What is radical reimagination?
Ever wondered by it’s so hard to create change even though you’re working desperately for it? We might have information at our finger tips, but we are living in an imagination crisis.
When I interviewed hundred’s of educational changemakers, they disclosed that one of the biggest blockers to change was they truly couldn’t imagine it happening.
Why is that?
It seems that we’ve lost faith in individual and collective dreaming. With leadership being so limited in recent history, we need to find ways to include more of us in the reimagining of our learning, lives and communities. In joyful, relational, imaginative spaces, we find the future we can believe in.
We are learning together all the time… what would it look like for us to do that more intentionally in a way that allows us to flourish?
It was this question that has led to years of listening and practice in being able to support you, and us, in the radical reimagining of our learning and lives.
jae spencer-keyse
Hi! I’m jae spencer-keyse (previously Jessica Spencer-Keyse) and I’m the Creator of Radical Reimagination. A collection of offerings driven by the great need to reimagine and co-create learning and life, together.
For the last 13 years I’ve worked in multiple roles across education and systems change.
Our education system has previously taught us what is ‘good’ and ‘right’, with many of us leaving as failures. It’s based on academic and industrial models, which don’t foster or value creative and imaginative practices.
Instead of working to reform this current system, I’m interested in how we can radically reimagine it, using creative, anti-oppressive, embodied practices.
In this way, together, we can co-create the learning and life of our dreams.
Journeying through the imagination landscape with…
Research and innovation
From mapping thousands of innovations in education around the world at HundrED, to leading research on how we can shift from industrial education systems to learning ecosystems. Research played a foundational role in understanding the landscape, and how people around the world are beginning to co-create regenerative education through learning ecosystems.
Education Activism
There are many areas to pay attention to as we try to live more regeneratively and justly. In my life I’ve been drawn to the role education plays in perpetuating our disconnection from nature and each other. In 2019, I co-founded YouthXYouth, a worldwide community including 80+ countries to radically reimagine education, together in a truly global, intergenerational way led from the youth’s perspective.
Courses and Consulting
There’s nothing I love more than designing radically reimagined learning experiences. I’ve been experimenting with different ways to develop the skills and we don’t typically access in education, as well as reimagining education itself. For example, I created an online course with Futurelearn which help 7000 people radically reimagine education, I’ve written tools for people, from youth in Devon to Richard Branson to host reimagination conversations, as well as designed my own peer, project and community learning curriculums for schools.
Coaching, Workshops and Talks
Rebuilding authentic connection to ourselves, each other and nature in society is a major element of radical reimagination. I love to provide talks, one-to-one and group support to reconnect to our imagination. I often use the framework of What Is, What If, What Now, to ground and create from these three spaces. I’m hosting a weekend retreat in June to support adults to reimagine their relationship to art and find the artist within.
“Reconnecting to our dreams, prioritising exploring and expanding the realms of my imagination for the first time since childhood… I found the change within me, to be part of the solution, right here, right now.”
Case Studies
Case Studies
I recently wrote the faciltator handbook and resources for Big Change. Their aim is to catalyse and host a million inclusive education conversations around the world. We hosted some recently in the South West with education leaders across the region to radically reimagine education, together!
A snapshot from our reimagining education guide.
Even Richard Branson is doing it…
Radically Reimagining Change.
A 6 month peer-to-peer learning journey for change practitioners. Co-hosted with Vanessa Faloye.
Education is usually a hierarchal experience. You learn from a teacher, who is more ‘knowledgable’ than you.
What if we could reimagine our lives by learning together?
We worked together to co-create an anti-oppressive, relationship-focused, multidisciplinary learning community dedicated to bringing about liberatory change. With 10 other wonderful humans from across the UK I learned so much about what it is to reimagine together in an intentional learning space. From the day we are born to the day that we die, we are always in relationship with each other. And those relationships deeply matter for our sense of safety, belonging, and dignity. We hope that this offering was one small step forward, influenced by ancient and indigenous cultures who have been sharing stories and wisdom on being in ‘right relationship’ with each other and the earth for centuries. Read more about the approach here.
I now mentor others to imagine their alternative learning offering into being with Huddlecraft!
Lead researcher of Learning Ecosystems: An Emerging Praxis for the Future of Education
The more interdependent the world becomes, the more we need great collaborators and orchestrators. Innovation is rarely the product of individuals working in isolation, but rather an outcome of how we mobilize, share and integrate knowledge. The well-being of societies depends increasingly on people's capacity to take collective action.
This report not only develops a coherent framework for future-oriented learning ecosystems that can enable and facilitate a lifelong and lifewide learning culture — it also illustrates how designers, connectors, storytellers and sensemakers can implement this framework successfully. - Andreas Schleicher Director for Education and Skills, OECD
Some of my current & previous offerings and trainings
Ran and designed learning festivals and learning journeys for hundreds of young people, from 80+ countries to reimagine and reclaim their education as the Co-Founder of YouthXYouth: An intergenerational community accelerating the process of young people influencing, designing, and transforming their learning experiences and education systems.
Created Radically Reimagine Education, an online course on Future Learn for nearly 7000 people to change inequality in education.
Completed a year long training fellowship with Huddlecraft to become an expert in peer-to-peer learning. Went on to co-host a 6 month learning journey to support 10 adults to Radically Reimagine Change.
Facilitated and designed experimental workshops on Radically Reimagining Burnout and created a Permission to Play: Adult Playgroup night.
Co-created a Big Education Conversation guide and held workshops to support communities to reimagine learning and education in the South West.
Led global research on How to Become a Learning Organisation and Education Innovation Spotting and Every Child to Flourish (250+ reads) at HundrED (featured in Forbes).
Head researcher of Learning Ecosystems as an alternative to the industrial model of education, with a celebrated forward from the OECD.
Co-created The Weaving Lab, a community of weavers learning together how to interconnect people, projects and places to form thriving systems.
Undertook a 4 month Peer-to-Peer learning journey with Transition Town Totnes, resulting in the establishment of the Totnes Climate Hub.
Lead researcher of the Schools that Learn report, exploring what makes a learning organisation in the education sector inspired by Peter Senge’s work.
Trained in The Circle Way in education with Circlewise.
Sat on the board of and consulted multiple alternative education projects such as, Sisterhood School, Challenge 59 and Charlotte Church’s, The Awen Project.
Developing and coaching self directed, project based and peer-to-peer learning skills at SANDS, the second democratic school to establish itself in the UK, for 25+ young people.
Mentoring facilitators to design, recruit and lead their own alternative learning journeys with Huddlecraft.
Featured in several articles, magazines and podcasts such as Brookings Institute, The Education Evolution, Venezuelan radio channel appearances (over 1.2 million viewers) and The Edtech Podcast.
Spoken and delivered workshops around the world, such as SXSWEdu, UNESCO, United Nations, NY Edtech week and EdTechXEurope.
Byline featured by no.1 nonprofit in the world BRAC “Play-Based Learning Centers named a top innovation for global education”
Research has been referenced in 20+ academic papers and 2 books on the transformation of education.
Contributing education expert to “Commissioning Futures: A Guide for Schools Summary Report” with The Young Foundation.
Speaker on Expert panel for European Commission Study on School Innovation with PPMI, “Supporting School Innovation in Europe” Barcelona, Spain.
Completed an MSc in the Science of Psychology (with a focus on neurodiversity) from the University of St. Andrews and a BA in Politics and International Relations from the University of Warwick.
In my teen years I received Arts Council funding to professional dance training (Junior Associates of the Royal Ballet and Elmhurst School for Dance).
radical reimagination debunked
How do you define radical reimagining?
In this context:
Radical means to change the fundamental nature of something
Reimagining (vs. imagining) reminds us that this is a continual process & practice of engaging with our imagination time & time again, to breathe life into different ways of being.
Why is our imagination so important?
Our imagination is important because, simply put, you can’t create what you haven’t imagined. We intend to re-engage with our imagination as a tool for change in an intentional way, for the collective liberation of us all.
Should we work together?
Is you, or your organisations intention to relate to, or affect, the fundamental nature of something? ie. shift the way something is done at its core.
Do you believe the way we learn is an important part of shifting the way the system works?
Are you exploring the role of alternative learning and education in your life?
Would you like to support others in radically reimagining learning, drawing upon thousands of innovations, as well as indigenous wisdom from around the world?
Are you looking to reawaken your imagination & childlike curiosity, through play, creativity & joy?
Are you deeply engaged with questions about what could liberate us all?
Then I’d love to help design, deliver, coach, mentor or create tools that can help with the above!
What is radical reimagination inspired and influenced by?
Think The Artist Way, adrienne maree brown, Gabrielle Roth, Phoebe Tickell and Rob Hopkins meet and make a magical dream potion. It’s a combo of artist reconnection, somatic and embodiment practices, emergent strategy, as well as the latest psychology and neuroscience about our imagination and beyond. You can also see others around the world engaging with this concept below!
