The Global Meeting on Equinox
Bildung: Beyond Conformity
What it means to be human
Meet the speakers
See the program and sign up here:
https://www.globalbildung.net/what-it-means-to-be-human-2025-september-20/
In order of appearance
Jackie Kauli
Papua New Guinea & Australia
Jackie Kauli is an Honorary Associate Professor at the Centre for Arts and Social Transformation at the University of Auckland. With a background in applied theatre and drama, Jackie has been working in international development for over two decades, collaborating closely with community partners and international development agencies. The focus of her work is on social change initiatives, creative pedagogies, and applied research across a wide range of fields, such as gender equality, health, and education. Leading projects across Papua New Guinea and the Pacific, a key component of Jackie’s work is understanding Indigenous ways of knowing and being to inform the design and implementation of programs. She combines these Indigenous values and systems with her extensive experience in creative methodologies, co-creating solutions to address complex social issues.
Kinship and connectedness: cultural resilience and ‘what it means to be human’
In traditional Pacific societies, ‘what it means to be human’ is inseparable from kinship—a sense that each person was inherently connected to all others. But what did this mean in practice, long before the region came to be named Oceania? With the arrival of the Global North—Australia and New Zealand included—came the Enlightenment, modernity, and globalisation, along with a fervent desire to “word the world.” Much was lost in translation. Colonial exploitation and imperialism brought both gifts and flaws. However, stories and forms of cultural resilience have survived after centuries of ‘being forced to speak in the language of uninvited strangers’, and despite the pressures to conform from many white, patriarchal, inegalitarian, men and women intent on humanising these ‘strange’ others.
Brad Haseman
Australia
Brad Haseman worked for thirty years at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) where he was Professor in Drama Education and held a range of senior leadership posts in the Creative Industries Faculty. He is known internationally as a teacher and workshop leader (Process Drama), arts researcher (Performative Research) and community engagement practitioner (Applied Theatre and Teaching Artistry). For over ten years Brad coordinated a research project using applied performance techniques forHIV and AIDS education in Papua New Guinea. Called Life Drama, the project supported teachers and health workers with resources, including The Life Drama Bilum. Brad is currently Professor Emeritus at QUT.
More from Brad Haseman here: https://blog.kadenze.com/creative-technology/teaching-artistry-and-nordic-bildung/
Kinship and connectedness: cultural resilience and ‘what it means to be human’
In traditional Pacific societies, ‘what it means to be human’ is inseparable from kinship—a sense that each person was inherently connected to all others. But what did this mean in practice, long before the region came to be named Oceania? With the arrival of the Global North—Australia and New Zealand included—came the Enlightenment, modernity, and globalisation, along with a fervent desire to “word the world.” Much was lost in translation. Colonial exploitation and imperialism brought both gifts and flaws. However, stories and forms of cultural resilience have survived after centuries of ‘being forced to speak in the language of uninvited strangers’, and despite the pressures to conform from many white, patriarchal, inegalitarian, men and women intent on humanising these ‘strange’ others.
Michael Jiang
China
Michael Jiang is a strategic consultant and education researcher in China. He is currently Vice Chairman of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, a leading independent education thinktank. Before this endeavour, he held management roles in several leading technology firms including Meituan-Dianping, Tencent and Yahoo (U.S.). He is also the translator of two books: New to Big and The Nordic Secret.
Bildung and Grundtvigian Education Practices in China
Despite a well-known conformity culture and strong restrictions from political environment, there are still resilient efforts to focus on Grundtvigian live education, self-development and community building in China. What’s their approach? What are their challenges? How is their outlook？
Hironobu Shindo
Japan
Hironobu Shindo is an associate professor of lifelong learning and cultural policy at The University of Tokyo Graduate School of Education, and a visiting researcher at The UNESCO institute for lifelong learning.
Decolonizing Bildung in Japan: Local Tradition and the Ethics of Cultural Pluralism
Since the Meiji period, Japan has embraced a Western model of Bildung centered on intellectual and moral cultivation. Recently, however, young people have begun engaging in regional folk performing arts as a new form of Bildung rooted in local tradition. While this shift offers a promising alternative to Eurocentric models, it risks reinforcing nationalism. This presentation explores how Bildung can be reimagined through a decolonial lens—one that honors cultural rootedness while fostering ethical openness to pluralism.
Sanchita Shekhar
India
Sanchita Shekhar is a passionate advocate with extensive experience in peace, conflict resolution, and research. She has worked with refugees, prisoners of war, and tribal communities, conducting impactful research on health systems and policy analysis. Currently, she works with Jan Swasthya Sahyog to shape healthcare policy in India.
Bildung: Beyond Conformity in a Traditional Society
Reghu Rama Das
India
Reghu Rama Das is the Co-chair of the Association for World Education (AWE) since 2022. AWE is an international NGO with consultative status in United Nations. It is a platform of Adult Educators and development practitioners and has members and chapters from all over the world.
Reghu did his PhD in Social Anthropology from India, and has experience in the field of Development, and Education for about 30 years.
He has associated with MITRANIKETAN, a well-established Non-profit Organisation in India since 1995. His association with FOLK Education programs started from his visit to Denmark in 1996 for a 3 weeks training program on Folk Education. Mitraniketan established a FOLK HIGH SCHOOL (PEOPLE’S COLLEGE) in India in 1996 and Reghu is associated with the school from the beginning onwards. Currently he is the Principal of the FOLK SCHOOL at Mitraniketan.
Human Betterment with Mutual Aid: Bringing back humanness into the equation
We overlook the reality of the basic principle of human development; the forgotten option of mutual aid. We focus on development theory, but often forgot that cooperation between individuals in a community represents the real step for the advancement of all. In today’s world of transition, we must examine our approach to development and re-orient our approach and methods so that we can bring back “humanness” into equation. Our primary task in this re-orientation is the enablement of people through bringing back mutual aid and humanness.
Chen Shamir
Israel
Chen Shamir holds a Master’s degree in Education and has founded educational and community programs for young adults in Israel over the past 12 years. An expert in community pedagogy focused on young adults, he served as Deputy Director of Tozeret Haaretz, an organization that bridges academia and community. He is a graduate of the Mandel Leadership Program and a member of the urban educators’ kibbutz of the Dror Israel movement. He is currently the initiator and visionary behind the first Academic Kibbutz and serves as its program director— a life-learning framework inspired by the idea of folk high schools.
The Academic Kibbutz
“The Academic Kibbutz” is Israel’s version of a folk high school inspired by Grundtvig, integrating Buberian, Freirean, Schillerian ideas, and Jewish learning traditions. Based at Beit Berl College, it brings together young people committed to rebuilding Israeli society after October 7 through education, community-building, culture, and leadership. It fosters transformative communities in the Western Negev and the north. Participants combine academic studies with training in advanced pedagogy—dialogical, non-formal, aesthetic, mimetic, and cathartic—earning degrees that prepare them to lead educational and social change.
Read more about it here: https://beitberl.lp.mench-digital.co.il/lp/July_25/ (it’s in Ivrit, but your browser can probably translate it)
Shiran Greenberg
Israel
Shiran Greenberg is a PhD candidate in the Department of Jewish Philosophy at Bar-Ilan University. He is a co-founder of the Martin Buber Center for Dialogical Education at Beit Berl College and a member of the urban educators’ kibbutz of the Dror Israel movement. He is currently one of the founders of the first Academic Kibbutz and serves as its academic director.
The Academic Kibbutz
“The Academic Kibbutz” is Israel’s version of a folk high school inspired by Grundtvig, integrating Buberian, Freirean, Schillerian ideas, and Jewish learning traditions. Based at Beit Berl College, it brings together young people committed to rebuilding Israeli society after October 7 through education, community-building, culture, and leadership. It fosters transformative communities in the Western Negev and the north. Participants combine academic studies with training in advanced pedagogy—dialogical, non-formal, aesthetic, mimetic, and cathartic—earning degrees that prepare them to lead educational and social change.
Read more about it here: https://beitberl.lp.mench-digital.co.il/lp/July_25/ (it’s in Ivrit, but your browser can probably translate it)
Hanna Ziadeh
Lebanon & Denmark
Being human in the Arab communitarian context
Nayombe Muliyunda
Zambia
My name is Nayombe Martha Muliyunda, and I have stood in arenas where I was underestimated. I have bowed with humility, even when my presence alone was an act of rebellion. I have taught young girls to punch, not in anger, but in confidence. To kick, not out of fear, but in courage
Karate taught me discipline, but being a woman in karate taught me resilience.
To Be Human
To be human means to feel deeply. Especially for the people who ordinarily would not have a chance if you did not step up for them. To be human is to rise in spaces where you were not expected to stand. To walk into a Dojo full of men, tighten your belt, straighten your back and stay.
To be human means, being told that you girls can never thrive in a sport where bruised knuckles and sweat drenched karate suit are a rite of passage but showing up anyway with a heart that beats not just with discipline but with purpose.
Patrick Okigbo Jr.
Nigeria
Patrick O. Okigbo III is the Founding Partner at Nextier, a member of the Presidential Economic Coordinating Council in Nigeria, and a member of the Anambra State Education Advisory Council in Nigeria. He was a Senior Fellow at the Mossavar Rahmani Centre for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School.
What Does It Take to Be Human: Beyond conformity and the conficence to develop
I will explore the essential condition of being human in the context of dignity and confidence. This conversation is necessary in the face of poverty and development disparities in Africa. I will argue that poverty erodes human dignity, constraining the confidence to be creative and create autonomous thoughts essential to authenticity and agency. To be fully human requires confidence to transcend imposed social and economic conformity—what Frantz Fanon might describe as breaking the colonial and neocolonial psychological shackles. This confidence enables original thinking and deliberate action outside the narrow “box” the global development hierarchy imposes. To substantiate this claim, I will draw on works in developmental economics, postcolonial theory, and African political philosophy.
Jesper Garsdal
Denmark
Bildung as tradition and the global and planetary relevance of the idea
More info on its way…
Sergey Chumachenko
Ukraine
From folk high school to tactical medicine
Sergey wanted to start a folk high school in Ukraine based on the Scandinavian folk high school tradition. Among his goals was to teach traditonal local crafts to the locals so that they could contribute to the Ukrainian tourist economy.
The school now teaches tactical medicine to soldiers, fire fighters, and civilians.
Nataliia Kalinchuk
Ukraine
Nataliia Kalinchuk is a Ukrainian educator whose professional journey bridges formal and non-formal education. After years of teaching in the state system, she embraced the folk high school tradition and became a member of the initiative group which founded Folk High School Hoshcha as a platform for democratic adult learning and local community development being dedicated to advancing non-formal education and democratic values in Ukraine.
Ukrainian Folk High School Hoshcha: Challenges, Opportunities, and Development
The Folk High School Hoshcha in Ukraine represents a new model of non- formal education for adults rooted in democratic values. Emerging from local initiative, it faces challenges of sustainability, recognition, and wartime realities, yet offers opportunities for community empowerment, international cooperation, and lifelong learning as tools for community development
Matias Ignacio Lara
Argentina
I was born in Argentina and from a very young age, I decided that I wanted to work to help change our current global systems. I studied International Relations in Santiago del Estero, Argentina and I have been a UN Model volunteer since 2008. I have dedicated practically all my life to volunteer programs especially focused on disruptive strategies for the meaningful participation of young people.
More about me: https://www.clubofrome.org/blog-post/lara-youth-latin-america/
What higher education is lacking; some perspectives from a student
We are not educating for the 21st century but for the 20th. So, how should we educate for the 21st century?
Ines Medeiros
Brazil
Ines is a psychologist and works with personal values and personal development. She is also one of the co-founders of Global Bildung Day, which we have now turned into the Global Meeting on Equinox.
Conformity and beyond conformity from a psychological perspective
Ines will be talking about the following:
- findings of national studies about values of Brazilian society and their desires and priorities for better future
- psychological development and the connection with data
- tensions between tradition and need to go beyond conformity
- values as promotors of agency in times of uncertainty
- bildung inspirations and contributions for evolution
Brad Canham
United States
Brad Canham is an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota and co-founder of the Entrepreneur Jubilee Festival: Prosperity in the Park in Eden Prairie. Read more about it here: https://entrepreneurjubilee.com/
What is prosperity?
There are so many answers to that question, and Brad Canham is on a quest to find out how entrepreneurs and others define prosperity. Read more about Brad’s festival Entrepreneur Jubilee: Prosperity in the Park and here: https://www.eplocalnews.org/2025/09/18/saturdays-entrepreneur-jubilee-to-focus-on-prosperity-as-you-define-it/, and take his survey here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdz-XFJJGXY4hMhGoc5OBgQ5Kkgp7Qa_MJuoPp7vQ7AKlPUKg/viewform
Jacob Hundt
United States
Jacob Hundt is the founding Executive Director of Thoreau College, a microcollege located in rural Viroqua, Wisconsin. He is also a faculty member leading courses in literature, philosophy, and sustainable agriculture. He grew up on a dairy farm in the Driftless Region of southwestern Wisconsin and was one of the founding students of the Youth Initiative High School, a Waldorf-inspired alternative high school with a strong tradition of democratic shared governance. He studied and gathered inspiration for transformation in higher education at Deep Springs College, the American University in Bulgaria, and the University of Chicago Master of Arts Program in the Social Sciences, earning a BA in History and an MA in Social Sciences. Since 2004, he has worked as a trained Waldorf high school teacher and guidance counselor at Youth Initiative High School and was a founding board member and instructor of the Driftless Folk School. He lives on a small organic farm with his wife, Sofya, and four children.
Marching to the Beat of a Different Drummer
About Henry David Thoreau, Thoreau College, and the Art of Cultivating Distinctive Individuals in the Context of Community.
“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple-tree or an oak. Shall he turn his spring into summer?””
– Henry David Thoreau, Walden, or Life in the Woods
Julie Shackelford
United States & Denmark
Julie Shackelford is an anthropologist and educator committed to the power of education as a force for democracy, dialogue, and social change. Originally from the “Big Woods” of Wisconsin, her journey has taken her from academic halls in Chicago and London to fieldwork in Syria during the Arab Spring—a turning point that sparked her passion for participatory, community-based learning. For nearly a decade, Julie has been part of the International People’s College in Denmark, where she facilitates dialogue-driven, experiential courses for students from around the world. Her teaching explores themes of culture, conflict, democracy, and collective responsibility—always with an eye toward building more just and inclusive societies.
Radical Hope in a Second Gilded Age: Lessons from the Danish Folk High School
In a moment when American democracy feels fragile and educational institutions are under threat, what does it mean to be human? Drawing on her experience with Denmark’s folk high schools, an American educator explores schools built not for credentials but for citizens: places of dialogue, fellowship, and peacebuilding. She examines the transatlantic legacy of these ideas in Wisconsin and shows how the folk high school tradition can offer hope, nurture resilience, and provide a model for living meaningfully—and peacefully—together.