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Transforming Learning Systems through Openness

Encounters with Life and Death
Personal reflections on a journey through manipulations and attachments

Introducing a new book by Neil Butcher

 

In Encounters with Life and Death, Neil takes the reader on a wide-ranging journey through seminal experiences from his life, some professional and many deeply personal. He unpacks how they have shaped his views on what it means to be human and how he has used them to deepen his relationship with his own humanity. It is less a memoir than a reflection on what he believes really matters in our lives, as well as an exploration of how we and the societies in which live distance us from what we should find most important. 

 

His insights also draw on many years of travelling the world working in education, which have left him increasingly disillusioned by the effects of formal education systems on people globally. He shares how key events and experiences have shaped his own daily thoughts, habits, and practices, as well as his priorities for the second half of his life. In doing this, he explores how he hopes to reduce the unhealthy effects of those who seek to manipulate us and of his attachments to possessions and behaviours that do not serve him.

 

Encounters with Life and Death invites you to spark meaningful conversations about reshaping education to nurture authentic human connections. How can you empower yourselves and others to live more fulfilled lives? Join Neil in rethinking how to truly connect with what matters, exploring how we can reconfigure education systems to empower learners to find a deep connection with their own humanity and that of the people around them.

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Book Cover, Text Encounters with Life and Death, personal reflections on a journey through manipulations and attachments by Neil Butcher

Blogs

The Diverse, Integrated Beauty of Human Intelligence
30 April 2024

The Diverse, Integrated Beauty of Human Intelligence

In his newest blog post entitled ‘The Diverse, Integrated Beauty of Human Intelligence’, Neil proposes that we need to embrace and nurture our full human capability, which is distributed throughout our whole body, and rethink the purpose of education accordingly. He often likes to reflect on the diverse and integrated nature of human intelligence, and how it is often misunderstood or neglected by education systems. He recently drew inspiration from a science-fiction novel that proposes the quantum level of brain activity, and looked at some recent studies that explore this possibility. These illustrate the aspects of human intelligence that go beyond the conscious and rational mind, such as the sub-conscious, the gut microbiome, and the epigenetic memories.
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The Ghost Town of San Jose
25 April 2024

The Ghost Town of San Jose

The lyrics of the Specials reverberated through my mind as I went for my first exploratory run around San Jose, and not just because the hotel where I am staying feels like an extra from Ghostbusters. Described on its website as the heart of Silicon Valley, San Jose is also one of the most expensive metro areas in the USA. But, having travelled extensively, I feel I can pick up the ‘energy’ of places quite quickly and what struck me forcefully since my arrival yesterday morning is the absence of humanity: shops in downtown San Jose boarded up; my hotel unable to find a vendor to restart its restaurant after the COVID-19 lockdowns; and a city showing physical signs of neglect everywhere. I have also seen how homelessness has become a reality for so many people in the richest country in the world.
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People standing on a beach watching the eclipse
19 April 2024

False promises about ‘AI’ in education

My personal experiences in using AI tools have shown me clearly that, in the right hands, these will enable extraordinary improvements in individual productivity. I’m less persuaded, though, that all the hype and promises about how these same tools are going to transform education systems is warranted, especially given the poor track record of previous technologies in delivering on promises, at least on a large scale, that were made equally enthusiastically when they first came into use. In this blog, I reflect on the phenomenon of AI hype in education and why I think it might be a distraction from what is needed for serious transformation of education systems.
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Neil Butcher

Neil Butcher

Neil was born and grew up in Johannesburg in South Africa during the final years of apartheid. He began a career in education after university studies and was privileged to work in an education NGO during South Africa’s transition to democracy and beyond. During this time, he founded Neil Butcher & Associates, where he still works today. He is privileged to have been able to travel extensively throughout the world during his career, an opportunity that has provided him unique opportunities to engage with many cultures and appreciate the extraordinary diversity of the world in which we live. 

Neil is passionate about helping governments, development partners, and educational institutions to reform education systems to enable people and societies to achieve their full human potential. Having worked in education in developing countries across the globe for over 30 years, Neil recognizes that there are no simple formulae for educational reform; each context is unique, as are the people who inhabit it. Thus, providing service to initiatives focused on education reform requires willingness to listen and understand what is most important, combined with a patient conviction that transformation, no matter how difficult it may seem, is possible.