Tag: pedagogy

  • An invitation

    An invitation

    Hey y’all

    The future is here. As teachers, we feel it every day. I don’t need to tell you how surreal it is. The world our students are growing up in is shifting fast. Artificial intelligence is changing how we think, work, and learn. Climate change and political instability are reshaping what it means to live on this planet. And what was once the stuff of science fiction, like UFOs, is now being discussed in Congress and covered by mainstream news.

    These days, the term UAP, or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, is used instead of UFO. “Anomalous” reflects how strange and hard to classify these sightings are. They’re not always in the sky. Some have been reported in oceans or space. Others seem to defy known physics entirely. The term helps make space for the unknown, without assuming too much.

    In recent years, credible sources have begun to acknowledge the existence of phenomena we don’t yet understand.

    And yet, for a long time, topics like these, along with consciousness, non-human intelligence, and alternative knowledge systems, have been silenced by stigma. We’ve been taught not to ask questions that challenge the norm. To keep things simple. Safe. Predictable. But it doesn’t have to be that way anymore.

    If you’ve ever wondered what’s real, what’s true, or what it all means, you’re not alone.

    We don’t need to have all the answers. What we do need is to model intellectual curiosity, humility, and critical thinking—and to make the search for understanding feel like an adventure. As educators, our role is to create space for better questions.

    Questions that stretch our imagination. That cross disciplines. That invite mystery. That make us pause and say, Wait… what? What if?

    We can model what it looks like to live inside the questions. To sit with uncertainty. To wonder openly and stay grounded anyway. That’s what students need—not polished certainty, but the courage to think out loud.

    We don’t need to be experts. We just need to be real.

    Kids love big questions. They want to talk about what truly matters. When we make room for wonder, they lean in. And honestly, we need that wonder too. It’s what keeps us alive in the work.

    Wonder is the antidote to burnout. To disconnection. To apathy. It reminds us why any of this matters.

    Whether you’re skeptical (welcome), curious (you belong here), or already exploring these questions (hello, friend), I welcome you.

    This is a space to challenge what we’ve been told, question assumptions, and open to what else might be true.

    Conversations around UAPs, non-human intelligence, and consciousness are becoming harder to ignore. We’re being invited to rethink science, history, and what it means to be human.

    And maybe, just maybe, religion was more literal than we thought. Maybe ancient stories weren’t just metaphor or myth. They were people’s best attempts to describe real experiences. Mythology, too, may hold truths that were never given the respect they deserved. What have we dismissed too easily because it didn’t fit our frameworks?

    Who decides what counts as knowledge? What stories have been left out? What questions have been dismissed too soon?

    Science was never meant to be a set of fixed answers. It’s a process. History should be a living inquiry, not a closed narrative.

    Educational narratives have long been shaped by colonial systems that marginalized Indigenous epistemologies and excluded knowledge systems that diverged from Western paradigms.

    What if we made room for those, too?

    What if wonder mattered just as much as knowledge?

    What if we prepared students not by handing them facts, but by giving them permission to explore the unknown?

    Right now, conversations about human consciousness are accelerating. Podcasts like The Telepathy Tapes explore our untapped potential. The psychedelic renaissance is bringing together ancient wisdom and modern neuroscience. And across disciplines, more people are asking what it means to truly know, to feel, to connect.

    This work isn’t just for teachers. It’s for school leaders, chaplains, counselors, parents—anyone who cares about how young people make sense of the world.

    I’m not here to convince you of anything. I’m not selling certainty. I’m offering an invitation: to be curious, to wonder, and to ask the questions that don’t yet have answers.

    How do we best serve our kids in this moment?

  • Why Epistemology Matters More Than Ever

    Why Epistemology Matters More Than Ever

    Epistemology is about knowledge. It asks how we know what we know, why we believe it, and what counts as truth. It challenges us to look at what we’ve accepted without question and to wonder what might still be missing.

    In schools, what we teach—and just as importantly, what we leave out—shapes how students see the world and their place in it. Science is often taught as a fixed set of answers instead of a way to ask better questions. History is treated like a closed book, not an evolving record shaped by power, perspective, and silence. The humanities get pushed aside, labeled soft or extra, instead of being treated as vital tools for understanding what it means to be human.

    But the world is changing. The questions are getting bigger. And we need thinkers who are ready.

    We need ethicists, mystics, dreamers, artists, and scientists who can hold complexity, sit with the unknown, and imagine new paths forward. Technical skill is important, but it’s not enough. We also need wisdom, discernment, curiosity, and heart.

    That’s why epistemology belongs in our classrooms. It invites students to ask:

    What is real?
    Who decides?
    What happens when our old answers no longer fit the questions?

    Because reality is shifting. New stories are rising. Paradigms are cracking. If we aren’t teaching students how to question, how to stay curious, how to sit with uncertainty and still stay grounded, we aren’t preparing them for the world that’s coming.

    Here are the kinds of questions that matter now:

    • What happens when epistemology becomes part of the curriculum?
    • How do you define what is real? What do you define as not real?
    • Is reality objective, subjective, or something else entirely?
    • How do perception and bias shape what we see and understand?
    • How has knowledge—about other intelligences or even our own human potential—been dismissed, hidden, or tightly controlled?
    • Who gets to decide what counts as science or history?
    • What stories are we handing down, and what truths are we leaving out?
    • Are we teaching students to think critically or just to fit in?

    Let’s raise a generation that questions, imagines, and stays awake. Let’s teach them how to build something new from the ground up.