Why do we Need to Re-imagine and Re-invent Education?

All around the globe, there’s a growing consensus that our education systems are broken. Our education system created a curriculum comprises of topics with corresponding time allotted to each topic. Because of this, they failed to address the learning curve of a specific student.

It doesn’t matter whether the student learns quickly or slowly as long as the curriculum is being followed. And from my personal experience during my early years in primary school, every time I was not able to cope up, my self confidence goes down; my creativity turns into dust.

All kids have extensive creative capacity. In education, it is as important as literacy, and we dissipate it.

Let me share you a story about a boy in the Nativity play.

The part where the three kings come in to offer their gifts, they went out of order.

And completely unintentionally, the first child came forward and said “I bring you gold”.

The second said “I bring you myrrh”.

Then the third child came forward and said “Frank sent this.”

The point is that kids will take a chance. If they don’t know, they’ll have a go. They’re not frightened of being wrong.

And I don’t mean that being wrong is the same thing as being creative.

Sir Ken Robinson, an English author and international advisor on education observed, “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original.”

According to UNESCO, in the next 30 years, more people worldwide will be graduating from education since the beginning of history. But now kids are going back home to play Candy Crash. Because now you need an MA or MS, whereas before you needed a BA or BS. Soon you’ll need a Ph.D.

It’s a process of academic inflation.

We need to radically rethink our view of intelligence.

Sir Ken Robinson believes that, “Our only hope for the future is to adopt a new perception of human ecology. One in which we start to reconstitute our perception of the richness of human capacity. Our education system has mined our minds, in the way we strip mine the earth for a particular commodity. And for the future it won’t service. We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we’re educating our children. The only way we’ll do it, is by seeing our creative capacities for the richness they are, and seeing our children for the hope that they are, and our task is to educate their whole being, so they can face this future, which we may not even see. But they will, and our job is to help prepare them to make something of it.”

Technology & Education

I found this very interesting website founded by Salman Khan, an American educator, which produces video lessons teaching a wide spectrum of academic subjects. It is a teaching tool based on your own learning pace with their adaptive assessment environment. The website is www.khanacademy.org

It is a non profit website funded by Bill & Melinda Gates foundation and Google.

I share this to you because I believe that our classroom should not have a one-size-fits-all type of teaching. There are students who learn faster than the other regardless of age.

With the help of technology, we can accelerate learning for all ages.

Have a blessed weekend!

Don't Just Grow Old, Grow Up As Well

The world is constantly changing, so should you.

About three days ago, I visited my Alma matter – the University of Santo Tomas (UST) – where I graduated last 2011. As I walk around, I noticed some changes and improvements inside the campus. I’m fascinated about how they were able preserve the old buildings and structures and still keep the overall campus in parallel with the latest trends. In tagalog, “’di pahuhuli.” And I think this is the reason why the school still exists and serve students for 402 years and counting.

We, as an individual also need to catch up and become better everyday. As I said earlier, the world is constantly changing.

Grow Old and Grow Up

Growing older isn’t really a choice we can make, given our options. However, growing older and growing up are two different matters altogether.

I read an article that differentiates growing old from growing up. It says:

“Growing old means that things that are happening to you and your true desires remain unexplored.

Growing up means that you are gaining a better understanding of the world you live in, your relationships, your goals and how to affect them.”

I believe this is true. But can I give you my simple definition of the two? (I discovered my definition while I’m researching, reading, contemplating and organizing my ideas about this article.)

Here it is!

Growing old is taking time.

Growing up is taking charge.

Take Charge

Growing old is when you just consume time, specifically time and space. It means going with the flow.

It means giving up your power to something or someone else.

It means being content with the circumstances and conditions that are thrown upon you.

Growing up is taking charge of your life. It means taking responsibility.

It means discovering your power to change your life and make it better.

Author and poet C. Joybell says “The only way that we can live is if we grow. The only way that we can grow is if we change. The only way that we can change is if we learn. The only way we can learn is if we are exposed. And the only way that we can become exposed is if we throw ourselves out into the open. Do it. Throw yourself.”

People who grow old but don’t grow up are expert blamers. They blame God, the government, another person, the balut vendor, the mosquito, the rain, I mean everything.

And they end up being miserable.

In Conclusion

You have given the power to take charge of your life. Depending on what you choose. Your life can be very ugly or it can be very beautiful.

Let me share a part from a poem written by Melanie Lim:

Write poetry. Love deeply. Walk barefoot. Hold hands.

Dance with wild abandon. Cry at the movies.

Take care of yourself.

Don’t wait for someone to take care of you.

You light up your life.

You drive yourself to your destination.

No one completes you – except you.

It is true that life doesn’t get easier with age.

It only gets more challenging.

Don’t be afraid.

Don’t lose your capacity to love.

Pursue your passions.

Live your dreams.

Don’t lose faith in God.

Don’t grow old. Just grow up.

You don't stop having fun when you get old; you get old when you stop having fun.

Friends, grow up and have fun.

Be remarkable!

Are you Curious?

“Everything we know we learned from someone else.” – John Wooden

How many of you, when you were born, already knew how to speak? How to read? How to count numbers? How to do calculus? Or how to make an app?

No one. Yes?

A few months ago, someone came up to me and said, “You know what, I’m gifted!”

I asked, “Why do you say so?”

“When I was born I know one thing no one taught me to do,” he replied.

“Really?” I asked in a very attentive look, “What is it?”

I was waiting for him to say “Oh when I went out from the womb of my mother I instantly said ‘Mam-ma,” or “I did the action song of Twinkle Twinkle, close-open my two hands.”

And he said, “I knew how to cry.”

Curiosity: A Learning Skill of a Child

When we were a toddler, most of the time, we asked so many questions. We were curious about the things around us.  Sometimes we asked so many questions that we tend to annoy the ones we were asking.

But that's the good thing about young children. They don’t worry if the question is foolish. They just ask. They don’t worry whether they will look dumb trying something new. They just do it. As a result, they learn. 

And that’s basically a need for us to grow: Curiosity.

Curious people possess a thirst for knowledge. They live in a constant state of wanting to learn more. Author and speaker John Maxwell said, “Curiosity helps a person to think and expand possibilities beyond the ordinary. Asking why? fires the imagination. It leads to discovery.”

So why are there some people who have stopped growing and wasn’t able to move on with their lives?

Pride.

These are people who don’t have a beginner’s mindset and are the know-it-alls. They see themselves as experts. They’ve began to answer more than ask. And when they do, you can be sure they’ve slowed down in their growth and have lost the fire for personal growth.

Author John Naisbitt believes that “the most important skill to acquire is learning how to learn.”

That is why I made a decision to have a teachable spirit. I realized that all the wisdom I need are available in this world.

As John Wooden said, “Everything we know we learned from someone else.”

All we have is to do is to acknowledge the need, ask, learn to listen and enjoy life.

I love it when John Maxwell said, “Perhaps the greatest way to remain curious and keep growing is to enjoy life. I believe it honors God when we enjoy life and live it well. That means taking risks – sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding, but always learning."

In his commencement speech in Stanford, Steve Jobs ended it with a line, “Stay hungry, stay foolish.”

Friends, be curious.

Have a teachable attitude.

A blessed weekend!

Stop thinking Can I? and Start thinking How Can I?

If you ask a 10 year old boy, “Alfred, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

And he replies, “Oh I wanted to be like Tony Stark. I will make a robotic suite that will help me catch the villains in the world!”

Or ask a 7 year old girl, “Dora, what do you want to do when you grow up?”

“Uhm, I want to explore the world and meet new friends. I also want to have a companion in my journey. I will call him Boots!”

At the back of our minds we say, “Oh yeah, just wait 5 to 10 years from now. You’ll see.”

We belittle their dreams. We laugh at their dreams. We think they have unrealistic, impossible, out-of-reach dreams.

Why? Because in our hearts, we have accepted what the society think of our capacity. We allowed them to tell us who we are and what we’re capable of.

Sharing My Dream

Can I tell you one of my dreams?

I wanted to write a book. I wanted to share my thoughts, ideas, goals and experiences. I asked myself, “Can I write?”

Let me give you my background. When I was in grade school, every Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays we had a spelling exam. On Monday the teacher will utter 15 new words and we will write each word, correctly spelled, on a piece of paper. We then check the words afterwards. I usually get (this is embarrassing but I will share anyway) 3 or 5 correctly spelled words. Now, some of you might say that it is all right because it is my first time to hear and spell those words. But on Wednesday and Friday we again spell the same 15 words and I get almost the same score: 7. (at least it improved). But I should now get a perfect score right? It’s the same 15 words!

In high school, our professor in English frequently gave us essay type exams. I remember when my paper was returned back to me, my gosh! It’s like world war 3 took place in that paper. There were a lot of red-ink scribbles and corrections. Corrections with the tense, grammar and coherence. Some of my classmates received an essay paper with a little bit of corrections. Me? I received a paper full of corrections with a little bit of essay.

That was me.

When I discovered my dream of writing a book, I asked myself right away, “Can I write?”

How Can I?

The problem with “Can I?” question is that it is a question filled with doubt and hesitation. It is a question that imposes limitations. If that is the question you regularly ask yourself, you’re undermining your efforts before you begin.

This is my question until I read one of John Maxwell’s books. He asserted, “Stop Thinking Can I? And Start Thinking How Can I?” He said, “When you ask yourself ‘How can I?’ you give yourself a fighting chance to achieve something. The most common reason people don’t overcome the odds is that they don’t challenge them enough. They don’t test their limits. They don’t push their capacity. ‘How Can I?’ assumes there is a way. You just need to find it.”

Blogging: A Step

And that is why I created this blog. I personally believe that in my level now, I still don’t have the capacity to write a book. But I also believe that I have the potential to write one. Blogging is my first step to harness my writing skills. It helps me to be committed in reading books, talking to people to get their ideas for me to write an article every week.

I may still have tense, grammar, coherence for corrections but I write anyway. I realized that I cannot improve my writing ability if I don’t write, correct along the way and then write and write and write.

Friends what are your dreams?

Stop thinking CAN I? and Start Thinking HOW CAN I?

Have a blessed weekend!

Keep Growing

I have a niece, she’s two years old. Her name is Brianne. And her mom, my sister, usually have a difficult time making her sleep.

After lunch time, my sister would say, “Brianne, matulog ka na (go to sleep). It’s already 2 in the afternoon. Please, please go to sleep.”

And Brianne usually replies, “’di pa po ako inaantok (I’m not yet sleepy).” And my sister knows she’s very sleepy.

In the evening, same thing.

Why?

Because of what they calls it “Sense of Wonder.”

Bo Sanchez said, “A child makes the universe so huge, there are so many things to do, so many things to play with and so many books to read.”

But have you noticed? We, adults, like to sleep a lot? Because our world has become small and we are used to go from point A to point B and back.

We don’t explore anymore. We’ve lost our Sense of Wonder. We stopped growing.

I’d like to invite you to come and join me in a journey to keep on growing every area of our life: intellectually, financially, emotionally, spiritually, physically, etc. There are so many things to do.

I tell myself, I can’t stay where I am, I’ve got to expand. I’ve got to grow. I’ve got to learn new stuff.

Friends, make a decision to keep on growing.

Have a blessed weekend!

Brianne