A Design Portal for Cocreating a Global Wisdom Community
Features of the Next Learning System
New principles for learning are arriving through the portal of change! This is terrific news about the emerging new principles of learning, and well stated. I’d really like to build on these amazing outcomes from the group who developed them. THIS IS A MUST READ BELOW.
Vic Desotelle
http://DiscoveryFuel.com
From: "LearningCommunities@yahoogroups.com"
Reply-To: No Reply
Date: 16 Nov 2008 11:14:14 -0000
Subject: [LearningCommunities] Digest Number 2046
Features of the next Learning System
The Time Switches of Change
Alternatives for Everybody, All the Time
by Roland Meighan
http://edheretics.gn.apc.org/
* * * * *
^
Introduction
When twenty educationalists met at the University of Nottingham, UK,
for two one-day seminars late in 1997, all agreed at the outset that
the climate of uncertainty due to continuous change was not going to go
away. "Continuous adaptation" was here to stay. The educationalists
were from a wide variety of backgrounds ranging from home-based
educators to head teachers to university teachers to parents, and they
had agreed to be involved in an exchange of ideas on the theme of
Education in the Year 2020.
Some common ideas emerged from the discussions in small groups and also
in report-back sessions about education in the year 2020. Nobody
present saw mass compulsory coercive schooling as the way forward. All
over the world, it has proved to be a system that is expensive,
increasingly obsolete and counter-productive in producing anachronistic
intellectual, social, political, emotional and economic habits.
Features of the next learning system
The common ideas that emerged at the Nottingham Conference included the
following:
1 Learning would be undertaken in much more flexible institutions
than at present. Not least among the reasons was the escalating effects
of modern computer and communications technology which free us from any
specific location for learning. 'Everywhere and anywhere' learning
would have become a reality, and flexi-time learning commonplace.
2 Open learning centers would replace present-day schools. Some saw
these as being open from 8:00 in the morning until 8:00 at night and
open every day of the year. Others even thought there might be 24 hour
opening. Such centers would support a non-ageist provision without
excluding opportunities for some age or gender-based activity. Thus
early childhood centers with a focus on young children and their
families, would be available. The general model would be that of the
public library, not the custodial model of our present schools.
3 The central concern of such open learning centers would be learning
not teaching, although some formal teaching would be available on
request. Such centers would help create a culture of learning which
would include everyone and build learner-confidence and self-esteem.
4 The role of the teacher would change to that of learning coach,
learning consultant, or learning 'travel agent'. The teacher as
access-agent to scarce information is already obsolete and the logic of
this would have become irresistible. Present teacher training was,
therefore, largely a preparation for obsolescence.
5 Interactive learning systems such as CD-ROM programmes,
opportunities for purposive conversation, self-programming groups and
tele-conferencing would have replaced a great deal of classroom
teaching. The danger of excessive individualisation would be offset by
opportunities to learn in democratic groups and develop 'team-player'
co-operative skills.
6 Life-long learning expectations would place a premium on the
development of computer skills in adults. Voice-driven computers would
have become generally important here as well as for some specific needs
such as dyslexic adults and children.
7 Courses to develop experts would still be needed, but the Open
University model would have dislodged the obsolete 'three-year course
for young adults' model of current universities. This is based on a
preceding, and also obsolete, 'Grand National Race' concept of
schooling. Young people are required to fall at each hurdle, losing
self-esteem in the process, and often being turned-off learning, so
that 'winners' can be identified.
8 Financing would have become much more diversified. Some funding out
of taxation would be used to support particular requirements for
experts, or particular innovative social concerns such as parenting
skills, democratic skills, personal health skills, and even 'green'
living if environmental survival, (the 'doomsday' scenario,) continues
to grow as an issue. Industry would support activities particular to
the needs of commerce. Individuals and families would provide some
finance. Local Exchange Trading Schemes (LETS) or Time Dollar schemes
would provide another element for paying for personal learning
exchanges. There would also be some voluntary learning exchange
elements. The net result would be better results for less money than at
present. (Home-based educators have already shown that their route to a
university place can cost half as much as a conventional school route.)
The current technology of swipe cards can incorporate all the above
elements of finance, and record and monitor it.
9 Democratic control and democratic value-systems would have replaced
present authoritarian control and value-systems. The Open Learning
Centers would be run by elected representatives of the partners in
learning - learners (parents and children), staff (paid and voluntary),
and other interested parties such as local industry and local
community. Real choice according to the needs of learners would be a
key feature of the next learning system. This freedom would be subject
to the democratic values of human rights and responsibilities.
10 One group's summary was that:
a 'time-lock' learning ideas such as
key stages would have disappeared in favor of the flexible, irregular patterns of personal learning plans,
b "school" would have given way to flexible learning arrangements,
c 'prescribed curriculum' would have given way to a catalogue
curriculum with learner-driven elements, state-targeted elements, and
industry targeted elements,
d the precedence of a 'content' of shallow subject-based learning
would have given way to the precedence of the deep learning of a
questions-based, problem-solving approach.
The home-based educators present proposed that their practice already
involved many of the above features so that they were something of a
test bed for the success of these approaches.
11 The fear of diversity based on an expectation of disorder would
have given way to an awareness that all solutions are temporary in a
constantly changing environment. Thus adaptability, creativity,
flexibility and re-learning are key skills.
12 The multiple purposes of education would have been recognized in
contrast to the one right way tendencies of present times e.g.
education for 'saving' the country's economy.
13 The movement away from nationalistic concern to European and
global ones would have led to the replacement of the calls for learning
competitive attitudes and replaced them with calls for co-operative
behavior.
14 A new language would have developed to define the next learning
system e.g. Open Learning Centers, not schools, the Catalogue
Curriculum International, not the National Curriculum, Personal
Learning Plans, not teaching schemes and key stages.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The time switches of change
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are a number of influences at work in modern society which are
operating as the time switches of change. They include the following:
1. The arrival of the information-rich society
When mass schooling was established, people lived in an
information-poor environment. Assembling large numbers of children
together in one place called a school, with teachers who had been
exposed to the scarce information made a kind of sense. Since then,
radio, television, the explosion of specialist magazines, computers,
videos and the like, have all provided the means of making most of the
products of the knowledge explosion readily available to anyone who
wants it. This is just one of the reasons why home-based education is
so successful and why its practitioners outperform schools with
relative ease.
2. We now know much more about how the brain actually works
New technologies allow us to watch a living brain at work. As a result,
most of the assumptions of behavioral and cognitive psychology are in
question. As John Abbott explains in Education 2000 News, June 1996,
"Studies in neurology challenge the common metaphor that the brain is
like a linear computer, waiting to be programmed ... the metaphors of
choice are increasingly biological - that is , the brain as a flexible,
self-adjusting organism that grows and reshapes itself in response to
challenge, with elements that wither away through lack of use."
3. We now know of at least seven types of intelligence
Howard Gardner in his book The Unschooled Mind (1994) reports his work
on multiple intelligences. Seven types of intelligence (analytical,
pattern, musical, physical, practical, intra-personal, and
inter-personal) are identifiable. Only the first is given serious
attention in most schools. Yet, we now know that so-called 'ordinary'
people are capable of feats of intellectual or creative activity in
rich, challenging, non-threatening, co-operative learning environments
and the narrow competitive tests currently in use to achieve 'the
raising of standards', just prevent this from happening.
4. We now know of thirty different learning styles in humans
It follows that any uniform approach is intellectual death to some, and
often most, of the learners, and is therefore suspect. These learning
differences fall into three broad categories, cognitive, affective and
physiological. Some learners have a style which is typically deductive
in contrast to those whose style is usually inductive. Others learn
best from material which is predominantly visual as against others who
respond best to auditory experiences. There are contrasts between
impulsive learners and reflective learners. Some learn better with
background noise, others in conditions of quiet, and so on ...
5. It is now clear that in a complex modern society, all three behavior
patterns or forms of discipline - authoritarian, autonomous and
democratic - are needed
Effectively educated people need the flexibility to turn to each of the
three major forms of behavior and discipline, (as analyzed in A
Sociology of Educating in 1971 by Roland Meighan), as, and when, it is
appropriate. So, we need to be autonomous when driving a car and take
responsibility for any outcomes, behave in an aircraft according to the
rules of that authoritarian situation, and if we go on to help crew a
boat, behave co-operatively in a team. People schooled in only one form
of behaviour are handicapped in the modern world: as I indicated in
Flexischooling (1988), rigid forms of schooling produce rigid people,
flexible forms are needed to produce flexible people. Rigid university
experiences build on this foundation. As John Abbott points out in
Education 2000 News, June 1996,"... we continue to get graduates who
think narrowly, are teacher-dependent, and have too little ability to
tackle challenges or embrace change. The situation makes us wonder
whether the traditional classroom is right for the task - the need may
be less for "reform" than for fundamental redesign of the system."
6. Adaptability has priority in a rapidly changing society
There is now widespread recognition that with rapidly changing
technologies, economies and life-styles, there is a chronic need for
adaptability and flexibility in learning and in behaviour. A system
based on uniformity is, therefore, counter-productive.
7. The recognition of the need for life-long learning
The idea that essential learning is best concentrated between the ages
of five and sixteen, and for some up to twenty-one, has increasingly
given way to the necessity for life-long learning.
8. Democratic schooling has become an international concern
After the demise of State Communism in the former USSR and Eastern
Europe, new governments look to schools in the USA, the UK and
elsewhere hoping to find democratic models of schooling in operation.
They find to their surprise, the familiar model of authoritarian
schools, which are not just non-democratic, but anti-democratic -
perhaps less in a few countries such as Denmark than elsewhere. A key
feature of democracy is the principle that those who are affected by a
decision have the right to take part in the decision-making. This is
expressed in slogans such as 'No taxation without representation!' If
we apply this to schools, we get, 'No learning and therefore no
curriculum without the learners having a say in the decision-making'.
In the authoritarian approach to schooling, however, there is a chronic
fear of trusting students and sharing power with them, , and a general
fear of opting for the discipline of democracy.
9. Home-based educators are trailblazers
In the U.K. and the U.S.A. and in various other countries an unusual,
quiet revolution has been taking place in the form of educating
children at home. At the same time as the fierce debates about
mainstream education have been taking place concerning a National
Curriculum, Testing, 'Back to the Basics' etc., some families have just
quietly been getting on with a 'Do It Yourself' approach to education.
In the U.S.A. over a million families are now "homeschoolers." In the
U.K. over 10,000 families are estimated to be operating home-based
education.
This phenomenon is more accurately described as home-based education
because the majority of families use the home as a springboard into a
range of community-based activities and investigations rather than try
to copy the 'day prison' model operated by the majority of schools.
People find this quite hard to grasp, and this is shown in the asking
of questions about whether such children become socially inept. After a
little thought, it is clear that learning activities out and about in
the community give children more social contacts, and more varied
encounters, as well as reducing the peer-dependency feature of
adolescent experience, than the restricted social life on offer in the
majority of schools.
People often try to generate generalizations and stereotypes about
families educating the home-based way. The only ones that the evidence
supports are
a that they display considerable diversity in motive, methods and
aims,
b that they are remarkably successful in achieving their chosen aims.
Schools often take up the posture that if home-based education is to be
tolerable, the families should learn how to do it from the
'professionals'. The evidence is different and demonstrates that
schools often have more to learn from the flexibility of practise of
many families, than vice versa.
Home-based educators are not the only trailblazers. Those developing
All Year Round Community Learning Centers, Charter Learning Centers,
Community Arts Projects, Learning Clubs and Co-operatives and other
non-coercive learning opportunities are also blazing a trail.
10 Communications Information Technology is a catalyst for change
We are all fated to live all our lives in ignorance of most of what is
around us because the world of knowledge is now so vast and it is
changing all the time. Without the research skills and some personal
confidence derived from practising them, we cannot even make sense of
what is necessary to our immediate well-being, and are forced to rely
fatalistically on 'experts' who often fail to agree amongst themselves.
Computers, the Internet, CD-ROMS and new developments in the pipeline
that link mobile telephone to talking databases, give us the tools to
be constant and effective researchers for ourselves.
Conclusion
In summary, the new synthesis means a new learning system with more
flexible patterns. The new situation demands alternatives for everybody
all the time. People trying to persist with the domination of the
inflexible authoritarian approach of mass schooling are consigning our
children to the obsolescence of the rigid mind-set.
The future of learning is exciting but we will need to scrap or recycle
most of the current system to build one that is more humane, flexible,
personalized, democratic and educational. One person's learning career
is likely to be very varied with spells of home-based education -
sometimes full-time, sometimes part-time - short experiences of
residential learning centers, local and international periods of
learning, regular use of All Year Round/All Age Learning Centers,
periods in small Charter Learning Centers, or any combination of these
and other 'learning sites' in society. The aim is to make learning just
too good to miss out on, rather than something needing compulsion and
coercion.
Roland Meighan is founder of the not-for-profit Educational Heretics
Press which exists "to question the dogmas of schooling in particular
and education in general." Details are on http://edheretics.gn.apc.org/.
Vic Desotelle
http://DiscoveryFuel.com
From: "LearningCommunities@yahoogroups.com"
Reply-To: No Reply
Date: 16 Nov 2008 11:14:14 -0000
Subject: [LearningCommunities] Digest Number 2046
Features of the next Learning System
The Time Switches of Change
Alternatives for Everybody, All the Time
by Roland Meighan
http://edheretics.gn.apc.org/
* * * * *
^
Introduction
When twenty educationalists met at the University of Nottingham, UK,
for two one-day seminars late in 1997, all agreed at the outset that
the climate of uncertainty due to continuous change was not going to go
away. "Continuous adaptation" was here to stay. The educationalists
were from a wide variety of backgrounds ranging from home-based
educators to head teachers to university teachers to parents, and they
had agreed to be involved in an exchange of ideas on the theme of
Education in the Year 2020.
Some common ideas emerged from the discussions in small groups and also
in report-back sessions about education in the year 2020. Nobody
present saw mass compulsory coercive schooling as the way forward. All
over the world, it has proved to be a system that is expensive,
increasingly obsolete and counter-productive in producing anachronistic
intellectual, social, political, emotional and economic habits.
Features of the next learning system
The common ideas that emerged at the Nottingham Conference included the
following:
1 Learning would be undertaken in much more flexible institutions
than at present. Not least among the reasons was the escalating effects
of modern computer and communications technology which free us from any
specific location for learning. 'Everywhere and anywhere' learning
would have become a reality, and flexi-time learning commonplace.
2 Open learning centers would replace present-day schools. Some saw
these as being open from 8:00 in the morning until 8:00 at night and
open every day of the year. Others even thought there might be 24 hour
opening. Such centers would support a non-ageist provision without
excluding opportunities for some age or gender-based activity. Thus
early childhood centers with a focus on young children and their
families, would be available. The general model would be that of the
public library, not the custodial model of our present schools.
3 The central concern of such open learning centers would be learning
not teaching, although some formal teaching would be available on
request. Such centers would help create a culture of learning which
would include everyone and build learner-confidence and self-esteem.
4 The role of the teacher would change to that of learning coach,
learning consultant, or learning 'travel agent'. The teacher as
access-agent to scarce information is already obsolete and the logic of
this would have become irresistible. Present teacher training was,
therefore, largely a preparation for obsolescence.
5 Interactive learning systems such as CD-ROM programmes,
opportunities for purposive conversation, self-programming groups and
tele-conferencing would have replaced a great deal of classroom
teaching. The danger of excessive individualisation would be offset by
opportunities to learn in democratic groups and develop 'team-player'
co-operative skills.
6 Life-long learning expectations would place a premium on the
development of computer skills in adults. Voice-driven computers would
have become generally important here as well as for some specific needs
such as dyslexic adults and children.
7 Courses to develop experts would still be needed, but the Open
University model would have dislodged the obsolete 'three-year course
for young adults' model of current universities. This is based on a
preceding, and also obsolete, 'Grand National Race' concept of
schooling. Young people are required to fall at each hurdle, losing
self-esteem in the process, and often being turned-off learning, so
that 'winners' can be identified.
8 Financing would have become much more diversified. Some funding out
of taxation would be used to support particular requirements for
experts, or particular innovative social concerns such as parenting
skills, democratic skills, personal health skills, and even 'green'
living if environmental survival, (the 'doomsday' scenario,) continues
to grow as an issue. Industry would support activities particular to
the needs of commerce. Individuals and families would provide some
finance. Local Exchange Trading Schemes (LETS) or Time Dollar schemes
would provide another element for paying for personal learning
exchanges. There would also be some voluntary learning exchange
elements. The net result would be better results for less money than at
present. (Home-based educators have already shown that their route to a
university place can cost half as much as a conventional school route.)
The current technology of swipe cards can incorporate all the above
elements of finance, and record and monitor it.
9 Democratic control and democratic value-systems would have replaced
present authoritarian control and value-systems. The Open Learning
Centers would be run by elected representatives of the partners in
learning - learners (parents and children), staff (paid and voluntary),
and other interested parties such as local industry and local
community. Real choice according to the needs of learners would be a
key feature of the next learning system. This freedom would be subject
to the democratic values of human rights and responsibilities.
10 One group's summary was that:
a 'time-lock' learning ideas such as
key stages would have disappeared in favor of the flexible, irregular patterns of personal learning plans,
b "school" would have given way to flexible learning arrangements,
c 'prescribed curriculum' would have given way to a catalogue
curriculum with learner-driven elements, state-targeted elements, and
industry targeted elements,
d the precedence of a 'content' of shallow subject-based learning
would have given way to the precedence of the deep learning of a
questions-based, problem-solving approach.
The home-based educators present proposed that their practice already
involved many of the above features so that they were something of a
test bed for the success of these approaches.
11 The fear of diversity based on an expectation of disorder would
have given way to an awareness that all solutions are temporary in a
constantly changing environment. Thus adaptability, creativity,
flexibility and re-learning are key skills.
12 The multiple purposes of education would have been recognized in
contrast to the one right way tendencies of present times e.g.
education for 'saving' the country's economy.
13 The movement away from nationalistic concern to European and
global ones would have led to the replacement of the calls for learning
competitive attitudes and replaced them with calls for co-operative
behavior.
14 A new language would have developed to define the next learning
system e.g. Open Learning Centers, not schools, the Catalogue
Curriculum International, not the National Curriculum, Personal
Learning Plans, not teaching schemes and key stages.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The time switches of change
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are a number of influences at work in modern society which are
operating as the time switches of change. They include the following:
1. The arrival of the information-rich society
When mass schooling was established, people lived in an
information-poor environment. Assembling large numbers of children
together in one place called a school, with teachers who had been
exposed to the scarce information made a kind of sense. Since then,
radio, television, the explosion of specialist magazines, computers,
videos and the like, have all provided the means of making most of the
products of the knowledge explosion readily available to anyone who
wants it. This is just one of the reasons why home-based education is
so successful and why its practitioners outperform schools with
relative ease.
2. We now know much more about how the brain actually works
New technologies allow us to watch a living brain at work. As a result,
most of the assumptions of behavioral and cognitive psychology are in
question. As John Abbott explains in Education 2000 News, June 1996,
"Studies in neurology challenge the common metaphor that the brain is
like a linear computer, waiting to be programmed ... the metaphors of
choice are increasingly biological - that is , the brain as a flexible,
self-adjusting organism that grows and reshapes itself in response to
challenge, with elements that wither away through lack of use."
3. We now know of at least seven types of intelligence
Howard Gardner in his book The Unschooled Mind (1994) reports his work
on multiple intelligences. Seven types of intelligence (analytical,
pattern, musical, physical, practical, intra-personal, and
inter-personal) are identifiable. Only the first is given serious
attention in most schools. Yet, we now know that so-called 'ordinary'
people are capable of feats of intellectual or creative activity in
rich, challenging, non-threatening, co-operative learning environments
and the narrow competitive tests currently in use to achieve 'the
raising of standards', just prevent this from happening.
4. We now know of thirty different learning styles in humans
It follows that any uniform approach is intellectual death to some, and
often most, of the learners, and is therefore suspect. These learning
differences fall into three broad categories, cognitive, affective and
physiological. Some learners have a style which is typically deductive
in contrast to those whose style is usually inductive. Others learn
best from material which is predominantly visual as against others who
respond best to auditory experiences. There are contrasts between
impulsive learners and reflective learners. Some learn better with
background noise, others in conditions of quiet, and so on ...
5. It is now clear that in a complex modern society, all three behavior
patterns or forms of discipline - authoritarian, autonomous and
democratic - are needed
Effectively educated people need the flexibility to turn to each of the
three major forms of behavior and discipline, (as analyzed in A
Sociology of Educating in 1971 by Roland Meighan), as, and when, it is
appropriate. So, we need to be autonomous when driving a car and take
responsibility for any outcomes, behave in an aircraft according to the
rules of that authoritarian situation, and if we go on to help crew a
boat, behave co-operatively in a team. People schooled in only one form
of behaviour are handicapped in the modern world: as I indicated in
Flexischooling (1988), rigid forms of schooling produce rigid people,
flexible forms are needed to produce flexible people. Rigid university
experiences build on this foundation. As John Abbott points out in
Education 2000 News, June 1996,"... we continue to get graduates who
think narrowly, are teacher-dependent, and have too little ability to
tackle challenges or embrace change. The situation makes us wonder
whether the traditional classroom is right for the task - the need may
be less for "reform" than for fundamental redesign of the system."
6. Adaptability has priority in a rapidly changing society
There is now widespread recognition that with rapidly changing
technologies, economies and life-styles, there is a chronic need for
adaptability and flexibility in learning and in behaviour. A system
based on uniformity is, therefore, counter-productive.
7. The recognition of the need for life-long learning
The idea that essential learning is best concentrated between the ages
of five and sixteen, and for some up to twenty-one, has increasingly
given way to the necessity for life-long learning.
8. Democratic schooling has become an international concern
After the demise of State Communism in the former USSR and Eastern
Europe, new governments look to schools in the USA, the UK and
elsewhere hoping to find democratic models of schooling in operation.
They find to their surprise, the familiar model of authoritarian
schools, which are not just non-democratic, but anti-democratic -
perhaps less in a few countries such as Denmark than elsewhere. A key
feature of democracy is the principle that those who are affected by a
decision have the right to take part in the decision-making. This is
expressed in slogans such as 'No taxation without representation!' If
we apply this to schools, we get, 'No learning and therefore no
curriculum without the learners having a say in the decision-making'.
In the authoritarian approach to schooling, however, there is a chronic
fear of trusting students and sharing power with them, , and a general
fear of opting for the discipline of democracy.
9. Home-based educators are trailblazers
In the U.K. and the U.S.A. and in various other countries an unusual,
quiet revolution has been taking place in the form of educating
children at home. At the same time as the fierce debates about
mainstream education have been taking place concerning a National
Curriculum, Testing, 'Back to the Basics' etc., some families have just
quietly been getting on with a 'Do It Yourself' approach to education.
In the U.S.A. over a million families are now "homeschoolers." In the
U.K. over 10,000 families are estimated to be operating home-based
education.
This phenomenon is more accurately described as home-based education
because the majority of families use the home as a springboard into a
range of community-based activities and investigations rather than try
to copy the 'day prison' model operated by the majority of schools.
People find this quite hard to grasp, and this is shown in the asking
of questions about whether such children become socially inept. After a
little thought, it is clear that learning activities out and about in
the community give children more social contacts, and more varied
encounters, as well as reducing the peer-dependency feature of
adolescent experience, than the restricted social life on offer in the
majority of schools.
People often try to generate generalizations and stereotypes about
families educating the home-based way. The only ones that the evidence
supports are
a that they display considerable diversity in motive, methods and
aims,
b that they are remarkably successful in achieving their chosen aims.
Schools often take up the posture that if home-based education is to be
tolerable, the families should learn how to do it from the
'professionals'. The evidence is different and demonstrates that
schools often have more to learn from the flexibility of practise of
many families, than vice versa.
Home-based educators are not the only trailblazers. Those developing
All Year Round Community Learning Centers, Charter Learning Centers,
Community Arts Projects, Learning Clubs and Co-operatives and other
non-coercive learning opportunities are also blazing a trail.
10 Communications Information Technology is a catalyst for change
We are all fated to live all our lives in ignorance of most of what is
around us because the world of knowledge is now so vast and it is
changing all the time. Without the research skills and some personal
confidence derived from practising them, we cannot even make sense of
what is necessary to our immediate well-being, and are forced to rely
fatalistically on 'experts' who often fail to agree amongst themselves.
Computers, the Internet, CD-ROMS and new developments in the pipeline
that link mobile telephone to talking databases, give us the tools to
be constant and effective researchers for ourselves.
Conclusion
In summary, the new synthesis means a new learning system with more
flexible patterns. The new situation demands alternatives for everybody
all the time. People trying to persist with the domination of the
inflexible authoritarian approach of mass schooling are consigning our
children to the obsolescence of the rigid mind-set.
The future of learning is exciting but we will need to scrap or recycle
most of the current system to build one that is more humane, flexible,
personalized, democratic and educational. One person's learning career
is likely to be very varied with spells of home-based education -
sometimes full-time, sometimes part-time - short experiences of
residential learning centers, local and international periods of
learning, regular use of All Year Round/All Age Learning Centers,
periods in small Charter Learning Centers, or any combination of these
and other 'learning sites' in society. The aim is to make learning just
too good to miss out on, rather than something needing compulsion and
coercion.
Roland Meighan is founder of the not-for-profit Educational Heretics
Press which exists "to question the dogmas of schooling in particular
and education in general." Details are on http://edheretics.gn.apc.org/.
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Posted by Discovery Fuel on August 14, 2009 at 10:03pm
Discovering Our Collective Global Mythology
It is essential that the world collaboratively discover our collective global mythology. Only through this act can sustaina… Continue Posted by Vic Desotelle on July 10, 2009 at 5:30pm
Going Beyond: We live within the Great Soup of the Universe
I added a new potent domain 22. Categorized as a 'non-triad domain, it moves us beyond awareness here to awareness out there. This is so critical if we are to move beyond survival and into thrival.… Continue
Posted by Discovery Fuel on July 4, 2009 at 12:30pm
Transforming Our World Through Myth: The Sacred Dance of Masculine and Femine Energies
One thing I ask as you read this brief article: How does myth (and related archetypes) help us to create new forms of culture?In my below introductory article, I… Continue
Posted by Discovery Fuel on June 24, 2009 at 3:30pm
Changing Normal REQUIRES Experimentation and Failure
ChangingNormal-ists,Yesterday I sent out a couple things that went awry. First, I sent 're-invites' to what I thought would go to those who were invited but had not respo… Continue
Posted by Discovery Fuel on June 21, 2009 at 1:07pm
From Static To Dynamic Knowing
… Continue
Posted by Discovery Fuel on May 23, 2009 at 10:56am — 3 Comments
A word on white elephants, expectations, and changing normal.
A few of you have begun to ask questions. THIS IS SO WONDERFUL!Interesting though, I am watching the level of expectation that immediately follows a question that is not getting quickly answered in a satisfying way. I noticed how quickly frustration set in because they didn't have… Continue
Posted by Discovery Fuel on May 6, 2009 at 7:03pm
Introducing the new silo .... same as the old one :/
One of the biggest flags that I want us to watch out for is 'silo' reproduction. By this I mean that, as we build new structures to contain new knowledge, we must recognize and ask pointed questions about the silo's design. New knowledge held in (what are called) new silos, more often than… Continue Posted by Discovery Fuel on May 4, 2009 at 8:01pm
Togther let us "PAINT PARADISE, THEN GO IN"
Ahhh; dream land ...
Do you really know what Alice in Wonderland is all about? ??
Alice has the ability to step through mirrors ...
She is our own reflection,
Of what WE can do.
She is US.
She is our own expression,
Of love, truth, and beauty.
She symbolizes our own Spirit,
Impressed int… Continue
Posted by Discovery Fuel on April 2, 2009 at 9:00pm
To Change Normal - Attempt To Know Your Place In The Nest
To Change Normal ...What if we first assume our assumptions are mere assumptions? What if we assume something different about what we assume about our assumptions? (hmmmmmmmm; gotta think about this for a minute :/ ) Such as for example: What if our place in consciousness is embedded within a Greater System of conscious Knowing , and that is made up of other Systems, which is enmeshed w… Continue
Posted by Discovery Fuel on March 30, 2009 at 5:30pm — 1 Comment
Challenges of Community and Collaboration
Being an aficionado for collaboration, so much so that I've created a job for me being a Collaboration Ecologist, recently more often than not I've come to inquire into the question, "If, as seems to be the case, many if not most people and organisations in the world seek coll… Continue
Posted by Mushin J. Schilling on March 17, 2009 at 11:19am
The Reappearance of Mythical Dragons ... Portal to 'Changing Normal'
Mythical dragons appear,
During this renewed era of 'once upon a time',
As we realize a collectively conscious global culture.
---
"Tell me about the Dragons." (says Andrew)
---
Vic says ...
"Ahhh yes: The Dragons.
They will begin to appear in the sky;
Fireballs of hell will be one's first impression -
An explosion of Universal vomit upon Earth… Continue
During this renewed era of 'once upon a time',
As we realize a collectively conscious global culture.
---
"Tell me about the Dragons." (says Andrew)
---
Vic says ...
"Ahhh yes: The Dragons.
They will begin to appear in the sky;
Fireballs of hell will be one's first impression -
An explosion of Universal vomit upon Earth… Continue
Posted by Vic Desotelle on March 11, 2009 at 9:30pm — 5 Comments
Intro Section I
by Bill Ellis
CHAPTER #1 -- THE FOUNDATION
For some 2000 years or more civilization has been ruled by a social paradigm on which all aspects of the EuroAmerican cultures are been based -- the “dominator paradigm.” In the past 2 two decades a new social paradigm has been emerging that could have the most, deep, fundamental impact on human civilization since humanids first came down from the trees. The old paradigm placed humans in a purposeful universe created by some super normal power for t… Continue
CHAPTER #1 -- THE FOUNDATION
For some 2000 years or more civilization has been ruled by a social paradigm on which all aspects of the EuroAmerican cultures are been based -- the “dominator paradigm.” In the past 2 two decades a new social paradigm has been emerging that could have the most, deep, fundamental impact on human civilization since humanids first came down from the trees. The old paradigm placed humans in a purposeful universe created by some super normal power for t… Continue
The World is "Standing By"
Will you stand by me? Sing along with this video of the world as it re-design's itself through conscious acts of creation. Posted by Discovery Fuel on March 9, 2009 at 6:30pm
The Question is the Answer in a World of Uncertainty
In the name of a principle that I live by, namely: "The Question is the Answer", I propose the following elaborate questions. Maybe you can come up with a few yourself and build on this set? (There are no stupid questions. Rather, what is stupid are our assumptions that the answers should be known without as… Continue
Posted by Discovery Fuel on December 4, 2008 at 11:30am — 4 Comments
Web Technology as Sacred
The Web has reached a level of maturity where it can be viewed as an extension to our interconnected conscious selves. With the Planet now growing its own neural network (i.e. a global brain) 'Learning' takes on a new integral role as meta-teacher/student. This perspective brings a new dimension to our idea of 'global awareness' and stretches the meaningfulness of '… Continue
Posted by Discovery Fuel on January 26, 2009 at 5:00pm
Notes
Sacred Geometric Configuration For Organizing Domains
Created by Discovery Fuel Dec 14, 2008 at 1:54pm. Last updated by Discovery Fuel Dec. 15, 2008.
Earth Wisdom
Created by Discovery Fuel Nov 23, 2008 at 8:50pm. Last updated by Discovery Fuel Nov. 24, 2008.
Green TV online
Created by Discovery Fuel Nov 23, 2008 at 8:40pm. Last updated by Discovery Fuel Nov. 24, 2008.
Appropriate Technology Wikipedia
Created by Discovery Fuel Nov 15, 2008 at 10:16pm. Last updated by Discovery Fuel Nov. 24, 2008.
Notes Home
Created by Discovery Fuel Nov 8, 2008 at 1:12pm. Last updated by Discovery Fuel Nov. 24, 2008.
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INTRIGUED WITH IT ALL ??
Well then JOIN US ! ... I know, I know: You're over worked, over your limit, over the edge and just plan overwhelmed with it all. And now we want you to do even more ... right? Don't worrrrrry; Beeeeeee happy. You've don't have to commit yourself to a whole bunch of time. For now, just SIGN UP to show your interest.
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This Changing Normal community is sponsored in part by DiscoveryFuel.com: Group Facilitation, Team Building, Sustainable Innovation, and Collaborative Design.
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ChangingNormal.com by ChangingNormal.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at DiscoveryFuel.com.
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SHARE THIS PAGE WITH FRIENDS ON YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA SITES
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Orrrr ... Donating even just $3.33 will help keep this adventure going. Only three dollars and thirty three cents (3 is a magic number for me : ) A few green-backs (3 1/3 to be exact) start to add up. So your donation will actually go a longggg way in helping to 'change normal' : )
HELP KEEP THIS ADVENTURE GOING. Consider donating between $3.33 or $33.33 to help make it so. Email me, Vic Desotelle, if you have any questions.
$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $
********************************************
This Changing Normal community is sponsored in part by DiscoveryFuel.com: Group Facilitation, Team Building, Sustainable Innovation, and Collaborative Design.********************************************
ChangingNormal.com by ChangingNormal.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.Based on a work at DiscoveryFuel.com.
********************************************
SHARE THIS PAGE WITH FRIENDS ON YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA SITES
$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $
Orrrr ... Donating even just $3.33 will help keep this adventure going. Only three dollars and thirty three cents (3 is a magic number for me : ) A few green-backs (3 1/3 to be exact) start to add up. So your donation will actually go a longggg way in helping to 'change normal' : )
HELP KEEP THIS ADVENTURE GOING. Consider donating between $3.33 or $33.33 to help make it so. Email me, Vic Desotelle, if you have any questions.
$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $
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