About the Brazilian Creative Learning Network (BCLN)

The Brazilian Creative Learning Network, which began as a collaboration between the Lifelong Kindergarten group and the Lemann Foundation, has grown into a grassroots movement that implements playful, creative, and relevant hands-on educational practices in schools and non-formal learning spaces across the far corners of Brazil, from vulnerable communities in major urban centers to villages in the Amazon. To achieve that, BCLN organizes programs and events that give voice to thousands of Brazilian educators, school leaders, researchers, entrepreneurs, artists, families, and students. Altogether, the BCLN is active in more than 2,000 schools across the country. 

BCLN's approach empowers educators and school leaders while allowing for local adaptations, essential for succeeding in a country as large as Brazil. It fosters the buy-in of local partners including libraries, universities, social entrepreneurs, and not-for-profit organizations. In this way, BCLN creates a vibrant reinforcing community of committed educators who bring innovation and playfulness back into the classroom and other educational environments.

Currently, BCLN is developing the Creative Schools Program with support of the LEGO Foundation and the Lemann Foundation, both collaborators of the Media Lab. With this ambitious new program, BCLN is focusing its efforts on building opportunities for Creative Learning in 10 Brazilian public school systems in partnership with the respective secretaries of education. The aim is to empower the local leadership to bring Creative Learning to their schools while building upon the existing creative solutions within their local contexts. 

About the event

The Lifelong Kindergarten group and the Brazilian Creative Learning Network invites the mayors and secretaries of education from the nine cities and one state who participate in the Creative Schools Program in Brazil. These top-level decision makers will spend time with the researchers from the Lifelong Kindergarten, the Media Lab, and related groups at MIT. They will participate in hands-on workshops to get a better understanding of Creative Learning, and they will also visit the Acera School of Science Creativity and Leadership. In addition, it will be an opportunity to exchange experiences and build synergies among like-minded decision makers from Brazil in order to brainstorm on how to make Creative Learning a reality in Brazilian education.