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) ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UbpqVPtUIFQ
http://www.21learn.org/
http://benkestner.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded
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.