Hear from Ananya, a LearningPlanet Youth Fellow, and a committed Planetizen University community member.
Why are you part of the Planetizen University community?
I believe that the existing learning system fails to let learners sharpen both critical and creative thinking and concrete problem-solving. It also fails them to develop life skills, such as adaptability, learning from failures, managing emotions, tackling unfamiliar situations, fostering cross-cultural empathy, etc. I am a part of the Planetizen University community, believing that I can contribute to this great mission of implanting the broken education system with my passion, purpose, and experiences.
What’s your experience like? How do you contribute?
I have previously worked in educational and mentorship-based projects and assisted in developing curricula for community learning initiatives. I am contributing by co-designing some possible programmes of Planetizen University as part of its challenge. My materials focus on building cultural empathy to foster “planetizenship” – which we know as global citizenship.
What have you learned about yourself or others?
Learning is a lifelong process. I continuously learn from new projects and people I meet. Recently I have learned how to practice emotional intelligence during difficult times through a personal experience that I didn’t see coming. I believe that such learning reflects our strengths and weaknesses that we were unaware of. I also find it fascinating to learn from other people’s challenges. Last week, I learned from a LearningPlanet Youth Fellow about a thrifting solution to tackle poverty in Cameroon. I also learned an interesting fact about Cameroon: French is largely used to communicate there.
How do you see the future of education? How do you see your future?
I see the future of education as thriving with the integration of socio-emotional learning. Both children and adults do not solely learn technical concepts but also grow empathy to keep harmony with nature and in complex multicultural environments. They learn to earn but also strive to solve the most pressing issues of our planet through the superpower of imagination and creativity.
Meet Ananya
Ananya is a solutions-based journalist and multimedia content creator. She writes for Impact Entrepreneurs, FairPlanet, The New Humanitarian, and Impakter magazines. Ananya also writes about art and culture and does landscape photography. Besides being a LearningPlanet Youth Fellow, she has also contributed to the community as a Fellow in The 50 Percent, Netmission.Asia, Policy Innovation Lab, Theirworld and Your Big Year.
