Learning Planet Festival 2026: Cultivating Caring, Creative, and Critical Thinkers for People and Planet
January 17-18, 2025 | Philippines
As part of the Learning Planet Festival 2026, Compassion Connectors Philippines and the Filipino Youth Empowerment Alliance (FYEA), with the guidance of the Global Compassion Coalition, invite children and educators to a meaningful learning experience grounded in dialogical, democratic, and compassionate education. This event continues the collective commitment to nurture caring, creative, and critical thinking among Filipino children—capacities that are urgently needed in a world facing climate crisis, biodiversity loss, environmental destruction, and widening social inequalities. Anchored on the educational philosophy and pedagogy of Matthew Lipman, Ann Margaret Sharp, and Frederic Oscanyan, the event foregrounds children not as passive recipients of information, but as active participants in the shared search for meaning, truth, and responsibility. Through guided dialogue, questioning, and collaborative reasoning, participants connect the story’s ideas to their own lived experiences and to the current state of the environment. Rooted in care, learners think with concern for ideas, people, and values. Creativity blooms as children imagine alternatives and new perspectives. Critical thinking develops through reasoned judgment, questioning assumptions, applying relevant criteria, and responding thoughtfully to contexts.
