Educating for wellbeing, innovation and community
Education is a major - if not the most important - influencer in the attempt to increase the potential of humans. And we desperately need to increase our potential, because at the moment we are not using it and let’s be frank: The challenges humans are going to face are not going to get any easier; in fact, they are going be radically more difficult. But its not only challenges we should be preparing for (not that we already have enough currently), its also our well being, innovation, a good life. We should be using our potential to create a beautiful living, and of course to achieve advancement of the world civilization (which would mean first for frack sake we need to achieve real equality between all people!). We are wasting our efforts with spending resources on war, competition, greed, in a struggle for recognition. Steemit can be a interessting solution for this very last issue.
Lets go and work on this!
Ok, so we need to sit and work a little to solve stuff. Here in Hradec Kralove (Czech Republic) youth workers, teachers, project managers, entrepreneurs, scientists - representatives of all fields of education are meeting to discuss exactly this. How can we develop educational spaces that serve the above purpose? The European Commission has a live long learning concept and supports it with its funding program: Erasmus+
Here at the #globalschool we have been working with it a lot and successful. We would be glad by the way to share with anyone how to apply for such funds.
So here we are discussing the purpose of education and how we can design it for it to work. How can we design educational activities that increase the potential of humans? Basically we can observe two fields of education: Formal education and non-formal education. As formal education I will define all activities that are regulated by law, thus ruled by governments. It’s funny – or not so funny - that most of the time educational structures regulated by law are also those that give little freedom to the person who is learning. In Europe, most schools are forced to hire people with degrees to teach, have to offer a certain curriculum to their students and have to apply a very poor judgment system (grading) to evaluate if a student has learnt anything.
The non-formal structures are initiatives that are not regulated by law. Anyone can offer any kind of education. Of course that also has two sides. Some initiatives offer very poor, or even damaging training, some, however, offer brilliant training. But in both cases, the learner can decide freely and self determined about their learning process. That is fundamental.
Learning must be a process based on curiosity, talent and community building
We believe that the #globalschool is such a place, were self directed learning is supported and empowered. People are inspired and empowered to learn on their own motivation to increase their own potential for the benefit of themselves and the community. Non-formal education can achieve great innovation. It is faster than formal education, can react quicker and more accurate to the current challenges and needs of people, it is cheaper, holistic and most of all, it gives back the responsibility for training to the learning person.
So, how shall non-formal education be structured? This and a deeper reflection on non-formal education and what it has to do with steemit will follow soon. Please do comment and contact me if you want some insights into Erasmus+ and how to apply for funds that can finance your training that you want to offer to others in the European Union and abroad.
