I was saddened to learn of the untimely passing of David Price this week. David had a brilliant mind and his perspectives on education were truly inspiring. I first came upon his work when OPEN: How We’ll Work, Live and Learn in the Future was published. Thinking about it today, the book resonated deeply because it was a compelling  expression of a sharp intellect and an unassuming personality, driven by a fierce conviction in the obligation of schools to meet the needs of learners in a rapidly changing world. Some people found David’s views challenging and I admired his ability to question and disrupt with integrity and deep intellect. As he wrote: “We know only two things for certain. The first is that we should learn to embrace uncertainty, because this age of uncertainty could become permanent. The second is that if all the old certainties are gone, then we have to be open to radical shifts in how we work, live and learn.”

It was in this context that David championed divergent thinking and an open approach to the use of technology in schools. As always, his philosophy was rooted in a learners-first approach and imbued with articulate commonsense. “Terrorists used to communicate by letter, but we didn’t try to ban stamps; we teach our children how to cross the road, we don’t ban cars. The blocking of social media sites in schools –the default position in the US and UK –not only inhibits learning, it does nothing to help our kids develop the digital literacy skills (knowing which information sources can be trusted, how to verify accuracy, etc.) they will need beyond school.” We need this kind of grounded logic in schools today more than ever.

When the International School of Brussels decided to launch an education conference on innovation in 2017, the first person we contacted was David Price. David was not only agreeable to joining us as a conference keynote, he became totally absorbed by the concept of Learning by Design and spent countless hours with us helping to shape, define, and plan the event, right down to the logistical details. In the end, we dispensed with the idea of a keynote and went for a panel discussion with provocations led, most memorably, among others, by David, Ewan McIntosh, and Gary Stager. After two days of inspiring workshops, David led the conference entertainment on piano and lead vocals with The LbD All-Star Band. David’s ambitious contributions to Learning by Design were inspiring.

A memory that will always stay with me from that time is when David arrived at the school and came into our office with the wonderful Clare. He walked straight to the bookshelf and scanned the contents quietly, before exclaiming, “Ah, brilliant, I know I’m in a good place now!” turning around, beaming, with a copy of John Holt’s 1960’s seminal work, How Children Fail. This summed up David in so many ways. He took joy in fighting for what was best for young people and everything he did was grounded in a deep understanding of where education had come from, where he had come from, and where we were headed. He could speak affably about his friends, Paul and Ken (Sirs McCartney and Robinson) with no affectation of humility or pretense and you might never know who he was referring to, nor did he care. He cared about kids, the arts, and he cared about learning. We kept in touch down the years and his description of school culture from OPEN is one that I have often shared and try to keep in mind every single day since I first read it. Trying to remain faithful to his vision will remain my own small tribute to a brilliant educator who will be missed.

“It encompasses the ‘ecology’ of learning: the relationships we have with each other; the creation of an hospitable habitat for learning; how we cultivate the evolution of learning in communal, social environments, to transfer it successfully to others, establishing a set of commonly-agreed principles which will make learning inclusive and innovative.”