to break outta that linearity and, and more like draw a messy bunch of messy little diagrams and, and, and, and connections there. And then erase them and draw them again.

Mason Pashia: I think I just finished the, is a River Alive by Robert McFarland. He, he may disagree that he may say a river is alive. 

Benjamin Freud: Enough. That’s fair enough. I I, I can, I can totally get that. Yeah.

Mason Pashia: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I am I think we were riffing kind of in the margins of your blog, but you, you laid out this really useful design process, which I wanna get to in this conversation.

The four S’s, and I talked about those as kind of being almost this like. Three-dimensional layer to design thinking, whereas design thinking is kind of already linear, but really they say it’s iterative in a circle despite how it’s usually pictured. But this almost just turns like a circle into a sphere, right?

Like you’re suddenly going on these new axes and all the like, time becomes a time self, like probably ancestors. Like all these things become really viable axes with which to design and takes it away from just like this. Linear U2 user kind of point of view. So I just wanted to kind of double click on that piece.

I think that’s really useful. You, you’ve given one example already of the, the student that pivoted their project, which is fluid and morphing, but based on that design principle, like can you give another example of something that you’re doing in the school that is fluid and ever morphing?

Benjamin Freud: Yeah. And, and I’d just like to just really quick respond to the design thinking. Yeah, it does go in a circle, but ultimately you’re still trying to solve a user problem. And, and a lot of the times there’s a, there’s a morality here about like, how might we sell something? But so, so we pivot all the time.

I mean, we, we, we do things that, that, that, that sometimes just don’t go anywhere, and we’re okay with that. Failure is huge here. Huge. Because you know that that’s something that, that we celebrate. I’ll give you another example of, of how, how we have how we’ve pivoted. I’ve got a, I’ve got a student here who, let’s say another, another capstone project.

He wanted to he wanted to, work on on, say for instance, he wanted to create a, a book of soundscapes of, of Bali and, and take pictures. He’s a photographer. He wanted to do soundscapes. He wanted to really capture that, that the, the aliveness. But, and it was going to be like some kind of interactive experience where you walk through a gallery and you hear the birds and you see them and it’s gonna be something super artistic.

I mean, that, that was, it just didn’t happen. It, it simply didn’t happen. And, and that’s okay. But then we started to think about like, like. Maybe, maybe it’s not about the experience that you provide other people, but maybe it’s about the stories that you tell about why that that was so, so challenging. Or may maybe it was about like, might, might we just tell the stories of, of the birds in, in different ways. 

Mason Pashia: I think that it actually is a pretty good example because what it does is, and this is something that I’m kind of personally obsessed with, is it takes the focus away from the product and puts it back on the process, which is the, which is really, as you’ve said, that’s the best way to stay regenerative and not.

Necessarily sustainable. Like it’s this, it’s this kind of dance you’re always doing. Where I, I getting smart, I’m always thinking about how are we telling stories of process rather than product. In education, you’re working on like 20 year time horizons to see if anything quote unquote worked. And by then usually the, the finish line has moved a little bit further and it’s like, oh, well I guess it didn’t work.

And you’re like, I don’t know, like something, just like we have AI now, something just changed. So, I. I just wanted to make sure, like that is a good example because I think it really does emphasize process in a way that’s super useful. So

Benjamin Freud: And, and you know what, I’m getting caught in my own trap. It’s so hard to break out of, like, these things have to be dazzling and, and, in order to impress the listeners or the viewers or things like that. So we get caught like, like this is something that’s so baked in, we don’t take into account or we don’t.

Pause on, on. So maybe the simplicity that all we said was fun, let’s do something else. And maybe that’s really complex. Maybe that’s where the beauty is. Right? So this goes back to the whole theme of this is like these contradictions and how, how we’re not looking for solutions. There’s no black and white.

We are, we are soiled inside and out with, with what, the, the, the, the dominant narrative is, is has baked into our, to our bodies and our minds for the last, X amount of years. You’re absolutely right to point that out.

Mason Pashia: Well, thanks. But I, I also hope our listeners are impressed. So, to lean again into contradiction. I wanna get to your last piece of this again. It’s this idea of being plural-centric, and this is one that I grapple with — we talk about both human-centered design a lot, which for is has some implications about how we view everything else as well as we talk about personalized learning, and you’ve a couple times now kind of gestured at the idea that if you create an environment that doesn’t have outcomes, you can let people really lean in and find their own individual pathway.

But I’m always grappling with this tension of the, the me and the we. Like how do you actually design an environment that celebrates achievement? 

Exploring Growth Synergy in Education

Benjamin Freud: So this, this is really, thanks for asking this question. ’cause this is something that really I, I’ve been thinking a lot about and I could feel it in my body that I get excited about talking about this. So, it, it, this, this is where it gets. This is where we talk about systems change and the, the, the question that’s out there that, that we can respond to maybe a little bit later is, is like, the system isn’t broken.

It just depends, like, who’s it working for and who’s it not? Like, let’s, let’s look at it in more complex terms, but, but I, I am fully 100% wanting to challenge this idea of student centric, learner centric. I, I think that we have moved so far beyond this. At least we should, if we wanna respond to ecological breakdown, that’s the first thing to do.

Now, a lot of people are gonna move towards student-centric, and that’s, that’s a great move because, it’s like this master control of being up in front and telling people what to do. We move towards student-centric, that that’s, a positive step. And at the risk of sounding a bit like I, I don’t mean to sound disparaging that, but, but really if we move forward so I shouldn’t say move forward, that brings up linearity, but if we move.

Beyond student-centric, and we could put life centric, not human-centric, life centric, because student-centric still individualizes, it still atomizes, it still separates us from others, including humans, of course. But life, it still says that we are going to make sure that the student comes first and, and that we’re going to do everything we can to ensure the, whatever the achievement is.

I mean, put in whatever you want. It doesn’t. It doesn’t consider us our position, our, our, our situatedness within, within the web of life. And, and that’s, that’s the fundamental change. Because ultimately, we, we, we respond by putting students first, by no longer giving tests and working on competencies and things like that.

But that, but that’s just the same thing. This is what I mean by change. Without change. We talk about competency and, and cultivating creativity and. And critical thinking and communication, all that, all that stuff. But it doesn’t mean anything. Like what is, what is communication? Like some of the greatest tyrants of the 20th centuries were great communicators, very creative and, and and superb collaborators.

Is that what we want? Like those are means to an. What is the end? The end is where we get toward more, it’s life centric. Now, calling it life centric doesn’t mean that you, you throw the, the learner away, the young person, you just make it, as you said, pleura centric. So they are part of this, of this web of life, this, this, this soup of life.

And they matter, but so do the spider. So do you, so do all the other living things on the planet. It’s about taking those means, all those competencies and skills and applying them towards the greater good. Now, the greater good, I’m using it with like all the, the knowledge of like, you know what, that’s a complicated thing, but, but if we think about moving towards regenerative practices is what might create the conditions conducive to life.

And so our learning. Doesn’t exist in isolation. Our learning is applied to something that creates the conditions for life. There’s no point in learning. So that’s like potential energy, but we transform into kinetic energy and we learn in order to leave a positive mark on others on, on the, on the non-human world, that that’s where it becomes quite different.

And that’s where moving away from student-centric is, is a way to, to rethink of who and what and, and why we are. That, that’s, that’s critically different from, from other, other notions in education of like trying to change a system. But we’re actually just doing the same thing, which is creating nice little compliant consumers who get jobs and are, benefit from a system like you said earlier about the meritocratic system.

Collaborative Learning and Assessment

Mason Pashia: Is there a version of this that you could even transfer to say you’re a classroom in a semi traditional school, but the, the actual, like you make students accountable to each other in their own sort of development of learning and performance, quote unquote.

Like, I, I wonder how we might, I, I’ve told this story on the podcast before, but like, and it’s kind of a. Not super great example, but I went to a rowing class one time in my life and I, I do not go to exercise classes. I usually do it alone. And the thing that really struck me about this specific class is the leaderboard at the front is one number, and it’s the cumulative distance.

The class has rowed. And so they say, we’re gonna try to reach this number, and then everybody pushes, and then that number grows at the rate of the whole room. And I’m, I’m really fascinated by what that would actually look like in a classroom setting where it’s like, how do we actually lift. All of our sort of interrelations within that room up at the same time.

And then I feel like that becomes something you can apply to the, the other than human world, right? Like you can begin to apply that elsewhere and try to lift everything up. So I don’t know if any of that resonates, but I’m curious how you think about this kind of, even within just the human lens.

Benjamin Freud: Yeah, so I love that. And, we can move through that. So let’s take your rowing class. You have a, a number that’s going out there. Now imagine if you had I don’t know, a video of, of a building being lit up. And maybe, something else so that the energy that you produce actually creates a, a different environment for say a, a family or something that doesn’t need to.

To, to get electricity or whatever. So, so that’s, that’s actually a very important change because when we think of, of assessment that dirty word, but assessment, and I mean that in, in the broadest way of how might we look at the quality of learning or the quality of an artifact that is presented.

’cause it’s not even the quality of learning, it’s the quality of the artifact that’s presented so often we’re looking at. In isolation. But if the learning is about contributing to life, it’s actually we’re more interested or it’s more valuable to hear from those who have benefited or those who have been impacted, those who have been affected by the learning, or should I say.

How the learning was transformed into doing for others. So I’ll give you an example. I’m just making it up. But, but so they learn about the solar panel, they learn about the physics.

They made it, it’s fantastic. Now, in many systems, we would say, okay, does it work right? And, and we look at it, we look at components at aesthetically pleasing, does it work? But really the important thing is how might the people who have benefited from the solar panel. What would they say? How, how, how did Mason’s contribution benefit them?

And, and having those testimonials about, about how our learning has, has improved somebody’s life. That’s really where, where, where the value is. I’ll give you another example. For instance, the hydroelectric generator I mentioned earlier, it’s not about the hydroelectric generator is when it’s hooked up to a wire that makes it so that.

A farmer has electricity and doesn’t have to steal from the electric grid, which is what’s happening now in Bali. How, how has, has their life improved? That’s really what, what we’re looking at. And so it, it, it opens us up to, it’s not about me, it’s about other, what others might say and how I’ve benefited them.

If we think of that in a school, we could take our learning, turn it into something, and really appreciate how much that has contributed to other life forms.

And that’s where that sphere that you mentioned comes into play. Because we collect the voices at the beginning, we collect the voices at the end, understanding that there is no beginning, no end, because it’s perpetual. And that’s when we start to say, okay, the quality of our learning and doing. Is high or positive, whatever you wanna say.

Or certainly OP opens the gateway and is life centered, and that’s com It’s changed from a lot of the assessments now about, how have you demonstrated communi, communication, which means nothing, means nothing. What has your communication done in order to make the world better?

Shorts Content

Scaling and Adapting Educational Models

Mason Pashia: So at getting smart, we think a lot about learning models, and early in the, the, in your writing, you sort of, called out models is a thing that is, is sort of non-emergent by nature because you’re putting definitions on it.

You’re putting all these things. I, I think we have a bias toward models and like society does due to scaling. Like it makes it much easier to scale a concept if you’ve created a model and then you can continue to use it. So I’m, I guess the question’s twofold and you can answer both or one or whatever one is.

How does nature scale? Like if it’s fully emergent, what does scale actually mean in sort of an ecological sense? And or two are there pieces of a model that you can hold onto in order to scale sort of like the, the scaffolding for one of these ideas?

Or do you have to really throw it all out and just go with this sort of like raw kinetic energy?

Benjamin Freud: Yeah. No, that’s, that’s, that’s the real challenge, isn’t it? And, and the beautiful thing about regenerative practice is that there are no answers. And people say, well, what would this look like? And, and I have to say, I have no idea, because that’s what emergence is. Nature doesn’t scale nature, nature. Is is different in every piece because what, what goes on with that tree over there that I’m looking at that you might not be able to see?

And that tree over there is completely different. There’s only maybe, I don’t know, 20 meters between them, but, but everything that happens in this is different. It’s a different trees, different different animals in the the ground, different critters, different everything. If we take it more fractally, like if we, if we, if we zoom out, we can maybe see what patterns emerge and patterns of course is different from, from scale.

And then we can look at the patterns that are there and kind of draw, make generalities out of what those might look like. But that’s different from scaling. Those are just saying, okay, let, let’s see what, what that is. And nature does adapt to patterns and, and, and we can think about it in terms of that.

So when we think about models, I guess the problem with the word model is like if we have this IKEA box set where we’re gonna take one curriculum, put it here, and then another, and then that same curriculum, put it there and, and expect the same outcome, then, then we’re just standardizing the whole thing.

Right. I mean, standardization came literally in the industrial revolution when they made replaceable machine parts. I mean, let, let’s really look at where that word came from, right? Standardize. Also the railway, the, the, the, the distance between the, the. The rail tracks so that you can get things from one state or one country to another.

So we can be inspired and we can have the same approach. Now, if that’s just a fancy word for model, maybe, but an approach is like how you, how you come to something. You approach someone, you approach something, but you don’t really know what’s gonna happen with that encounter. And it’s the moment of encounter that matters.

So we can approach with the same disposition, the same. Thoughts, the same feelings you talked about. Poetry moving is also an embodied experience, right? It’s not just in our head. So we can approach it that way, but the encounter with the experience will change every single time. And that’s where the emergence comes in.

So if I were to take, so it’s, it’s the bird, it’s the bird lab at Green School, Bali. Now, the dream is to have one in the most urban of settings. ’cause it’s easy to do it in the jungle, least people think it is. But if you have it in a, in a, in, in an urban setting, you have regenerative design, urban setting.

Now we’re really talking. But it’s never gonna be the same thing, but it might be the same approach.

Mason Pashia: And the bird lab, just to make the connection. The bird lab is the biomimicry for regenerative design lab. Okay. Yes. Great.

Benjamin Freud: So, so that, that’s where we start to consider different ways of. Having these encounters win with life as life, appreciating that it comes from place, which again, as we talked about earlier, is something that emerges from, from this moment in time with, with these actors and agents in, in, in the, in, in, in this moment in time.

That’s gonna be every time unique and emergent. And I think that, again, it’s, it’s like this is all we can go into, like all like the, the, the physics of it that I don’t understand, but, but there’s like, it’s not woo woo is what I’m trying to say. Like, like there’s actual this is, this is an in heart science as I, as I use air quotes. But if, if, if we think about, if we think about what that might mean, it’s not about replication, it’s about being inspired and it’s about adapting. Just like we talked about some of these kids that had to adapt based on the circumstances that they face. 

The Four S’s Design Principle

Mason Pashia: You go into this in detail in the blog you submitted for us about the four S’s design principle, but I I, you’ve already brought up storytelling. I, I love storytelling as like a key principle of this. Can you give the listeners just like a quick summary of kind of what is this four s approach to use the word you were just using, and how might they start to think about it within their own kind of school setting?

Benjamin Freud: This is what I think is beautiful and, and I have to give credit to Andy Middleton and Denise De Luca who are really the the, the thinkers and, and, and architects behind this. The, the the, the forest approach is one that, is it tend to be able to be used by a 5-year-old and by a 99-year-old by, by someone who’s not in school.

Someone who’s got, whatever, post engineer p whatever you want, like super specialist, because the idea of sensing is just to feel. To sense that is like what’s going on. And that’s when we start to under like consider how might we respond to, or how might we want to change the traject trajectory of what’s happening?

So, let’s give a concrete example. Let’s say, let’s say kids are, are, let’s say we need a playground, we need a different play space. So that’s kind of sensing, okay, community is saying we need different kinds of play space. So what might that look like? So when you design a playground and you sense. You collect the voices of all living things.

So not just the children, but the teachers who have to be there and, and monitor the parents. What about, what about the butterflies and the birds and the trees? What might a tree think of this playground? I brought up earlier the firefly in 2050. What might they think? What might for instance a Balinese kid in 2125?

Think of it. What might a Balanis kid in 1925 think of this playground? If we think about preserving culture? So collecting those voices and those perspectives. I know there’s like the visible thinking routine, like circle of perspective. We can think about it that way. Some call it council of all beings.

And we try to understand exactly where we are with this, and then we ask the big questions, what would happen if we, we designed a playground that took into account all life that was compostable, and that meant, like, like that did what we want, which is, I don’t know, let’s just say. Gave sensory experiences to children as they played

so that’s the sensing part and the seeking part of those questions that we might ask that are bigger questions. It’s not just about how do we design a playground, it’s how might we design a playground that that is that, that might work in place, but also be an inspiration to others. Then shaping so that’s a sensing seeking that we’re at shaping is how, how.

Might nature how does nature create play spaces all mammals play? How is it that mammals play in certain areas? What do they need? How might we think about ways that the playground itself might be compostable? It might create some shade. But at the same time, not so much shade that maybe there’s like bugs that are there because there’s nothing wrong with bugs, but maybe, we don’t want to create an area where there might like have a beehive over there, but at the same time we wanna provide food for some of the birds.

So just looking at what that ecosystem might look like with that playground, just as if the playground wasn’t there. And then the storytelling is about saying, Hey, this is, this is where we are, we are sharing this with the world. And, and how might we inspire. Now. Now let, let’s take that to, if you took a class where you had five different groups, they would story tell about their playground, and then they’re gonna, they’re gonna like, take ideas from others.

So your playground might have some things that I think are really cool and I’m gonna magpie and take that and, and, and redesign my playground. But you’re not gonna think I’m stealing from you. You’re gonna be really, really happy and thrilled that your ideas made it into mind, because that’s regenerative.

And then we go back and we, and we go back to sensing as well. And, and of course this isn’t linear. We can jump from one to the other. But, but is it, is these ideas, we have these four these four different phases of, of the approach to design.

Mason Pashia: I, I really like that. I think that’s a, a really useful and novel framework to get people to think a little differently and to think bigger and to include more perspective. 

Creating Conditions Conducive to Life

Mason Pashia: Of something that I love in this conversation, Benjamin, is we’re we are gesturing at designing a, a, a new system basically, rather than just kind of working within the one we currently are in.

But some of the things you’re saying actually, sh have, I’ve, I see examples of them in classrooms kind of across the country in a way that’s really positive. Like the project, the shift to project base. The way that so much of what you described in is, does this project have a. Positive impact on others like that.

That’s the community connected projects that we’re seeing pop up. There’s like this posture towards curiosity, this approach of curiosity that is something that I, I do think is embedded in certain pogs, like whether or not it’s actually gonna manifest long term and whether or not that is like the correct way to actually message that.

I think people are starting to think about some of those things. So. I am, guess I’m, I’m throwing all this in there because I, I do think, and as you alluded to earlier, you are still kind of working within this grade-based system. They have to get into 12th grade to leave and you have to give them a piece of paper.

My takeaway from you is that like doing, take a look at where you are now and there’s basically always more room to go. And so like, it don’t like. Get over the padding yourself on the back moment. Really just keep moving in service of life, and that is kind of what Ed leaders can do in this challenging meta crisis moment that we’re all in.

Would you say that that’s a sufficient distillation and kind of fire under the, under the ED leader, or how would you continue

Benjamin Freud: I, I hope so. And, and, and there’s so many different entry points here in different, different areas that it, it’s what makes it so incredibly hard and so incredibly easy At the same time, Napoleon probably didn’t say this, but you know, apo, you supposed to have said like, don’t be so far ahead of your troops that they mistake you for the enemy.

And that’s a lot of what, what goes on here? We can’t go out and be like complete crazies because that’s what we’re gonna be seen in. And we could talk about Overton windows shifting and all that stuff, but ultimately it has to be relatable and, and doable. And that’s what’s so beautiful about, about the approach about conducive to life is that’s really what the North Star is.

Are we

Mason Pashia: Hmm.

Benjamin Freud: cond conditions conducive, conducive to life? The challenge is getting us away from this idea of assessing student learning based on the product, even on the process. Although I do like process, but, but, but really thinking about the impact that it has on others and how it has created those conditions and collecting the voices of others, the testimonials.

So if I go for instance, on a, and we do this in, in real, like, like outside of school, if you go to to get a haircut or a photographer or anything. They always have a testimonials page, right? We, we do this all the time. You, you go using Uber, the guy has, or woman has, has three stars. You’re not gonna be as happy as if it’s five.

So, so we already do this. Our resumes are built so that we aren’t saying, oh, I am a great communicator. That means nothing. But it’s, I have been able to, to lead conferences that have led to something or increase sales or whatever it is that people might use in terms of their metrics. It’s in schools.

We somehow have this problem that we just. Assess the product for the product’s sake rather than how it goes. And I think it’s because we’re so afraid to embrace values. We’re so afraid to go beyond this objectivity and non-bias and all this malarkey

so, so leaders can do this, leaders can’t push this, but of course we’re all in a system where, schools get funding based on their test results. Right. And, and, and that goes back to, to what you were saying at, at, at the very beginning and, and, and all these, these things that constrain us. But I wanna go back to this important point about the system is broken.

That’s a false narrative. The system’s doing exactly what it needs to do because it’s reproducing good little consumers who are compliant, many of which don’t really have critical thinking. Because if we’re really serious about critical thinking, then the whole system would go down because people realize that this is actually not, not not, we, we, we don’t want to, we, it’s working very well for those kids who are getting into Harvard because their, their, their dad or mom got into Harvard because they were able to afford this and that tutoring.

It’s working great for those guys. It’s working great for the people who are just a little bit better than the people under them. And I’m using this in, in terms of a hierarchy. So it’s about how might we change, the system’s always changing. There’s no one system that needs to change every day. The system is changing, but how might we influence the trajectory and the momentum?

How might we accelerate towards where we might wanna go that horizon? And that’s, that’s those, those very small things. Listeners who are educators, when they go in the classroom or any classroom, I bet you most of them have that big oak desk at the front of the room and then the tables, maybe they’re done in a horseshoe, whatever, but there’s still those symbols of power.

Throw that desk away, create a circle and sit in at the table in the circle with the other students. Don’t call ’em students, call ’em learners. We’re all learners. That’s how you start to every day, like kind of challenge where we are right now. By asking questions, by being vulnerable, by saying, Hey, do something else.

Fine. You fail. Moving on. And then of course, we could do the bigger resistance pieces, which is to, to open up dialogue and say, actually this doesn’t work out. Let’s actually talk about class. That’s another thing that we can talk about, right? That, that we never talk about class anymore, right? So all those different resistance points that we can, we can do.

We could sabotage. Sabotage what’s existing and, and I’m, I love this idea of sabotage. Maybe that’s what we need to do, but without trying to fix it more, like trying to open up those, those gaps that, that are already there.

Mason Pashia: Yeah, I think you and also will Richardson gesture, this idea of hosing it as well, right? Like you sabotage hospice. It’s something that has an actual.

Benjamin Freud: mm-hmm.

Mason Pashia: Terminus and it is not intended to be brought back, but you could do that with care, you could do it with sabotage, which I don’t actually know the root of that word, but I assume it’s a little bit more at, least mischievous.

So I, I love that. This question of what would it mean for a school system to create conditions conducive to life, I think is, I want folks to sit with that and really think about it in kind of. Evaluate their own school system on that on within that question and just sit with it for a bit because nobody is really doing this.

I’m so grateful for the ways that you’ve continued to shape my thinking over the years through LinkedIn and otherwise. Any final words for our listeners before we jump off today?

Benjamin Freud: Yeah, I, I, Mason, I, I wanna apologize without apologizing for all the background noise that’s here. Right? And I know that in most podcasts we have to have like these studio conditions, but, but this is what, what, this is life, right? This is authentic. This is the environment we’re in. We have no walls. We have like.

Birds and people and everything like that. And, and those imperfections that are there, that that might kind of jar us and, and, and make us feel uncomfortable, I think is also part of it and saying, screw it. This is, this is what it’s like and, and, and, and all the messiness. Learning experiences inside, outside the classroom, the way we wake up if we’re have, if we’re in a bad mood and like we just embrace that.

And that’s a wonderful way to break models to appreciate that the messiness is part of the emergence and we should absolutely love it.

Mason Pashia: Great ending note. Benjamin Freud, thank you so much for being here today.

Benjamin Freud: Thanks so much.

---

Guest Bio

Benjamin Freud

Dr. Benjamin Freud is an educator, learning dialogist, writer, and podcaster. He is the co-founder of Coconut Thinking, an advisory that helps and supports educators nurture learning ecosystems grounded in relationships that contribute to the thriving of the bio-collective—any living thing that has an interest in the healthfulness of the planet.

Benjamin is the Head of Upper School for Green School Bali. He is responsible the Middle School and High School learning program, which includes leadership responsibilities for all staff. He is currently the lead for the development and implementation of the Green School’s Biomimicry for Regenerative Design Lab.

Prior to joining Green School Bali, Benjamin served as the Whole School Director of Learning for Prem Tinsulanonda International School in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and in Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong as Head of School and Vice Principal of High School and Middle School respectively. 

He began his career in the late 1990’s as a consultant for internet start-ups in Silicon Valley, working with individuals who aimed to change the world. The experience had a profound impact on his outlook regarding the power of education, innovation and entrepreneurship to have a positive impact on people and the planet. 

Benjamin is fluent in English and French and is proficient in Spanish. He also has rusty intermediate-level proficiency in German, Japanese, and Vietnamese. In his spare time, Benjamin enjoys reading, practicing yoga, and playing around with creative apps.

Links

• Watch the full video here
• Benjamin Freud article
• Benjamin LinkedIn
• Coconut Thinking