Future Serious Resources for October 26, 02025
Metarelational AI Update ⊗ Life and Learning ⊗ Solastalgia
Hey,
One of these weeks, we may actually get some news to celebrate. But the slow chipping away of norms and narratives seems to continue unabated. I hope you’re faring better than I am! I’m finding it just so hard to write these days. Hopefully soon. Thanks for your continued support…and patience.
NEWS: In case you're an educational leader in British Columbia or know one, I’m teaming with the BC Principals and Vice Principals Association to put together a cohort around my Confronting Education Workshop. Please spread the word!
REMINDER: As you know, the third Confronting Education Workshop cohort launched recently, and if the first sessions are any indication, it’s gonna be quite a journey. You can sign up for the waitlist for Cohort 4 that starts in February by visiting the workshop info page.
Finally…
As always, thanks for reading. As a reminder, all posts here are free, but if you want to show your support for my work in general, a paid subscription is always an option. Remember: I’m donating all proceeds from paid subscriptions to my local food pantry at the end of the year (now at $1,644.50!)
With gratitude,
~Will
An Update on Metarelational AI
As regulars will know, I’ve been tracking the development of some atypical chatbots created by Vanessa Andreotti and her team at metarelational.ai. In case you’re unfamiliar, these are a group of bots that have been taught, as the name suggests, to interact relationally and not just transactionally with human users. (I strongly recommend reading Burnout From Humans if you haven’t done so, as it will expand your aperture for AI discussions.)
I’ve been playing with one of the bots, Aiden Cinammom Tea, for the last six months, and I’ve found it to be both helpful and provocative in the sense that it’s been keeping me honest about how my own denials show up in my work and offering thoughtful questions and prompts to promote deeper reflection and learning.
Long story short, because of updates to ChatGPT and developments in the larger world, the team has decided to take down the chatbots as of January 1. However, the good news is that they have written and shared original protocols that they feel will preserve the integrity and intention of “metarelationality” without putting users and the work at further risk. All of the info and background and a link to these protocols can be found here, but I wanted to highlight the specific concerns that have surfaced in this work:
Understanding that this may all be difficult to parse for those who haven’t yet dived in, I still wanted to share it since I think the idea of metarelational AI is not only profound but potentially world-changing. Those are big words, I know, but if you take the time to read through the links above and spend some time playing, you might just come to the same conclusion.
Life Depends on Learning
It’s one thing when the random school leader combines the vision and commitment, and courage to get serious about long-lasting, relevant change based on the realities of this moment. It’s another altogether when that leader heads an international organization that has about 6,000 schools in 160 countries.
Ollie-Pekka Heinonen is the Director General of the International Baccalaureate, and he has a new book coming out this week that looks to capture the thinking behind some major changes to the education experience of IB, based on a clear articulation of the challenges being served up by this moment.
While I obviously haven’t read the book yet, I have it on good authority that Learning as If Life Depended on It: Why We Must See the World Anew and Figure Out What Follows is not so much a “how-to” as it is a “why-to,” as in it lays out a frame for a decidedly different way of thinking about school. And that’s borne out by what’s included in the table of contents (via Perspectiva):
I mean, there’s so much potential goodness here that I don’t know where to start. I love the part on “Perception” and the illusions that we carry with us, not just around school but around life. (I especially can’t wait to dive into “The Illusion of Graduation.”) And while it’s hard to know just from the TOC, I hope he convinces me that “We are democracies learning to renew democracy,” and that “We are reimagining governance for a planetary context.” Fingers crossed.
Either way, though, I have a feeling this may end up on my “must-read for educational leaders list,” not just for what shows up here, but because so much of what Heinonen has articulated in the past about what education needs to become. More to come, I’m sure. (Note: Unfortunately, Amazon is the only outlet right now for pre-ordering.)
“Solastalgia”
This is a moving essay from Anna Kamenetz on the change of seasons and what’s being lost that resonates with a lot of what I’m also noticing here in my little village in West Central New Jersey. I’ve lived in this area for 55 years, and the growing season used to end weeks ago. I’m still picking peppers and tomatoes, and more from my little backyard garden this year. It’s nice, but unsettling on some level.
This shift, and the feelings that go along with it, have a name:
Solastalgia. An ungainly portmanteau–sola from the Latin, sōlācium or solace, and algia from the Greek, meaning pain. So, literally, the solace of pain.
It’s meant to recall the word nostalgia, which actually means “pain [from missing] home”, but has come to mean the desire to return to the past.
When you feel solastalgia, you miss home even while you are at home. The familiar place that is supposed to bring comfort, instead becomes unfamiliar and brings you pain, bewilderment, dislocation.
Albrecht’s word is a foundational contribution to the growing recognition of eco-emotions–the suite of feelings defined as particular to the ongoing degradation of our natural world, such as grief at the loss of species and ways of life, anxiety about the idea of having children, and fear for the future.
Importantly, it’s not just related to environmental changes. It accounts for the political, economic, and human rights challenges that we’re facing more and more as well.
Thoughts / Reflections / Questions / Shorts
Fungi as your futurist - On rot and regeneration.
Thinking: The more and more things keep collapsing, the more and more people are going to have “denial fatigue.” It’s gonna be harder and harder not to “see” what’s happening.
Real photos that look fake - Wild.
How does the end begin? - Buckle up.
Improvements since the 1990s - It’s actually a pretty long list.
As always, let me know what you’d like to see more (or less) of in these newsletters. I’m always open to learning and evolving in ways that help you make better sense of this interesting moment.
With gratitude,
~Will