Probe the Big Questions like What is Sacred? (considering purpose and what matters most at your school), What is Learning? Who is Unheard? What is Success? And how we can strive to be good ancestors in this evocative, collective inquiry. The range of questions can be tailored to address many needs and contexts, and serve as a powerful means to work toward the futures we yearn for.

What are the neural, relational, pedagogical, and systemic connections between belonging and learning, purpose, and community-building, and how can we each play a role in building a culture of belonging? At a time when polarization, mistrust, disengagement and anxiety are at highs, let’s explore how can a relational approach to school serve as a powerful antidote and a source of hope. 

What are the neural, relational, pedagogical, and systemic connections between belonging and learning, purpose, and community-building, and how can we each play a role in building a culture of belonging? At a time when polarization, mistrust, disengagement and anxiety are at highs, let’s explore how can a relational approach to school serve as a powerful antidote and a source of hope. 

A couple sentences describing the speech topic.

What is the purpose of school in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world? Crucially, what are the new skills, literacies and dispositions leaders need to guide their communities into the future? And what will students need to succeed? This session will unpack these big questions, and introduce the tools and strategies that will support school leaders to envision more relevant, just, sustainable (regenerative), healthy, and joyful schools, now and into the future. 

If you had an opportunity to create “irresistible futures” for your school and your students, where would you begin? What outcomes would you love to end up with in 3, 10, or 20 years? How might this vision help shape your school culture and practices today?

These questions might be exciting to consider, but they are also challenging. Pursuing them with honesty calls for courage, clarity, deep empathy, and crucially, imagination. Among the frameworks we will consider is that of going beyond a Portrait of a Graduate to consider a Portrait of an Ancestor. This shift, rooted in values and long-term thinking, gets a school to consider the deeper purpose of education, can offer an energizing and inspiring vision to unite around a more inclusive definition of success, and can build a more meaningful sense of community through difficult times.

In light of the fact that we are preparing students for jobs that do not yet exist to solve problems we’ve never heard of using technologies that haven’t been invented – how can parents help prepare their children for this uncertain future? Based on Homa’s work since writing her popular book, Growing Up Global, and lessons from social science, brain science, and rapid technological change, the answers center on what makes us fully human: qualities like deep empathy, creativity, and the ability to engage in meaningful dialogue. Together, these contribute to vital new literacies that will help our children confront the challenges of our time.