Mindful Learning with Francis Gilbert
Conversations and ideas for creative, compassionate education
✨ Welcome
I set up the Mindful Learning podcast as an informal, honest space to reflect on key ideas in education, creativity, and life. As a writer, teacher and Head of Subject at Goldsmiths, I’ve spent years thinking about how we can teach and learn more mindfully — not just in theory, but in everyday conversations, classrooms, and relationships.
This podcast isn’t polished or scripted. It’s real. I record most episodes on Teams or Zoom — just talking, listening, thinking aloud with people I admire: students, teachers, colleagues, friends, and family. We explore how learning actually happens — emotionally, socially, reflectively — and how we can create more space for care, curiosity and creative risk-taking in education.
It’s part of my wider Mindful Learning project, which includes books, blogs, teaching resources and mentoring. But the podcast has a special place: it’s where I let ideas breathe, ask difficult questions, and celebrate the messy, meaningful parts of education.
You can listen via this site or via YouTube.
🎧 The Podcast
Listen to honest, unscripted conversations about education, creativity, and life.
Each episode is recorded informally — often on Teams or Zoom — and captures the flow of thought, laughter, disagreement, and discovery that makes learning truly alive.
Latest Podcasts
Five Things the New Are You on Slide 8 Yet? Report Can Teach Us About Learning in Schools
In this new episode of the Mindful Learning Podcast, I speak with Dr Sarah Pearce and Dr Anna Traianou about their powerful new report for the National Education Union, Are You on Slide 8 Yet?. The title comes from one teacher’s chilling experience: senior leaders checking through classroom doors to ensure every class was on the same PowerPoint slide. This report reveals how standardised curricula—ready-made lessons and scripts—are reshaping education across England, limiting both teacher autonomy and pupil creativity. As Dr Pearce explains, “If the children didn’t understand it, it almost didn’t matter. We had to keep going.” Teachers described feeling like “a warm body in front of the class,” stripped of professional judgement. Professor Traianou adds, “Teachers who used standardised curricula reported a reduced sense of decision-making and agency… and contrary to assumptions, no difference in workload.” The findings show that both teachers and pupils are losing opportunities for autonomy, collaboration, and meaningful talk—core elements of learning that mindfulness in education seeks to protect. We discuss the political roots of this trend, the dangers of AI-driven curriculum tools, and what mindful, human-centred education might look like instead. 🎧 Listen now to the full podcast and read the article: 👉 https://www.francisgilbert.co.uk/2025/10/five-things-the-new-are-you-on-slide-8-yet-report-can-teach-us-about-learning-in-schools If you’re reading this on Instagram, please paste the link into your browser to access the full article. #MindfulLearning #AreYouOnSlide8Yet #FrancisGilbert #Goldsmiths #Teaching #Education #NEU #CreativeEducation #TeacherVoice #MindfulTeaching #Podcast
Seven Things Every Parent Should Know About Teachers and Their Children’s Learning
As a teacher, parent, and author of The Mindful English Teacher, I have seen first-hand how much pressure modern education places on families, and how little space there often is for listening, creativity, and emotional understanding. I created this podcast and companion blog to open up a more compassionate conversation between parents and teachers. Speaking with Yundie Fei, a brilliant former student of mine and now an educator working closely with Chinese families, helped me reflect on how deeply similar our experiences are across cultures. We both see the anxiety, the over-scheduling, and the miscommunication; and we both believe things can change. This is for any parent who has ever worried their child is “falling behind,” questioned a teacher’s methods, or wondered how best to support learning at home. I hope it brings reassurance, insight, and perhaps even a sense of relief: you are not alone, and there is a gentler, more mindful way forward.
Other podcasts:
Five Ways to Help Teenagers Love English and Learn to Grow as People
✨ How Can We Help Teenagers Love English? Too often, English is taught as a subject to pass—not a space to grow. But what if we reimagined it as a place for empathy, identity, and critical reflection? 📚 In my latest blog and Mindful Learning Podcast, I share 5 creative, inclusive strategies that help teenagers engage deeply with English through: ✔️ Reflective writing ✔️ Drama and performance ✔️ Racial and linguistic justice ✔️ Funds of knowledge pedagogy ✔️ Real-world empathy-building tasks These ideas are drawn from my chapter in Secondary English for Generation Alpha (Routledge, 2025), edited by the brilliant Lorna Smith—and my decades of teaching, writing, and listening to students. 🎧 If you’re a teacher, trainee, or parent looking to humanise your English classroom, this episode is packed with actionable inspiration. 🙏 With gratitude to Dr Maggie Pitfield (Goldsmiths) for her invaluable support and insight. 👉 Read the blog | Listen to the podcast | Share if this resonates #MindfulLearning #EnglishEducation #GenerationAlpha #LinguisticJustice #RacialLiteracy #DramaInEducation #CreativeWriting #TeacherLife #FrancisGilbert #InclusiveTeaching #Goldsmiths
✍️ Why “Mindful Learning”?
Because education is too often rushed, reduced, and reactive.
Because we need spaces to pause, reflect, and reconnect.
Because learning isn’t just what happens in classrooms — it happens in bodies, in conversations, in the quiet moments of truth-telling.
This project builds on the ideas explored in The Mindful English Teacher and The Mindful Creative Writing Teacher, but opens the door to wider voices, topics, and forms.
🤝 Work with Me
I offer mentoring, talks, workshops, and consultancy for educators, parents, writers, and organisations.
→ sir@francisgilbert.co.uk
🧠Stay Connected
Subscribe to the podcast, read the latest posts, and follow the journey.