Dean Bragonier: Learning from a place of abundance | Benjamin Freud, Ph.D.

Posted By: Benjamin Freud, Ph.D.

March 3, 2023

In this episode, I speak with Dean Bragonier. Dean is an entrepreneur, public speaker, and advocate for people with dyslexia. He is the founder of NoticeAbility, a non-profit organization that aims to empower students with dyslexia to recognize and use their unique strengths to achieve success in education and life. This is a conversation about what happens when we approach learning—and life!—from abundance, not scarcity. It also speaks to what can happen when we appreciate the unique gifts and points of view that we each bring. We discuss:

🥥 How what we have learned about teaching people with dyslexia can apply to all learners, perhaps re-framing what schools should be;

🥥 Purpose as a powerful energy for learning and growing (we even came up with the word “teleodiversity”);

🥥 How responding to the crises we are in requires the unleashing of imagination and diversity.

Check out the Coconut Thinking website https://coconut-thinking.design, where you’ll find our articles, podcasts, conference presentations, resources, and more.

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Benjamin Freud, Ph.D.

Benjamin Freud, Ph.D. is the co-founder of Coconut Thinking, which creates learning and action experiences where all learners have a common purpose; positive impact on the welfare of the bio-collective — any living thing, sentient or plant, that has an interest in the healthfulness of the planet. Benjamin also works as the Whole School Leader of Learning and Teaching at an International School in Thailand. He was the Academic Coordinator at Misk Schools, which, as the school of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is the most prestigious and high profile school in the kingdom. In 2018-2019, he was also the Head of Upper Primary and Middle School at Misk. Prior to this, he was Vice Principal of the Middle School and High School at the Harbour School in Hong Kong. He holds a Ph.D. in History, an MSc in Education, an MBA, an MA in International Relations, and a BA in International Affairs. Benjamin was born and grew up in Paris, France. He moved to the U.S. when he was 15 and spent 11 years there in different cities, before living in the U.K., Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, and now Thailand. He started his career in consulting for Internet start-ups in Silicon Valley in the late 1990s, working with people whose ambitions were no less than to change the world. This experience had a profound effect on Benjamin’s outlook on education, innovation, and entrepreneurialism.