Create new education futures

This book builds on Manifesto 25: A Blueprint for Reclaiming Education. Conceived as a companion volume, it expands and tests the manifesto’s provocations through 25 short essays. Interwoven with these are reflections, two intermezzos that amplify voices from the field, and thematic cahiers that invite readers into dialogue and reflection. Together, they explore how the manifesto’s principles take shape in practice and how they might be carried forward.

It is both a continuation of the manifesto and an invitation to join a positive rebellion: to confront complacency, dismantle outdated systems, and take part in creating education futures worth building.

We cannot rely on hope alone. Education will not change itself. The responsibility lies with each of us. What happens next depends on what we build today.

This is a book. It is not finished.

Break it. Rewrite it. Make it yours.

Write and draw on it, highlight the parts you like, tear out what you don’t like, and add what’s missing. Turn it into your own guide for building new education futures.

Then pass it on. The conversation grows only if we keep it moving.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Prologue: No hope without action

Manifesto 25: A blueprint for reclaiming education

  1. Building futures we cannot yet imagine

  2. 1.0 schools cannot teach 3.0, 4.0, 5.0 … kids

  3. Kids are people, too

  4. Schools must be havens of uncommon safety and extraordinary respect

  5. Authentic learning comes from freedom, not from being pushed into a predetermined path

  6. Learning together, teaching together

  7. No more boxes: Learning in ecosystems

  8. Learning at the intersection of agency and self-efficacy

  9. Teachers at the crossroads

  10. Don’t value what we measure; measure what we value

  11. Bad use of technology is a symptom, not the problem — INTERMEZZO ONE — Reflections from Manifesto 25 focus group at YOUDEX 2025

  12. Invisible learning is an organic process: Breathing, taking root, and becoming one’s self

  13. We cannot manage knowledge

  14. Toward creative futures, beyond standardization

  15. Learning at the edge of networks

  16. Degrees are obsolete by design … when knowledge has the shelf life of a banana

  17. Genuine equity demands creative schools

  18. Educating for a shared planet

  19. The future belongs to nerds, geeks, makers, dreamers, and knowmads

  20. Reality is not optional: Defending education from disinformation, weaponized postmodernism, and the erosion of truth

  21. The missing planet — INTERMEZZO TWO — Breaking away, redefining freedom

  22. In the absence of hope, we must build communities of trust

  23. Break the rules that break us

  24. Activism as learning: When students teach the system a lesson

  25. Question everything

Woven throughout the book: Cahiers for continuing

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