The Future of Learning Dialogues LIVE recording

Live Recording

About The Future of Learning: Learning in Community

The Future of Learning Dialogues series supports us all in reconnecting to the natural love of learning through conversations with exemplars of the Learning Spirit in Action – including artists, writers, members of indigenous communities, contemplatives, activists, scientists and kids. We are seriously looking for intelligent life in the universe!

The inaugural Future of Learning Dialogue took place on October 15th, 2019. The theme of the 2019 Dialogue was “learning in community” and featured Gloria Steinem in conversation with Aaron Stern and facilitator Tannia Esparza.

“Imagine we are linked not ranked.” Gloria Steinem

The goal of these dialogues is to bring into the foreground and amplify emerging, inspiring views of Learning – as we continue to reclaim learning. When we talk about “learning in community” we are imagining learning that engages our deeper longings and intentions as human beings to learn our way into health and well-being for all. We need each other to shape each other.

“Learning is to education, what spirituality is to religion.” Matthew Fox

About The Future of Learning Dialogues

“All of The Future of Learning Dialogues are about bringing our attention and our awareness to the learning part of us versus the education part of us. How can we bring our awareness and intention into teasing learning apart from education? The future of learning is reclaiming the sovereignty of learning. It’s about agency and the deeper meaning and intention of learning.” Aaron Stern

In 2018, we hosted a series of dialogues centered on Leonard Bernstein’s question “Don’t We Never Learn?” Our second “Don’t We Never Learn?” dialogue featured neuroscientist Dr. Richard Davidson, founder of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in conversation with Aaron Stern in exploration of Bernstein’s burning question by taking a look at the impact of our foundational work in learning. From this, we have developed The Future of Learning Dialogues.

“Our hope is at the end of the Future of Learning Dialogues series we’re going to get glimpses of something better than we have now and that we’ll be able to make a contribution to reimagining education so that someday the learning spirit is in the forefront of all that we do.” Aaron Stern

About Panelists Gloria Steinem and Aaron Stern 

Gloria Steinem is a writer, political activist, and feminist organizer. She was a founder of New York and Ms. magazines, and is the author of My Life on the Road, Moving Beyond Words, Revolution from Within, and Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, all published in the United States, and in India, As If Women Matter. She co-founded the National Women’s Political Caucus, the Ms. Foundation for Women, the Free to Be Foundation, and the Women’s Media Center in the United States. As links to other countries, she helped found Equality Now, Donor Direct Action, and Direct Impact Africa. For her writing, Steinem has received the Penney-Missouri Journalism Award, the Front Page and Clarion awards, the National Magazine Award, the Lifetime Achievement in Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Society of Writers Award from the United Nations, and the University of Missouri School of Journalism Award for Distinguished Service in Journalism. In 1993, her concern with child abuse led her to co-produce an Emmy Award–winning TV documentary for HBO, Multiple Personalities: The Search for Deadly Memories. In 2013, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. In 2016, she and Amy Richards co-produced a series of eight documentaries on violence against women around the world for VICELAND.

Aaron Stern, president and founder of the Academy for the Love of Learning, is a musician, teacher, and internationally recognized consultant on learning.

As the Academy’s creative and educational leader, Stern designs and directs the Academy’s core curriculum and faculty, guides program development, and offers select trainings in depth facilitation and diverse aspects of the Academy’s pedagogy.

During the early 1980s, Stern served as Dean of the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. It was here that he began to focus on learning and educational processes, developing creative, experiential curricula that won national acclaim.

It was during that time that Stern re-met his mentor, musician Leonard Bernstein, and the two embarked upon an intense 10-year collaboration. Stern had already begun to imagine a new institution focused on learning and their conversations and shared experiences further informed Stern in his quest to find ways to awaken, nurture, and sustain a life-long love of learning as a means to becoming more fully human. This early work laid the foundation for what is now the Academy for the Love of Learning, founded by Stern in 1998.

Today, Stern conducts programming in Santa Fe, consultancies and seminars throughout the United States and other parts of the world, and serves as a member of the Board and Fellow of the Mind & Life Institute, co-founded by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Request more information