Scroll down for links to records of the first five session.
The RCE Making Change Stick project was inspired by the work of Je’anna Clements and Sifaan Zavahir who initiated the Rights-Centric Education Network – RCEN in July 2024 and launched the Declaration of Child Rights-Centric Education on the November 20, 2024, World Children’s Day, at the Inspire Education Summit. The Project will continue until the 2026 Learning Planet Festival that centres around the January 24th International Day of Education.
The aim of the Project is to accelerate the shift to education that is fit for democracy. More specifically, it is working to establish a community of practice as described in the Two Loops Model video, which can be regarded as moving from what Don Berg describes as the hunch stage of change to the Internal Coherence stage. In 1969 George Dennison wrote the following in reference to the transformation of education efforts taking place at the time:
“One hears more frequently now of parents banding together,
finding teachers, and starting little schools . . .
There are no signs that a movement exists,
but there are many signs that one might . . .”
Conditions seem particularly suited to now making that movement happen. The polycrisis is upon us. Humans are faced with annihilation due to climate change; democracies are threatened, and people’s mental health is a growing concern. Something has to be done to turn things around. One encouraging sign is the emergence of the Learning Planet Institute which has taken up the challenge to catalyze a global debate on the future of education called for in the 2021 report published by UNESCO titled: Reimagining our futures together: a new social contract for education. The RCEN participated in the 2025 Learning Planet Festival with 26 events building awareness of how education needs to be based on human rights as defined by the United Nations, and how to implement that form of education. RCE Making Change Stick is aiming to help the RCEN collaborate further with the Learning Planet Institute in catalyzing the global debate.
Collaboration Not Competition
We all want mental health and a promising future. To achieve them, we must not let our differences defeat us. These differences come in the form of views such as those pro or con public education and personality types that don’t mesh well. Our collaborative capacity depends upon us not giving up on each other and finding ways to keep stepping forward together even when we feel like withdrawing to the comfort of our echo chambers.
The RCE Making Change Stick project grew out of the Inspire Education Summit and the 2025 Learning Planet Festival. These two events created sufficient hope that the RCEN could become the common ground needed to create a movement. To keep things moving forward, five sessions were organized to introduce the parameters for the project. The first two were led by James Mannion and centered around how those working inside state school systems could make change stick while acknowledging that the slice team core component applied as well to change efforts being from the outside. The name of the project comes from James’s book “Making Change Stick”.
Sessions 3 and 4 were led by Don Berg and looked more from the outside how to transform education. In his book “The Agentic School Manifesto” and his 2022 IDEC talk titled “Achieving the Impossible” he introduces catalytic pedagogy, the canvassing problem and his four stages of change. Accelerating the movement from the first stage to the second, from the Hunch Stage to the Internal Coherence Stage, is what the project has the potential to do.
The first four session are to suggest that people who do or don’t believe in public education do not need to be fighting each other, but rather building bridges between the two. QUEST is one example of how this bridging work is already being done. The project will help to bring attention to it and other organizations that are helping to bridge between conventional and rights-centric education.
The fifth session was led by John Jones and Julie Tirakian of World Systems Solutions establishing that education is about more than properly providing for the learning needs of young people. It also encompasses creating a future in which all can thrive. The role of education in addressing the polycrisis requires that people remain engaged in transforming education throughout their lifetime, not only while they or their children are in school.
Records of the First Five Sessions
Session 1, April 22nd, 8pm UTC: Making Change Stick – Introduction and discussion by author James Mannion.
– The unedited Zoom recordings from Session 1 (Passcode: r@5KzgN3)
– The Session 1 Zoom AI summary of the session
Session 2, April 29th, 7pm UTC: Making Change Stick – Turning talk into action.
– The unedited Zoom recordings from Session 2
– The Session 2 Zoom AI summary
Session 3, May 13th, 7pm UTC: The Agentic Schools Manifesto – Introduction and discussion by author Don Berg.
– The unedited Zoom recordings from Session 3 (Passcode: tf*mJX9n)
– The Session 3 Zoom AI summary
Session 4, May 20th, 7pm UTC: The Agentic Schools Manifesto – Turning talk into action.
– The unedited Zoom recordings from Session 4
– The Session 4 Zoom AI summary
Session 5, May 27th, 7pm UTC: World Systems Solutions – Moving towards a global learning ecosystem. See Entering the Era of Empowerment by John Jones, a powerful look at “Self-Sovereignty in a Complex World”.
– The unedited Zoom recordings from Session 5
– The Session 5 Zoom AI summary
An organizer of the 2025 Learning Planet Festival had the following to say about the RCEN involvement.
“The whole LearningPlanet Festival team has been really impressed by your ideas to further engage participants and your incredibly generous contributions to this year’s Festival. The Rights-Centric Education Network has been one of the top contributors in terms of number of events submitted. For this, and for your inspiring dedication, merci 🙏”