The final episode of Teachers’ Voices season 3 opens with Sister Zeph, winner of the 2023 Global Teacher Prize, talking directly to teachers. “You are a future maker”, she says. These words inspired the rest of this mini-episode, which explores futures literacy. What is futures literacy? What do students gain from futures literacy? How can teachers incorporate it into their classrooms?

Former teacher Michelle Blanchet, co-author of the Startup Teacher Playbook and Co-Founder of The Educators’ Lab answers these questions for Nina. Michelle is based in Geneva, Switzerland. Futures literacy is “a way to encourage young people to use their imagination and their agency to adapt, invent, recover, prepare for all the changes that we're experiencing”, Michelle explains.

Teachers’ Voices will be back for season 4 later this year.

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Guests and resources

Sister Zeph - LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Global Teacher Prize
ZWEE Foundation of Sister Zeph - Facebook, Instagram

Michelle Blanchet - LinkedIn, Twitter/X
The Educators’ Lab - Twitter/X, Medium, Facebook

UNESCO - Futures Literacy

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Join us on social media: @BOLD_insights and @VoicesTeachers.

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Get in touch with us: podcastteachersvoices@gmail.com.

Why is it important to make sure children have words to name their emotions? How can teachers promote mental health and wellbeing? Is it possible to remove academic pressure from school?

In this episode, Nina first meets Sarah Griffiths, a Senior Research Fellow at University College London and Co-Director of the Wellbeing and Language Lab in UCL’s department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology. “Language, particularly words for emotions, are critical for understanding emotions,” Sarah explains. Emotion understanding is not innate, children learn about emotions through conversations.

Next, Nina meets Riffat Arif, known as Sister Zeph, winner of the 2023 Global Teacher Prize. Sister Zeph talks to Nina from Gujranwala in Pakistan. She has given thousands of marginalized children and women access to learning. “Mental wellbeing has always been my priority”, Sister Zeph says. The children at her school are traumatised from poverty, hunger, and physical and mental violence, and Sister Zeph provides them a safe space.

Nina speaks to Virna Talarico, a teacher working in primary education in Zurich in Switzerland. Virna shares that they talk about emotions in the classroom - children have the right to feel emotions and other children have to respect that. “It is important that the children feel they are taken seriously”, she says.

Nina’s final guest is Joyce Mininger, Learning Director of the LearnLife primary years hub near Barcelona in Spain. “We take away the pressure of school”, Joyce explains. At their school, they reduce academic pressure to support children’s wellbeing. They also foster healthy relationships between learners, and work on teacher wellbeing too, which impacts children’s wellbeing.

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Guests and resources

Sarah Griffiths - Lab, Twitter/X, UCL

Sister Zeph - LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Global Teacher Prize
ZWEE Foundation of Sister Zeph - Facebook, Instagram

Joyce Mininger - LinkedIn
LearnLife, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter/X

Dr Ross Greene explains Plan B, a technique to solve problems collaboratively with children

Virna Talarico

Contact

Join us on social media: @BOLD_insights and @VoicesTeachers.

Listen to all episodes of Teachers’ Voices.

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Stay up to date with all the latest research on child development and learning at bold.expert.

Get in touch with us: podcastteachersvoices@gmail.com.

What types of physical activity benefit students? Can bringing movement and play into different academic classes help children learn? How can spaces and classes for movement be inclusive?

Nina first meets Fotini Vasilopoulos, a Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sydney in Australia. “Physical activity is important for physical health, for mental health, and it also can drive behaviours for learning.” Fotini suggests giving children different types of experiences - not just sports, but also play and dance, which can foster inclusivity.

Next, Nina speaks to Saumil Majmudar in the Himalayas, India. Saumil is the founder of Sportz Village, India's largest youth sports platform. “We do something very simple,” Saumil says, “we just get kids to play”. The Sportz Village approach is to give children the time and space to play safely with others their own age.

Nina also hears from Tanya Sheckley, founder of the Up Academy and host of the Rebel educator podcast. Tanya is based in California in the US. Tanya’s school incorporates movement and play into classroom time, and students can have breaks from work on a large monkey bar structure.

Join the Teachers' Voices WhatsApp group and read the community guidelines.

Guests and resources

Fotini Vasilopoulos

Saumil Majmudar - LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Facebook

Sportz Village - LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Facebook

Tanya Sheckley – LinkedIn, Facebook, Rebel Educator podcast
UP Academy - Twitter/X

Contact

Join us on social media: @BOLD_insights and @VoicesTeachers.

Listen to all episodes of Teachers’ Voices.

Subscribe to BOLD’s newsletter.

Stay up to date with all the latest research on child development and learning at bold.expert.

Get in touch with us: podcastteachersvoices@gmail.com.