Day 2 - Self Knowledge
Last month some followers of this site recommended the book 'The Element'. I'm reading it right now, and it's exactly about this subject!
'The Element' is the space where passion and talent meet eachother. The book is about how we (re)discover that space. May of us lost it, for at traditional schools only one or two forms of intelligence dominate, and those are the only ways of learning we're thought. That's why lots of adults still think they don't have any talent at all. What a waste. Yes, we should play more, fail more, think out of the box more!
Day 1 - We should FAIL more!!
Each day the coming 7 days I will point out one topic which is currently lacking in the education system... Today FAILING!!!
Improvisation!!
Had a very interesting conversation today with Jeroen Boschma about education, one of the things missing he says is improvisation... He said it and I realized 'Yes, that's true!!'...
This guy explains it so much better then I ever could:
Shouldn't you have said: "Yes AND .... " ;)!
Hihihi
Thanx for sharing this, I soooo enjoyed watching (and sharing) it ♥!
And now I know why I love teaching so much!
It is so much fun to do exactly this :) To go out, follow the rules, but play with them. Play with the students, interact, be in the moment and see what you can create together.
I always end up having more energy after then before, when this happens.
Thanx again!
Deze is helemaal geweldig:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEiR-x4fEwc
Work less! Play more!
What needs to change
Last week my parents gave me an idea, not directly by telling me, but by inspiring and surprising me. They are both teachers, with many many years of experience. So I figured it wouldn't be strange to talk to them and get their opinion of what should change in the education system.
In the beginning I didn't get a clear vision of what it was, I think they assumed that I knew what their ideas were about education and how it's supossed to be. But when I asked them to explain it to me, slowly a wave of knowledge and experience came flowing towards me and all I could think was 'wow, I wish I had a camera now, because this is worth sharing'.
So I will! Hopefully the camera doesn't make them nervous (nee toch vader? :-)
Then I thought, maybe that's what I can do this month, share visions from all different kind of people here in the Netherlands. Teachers, strategists, students etc. And see if there is a common goal or dream, a clear idea of where we should go to and how. In a sense documenting my own travel, because since this is such a broad topic, I noticed I myself need to learn more before I can perform any practical action. The problem, dream and how we can get there needs to become clear first.
As a start I contacted Karim Amrani, Yoram Mekking, Toine Andernach and Jeroen Boschma. They are all very different with very different backgrounds. I'm curious.
Heee, I like that one :)
I was also thinking about just interviewing kids and asking them: if you could choose, what would you like to learn? And HOW would you like to learn this??
Maybe for one hour in the week they could get to choose something
Why not try and make this a project at the PABO or something, that they interview kids and then try to implement some of what they hear..
Something like that ...
And more ideas, but I see you have a lot of inspiration already :)
Tnx! Yeah I was also thinking to include kids within it, nice!!
This is good! I hear soooo many people around me talking about the educational system. I'm not exactly sure what you are looking for yet, but I would definitely like to contribute some ideas. I am both a teacher trainer and a parent with a network in secondary eduction, Waldorf primary eductation and child care. Verena has some very good ideas. I think you should definitely involve children and try to involve teacher training too.
Hey, thanx for the compliment :)!
My added value
The past days I've been gathering information about projects in education which are currently in progress and I've been wondering what I can do to help. From the following TED talk from Derek Sivers I learned that sometimes it's important to lead, but that it can be even more important to join. (ps, it's short and fun to watch, apparently it takes two to start a movement)
So I've been thinking what my added value can be within changing the education system, because since I'm not a teacher and neither a specific expert on the topic, I feel it's not my task to lead. But that doesn't mean I cannot be of value, quite the opposite as Derek nicely explains above.
So what can I do? Maybe my quality in this case lies in connecting people. I've been thinking that it would be great to connect some of the most inspiring people in NL (like Claire Boonstra) to some of the most invluencial people (like the minister of Education). But I haven't managed to get in contact with the minister yet, probably she's busy. The good thing is that Claire would be happy to have a cup of coffee with her.
Want to be connected?
I can also connect people who want to do something with eduction, but don't know what yet. Or people who do have ideas, but would like to meet with more people about it. This saterday I met two people full of enthousiasme to make a difference in education, but they were in need for people to brainstorm with.
So do you feel like sharing ideas your about eduction and learning from others? Let me know in the comments or write me a mail and I'll organise something nice.
Yes, me :)! I'm not a teacher by origin, but do teach at university, so maybe I can be of value too ;)
Btw, tonight i'm meeting the teachers which i know my whole life, my parents :-) Who by coincidence are both primary school teachers as well. Curious to hear their thoughts and ideas about the education system.
Hi Maarten, I had to think of this man, Jean-Paul Flintoff. I saw him present in Amsterdam last week on 'how to change the world'. Reminded me of your project! Maybe this video of him can be of inspiration for finding an approach for your new challenge: http://youtu.be/SFT8FrJCoec
Hey, i'm in Belgium so maybe that's inconvenient for what you have in mind, but if possible i would like to help change the education system ...
Some keypoints not handled by the current schools (from my experience as a student & some teaching): learning to deal with the information overflow, making mistakes is allowed (you cannot really learn without mistakes and the feedback and insights that follow), using our entire body (not just the brain, let alone just the rational left side of it), dealing with questions we don't have answers to, diploma's will be worthless pretty soon ("in the next ~30 yrs more ppl will get a diploma than in the entire human history"), apprenticeship/mentoring/1-on-1-learning (it's easy to copy answers from memory or others, but do they know what it means? the implications? can you extrapolate it? did you really incorporate it so that you can use it no matter when/where? do they?)/get the kids into the workplaces few days per week and only 2-3 days at school / week, spotting talents and encouraging them (make them responsible citizens, they make the rules, they fix things, they decide what to learn, teachers guide and set examples) ...
Think you're right Maarten.
Remember those old days, where workers were just single workers? Complaining their working situation, being exploited and not being able to change anything in heir lifes?
Now we have UNIONs, all (most) countries in the world have worker-unions fighting for the right of the worker. Thát's why they are strong, thát's why they can make a change.
Following various groups on FB, I see the same thing happening.
Be it on 'changing teaching' or 'sustainable gardening' or 'saving one specific animal' or .......
Why not JOIN an existing group? Why trying to save a little tiny 'ant in the forest in Borneo' in stead of joining Greenpeace or som other bigger organisation? Because they emphasize on other things than your 'ant'? Maybe so, but they still are going in pretty much the same direction and they have POWER.
So, find your topic and connect people, in this case 'people that have to do with teaching' and make some kind of a union.
I understand that you are a websitebuilder, so make some attractive platform 'Better Teaching Union' (BTU?) and try to connect.....
You may find 20-30-40 different groups within the BTU. Maybe even far more.
But, after having collected all these different groups, with more or less that same goal, you might, one by one, try to change the BTU just a little bit, so the group dissolves into the BTU. After some time of negotating, the BTU might be the one big strong union, that is covering such a large area, that things really can be changed. All these small 'powerless' groups have become one strong.
There are other ways of doing this, the main thing is building a strong union out of small powerless groups.
Well that was exciting!!
It was a close call, but... the idea of the month is to "Change the education system, into a system that enables kids to be world citizens, with the belief that they can be the change they want to see in this world, by being creative and working together".
Many people posted inspiring ideas in the comments. I didn't check it all out yet, so I think the first step is to educate myself :-)
I'm starting with this:
Ha - great! Please join the movement... And I'd certainly like to meet mrs Bussemaker soon :-)
:-) I thought it would be a good idea to connect a very inspiring person busy with education with a very influential person. Tried getting trough to her via someone at the PvdA, but no results yet. If I manage I'll let you know! would be great.
why don't you call to the ministry and ask for the department of communication?
Another thing about a new for of education: In Maastricht is a United world College www.unitedworldcollegemaastricht.nl
There are 14 of this kind of colleges all over the world. check the website and you'll find the educate students to beconme world citizens.
I bought Marieke's 'playing rules' (http://www.bureauplay.nl/speelregels/), they are extremely funny and inspiring. Actually, I follow some of those rules already. Like being tourist in my own town, or giving a present to a stranger. And I really had to laugh about the rule: 'Have a workmeeting at an unusual space, between the goats at the urban farm, for instance'. Because that's exactly the place where I work... Doesn't matter, still a lot of rules I didn't carry out yet...
Ah, that's so nice!! Tnx for sharing!