My New Podcast: Lifelong Kindergarten
I decided to start a new podcast because I’m really worried about many things happening in the world these days, and I want to explore how different approaches to learning and education could help bend the world in a better direction. With this podcast series, called Lifelong Kindergarten, I’m hoping to highlight ideas and examples for catalyzing meaningful change in how children imagine, create, play, share, and learn — and, ultimately, meaningful change for society.
In many ways, the podcast builds on the work of my Lifelong Kindergarten research group at the MIT Media Lab. For more than 30 years, our group has developed technologies, activities, and strategies for engaging children around the world in creative learning experiences. For example, we collaborated with the LEGO company on the development of LEGO Mindstorms and other robotics kits for kids. And we developed Scratch and OctoStudio, software platforms that enable kids to create and share interactive stories, games, and animations.
But more important than these technologies are the educational ideas underlying them, and that’s what this podcast series will focus on. In everything that our research group has worked on over the past three decades, whether it’s a new technology or a new online course or a new space for learning, we’ve been guided by a consistent, enduring set of educational goals and values: we have always focused on expanding opportunities for children from diverse communities to develop as creative, curious, caring, and collaborative learners.
These 4 C’s are timeless values: If I were alive 100 years ago, I hope I would have been advocating for the same goals for education and learning. But I feel that these values are more important now than ever before. We live in a world where measurement, efficiency, and optimization are too often valued above human needs, interests, and experiences.
And I worry that the situation is becoming even worse. There are two huge disruptions in the world today: there’s the disruption caused by the proliferation of AI technologies and the disruption caused by the rise of authoritarian governments. There is a real risk that these disruptions could lead to a de-humanization of society, so that people have less choice and less voice in their lives. Because of these disruptions, the 4C approach to education and learning is more needed than ever before, and also more threatened than ever before.
In each episode of this podcast series, I will have a conversation with a researcher or educator to explore ideas and examples on how to nurture creative, curious, caring, and collaborative learners. I want to highlight people around the world who are doing exciting work in supporting 4C learning. And I hope that this podcast can serve as one way to build community among people who recognize the need for significant changes to our approach to education and learning in order to move towards a more creative, empathetic, pluralistic, and democratic society.
See bit.ly/llkpodcast for links to the podcast on Substack, Spotify, Apple, and YouTube. Here’s the first episode of the podcast…
