From the beautiful Green School in Bali, to the inspiring Dharavi Art Room in Bombay, another recurring point of learning for me was around access. Educational access isn't a new concern in education, yet I haven't found it to be a priority in the design of many innovative and progressive models.

(Dharavi Art Room and the School in the Cloud/SOLE Colombia are great examples of programs designed to increase access, as is the sliding scale for tuition that some independent alternatives are implementing.)

Here is the "lesson" shared at AERO 2016 on this issue. Look forward to sharing the final two parts to this talk next week!

TVO (TVOntario) is currently running a doc series called "Why Poverty?", asking why a billion people around the world still live in poverty, and what can be done about it.

Last night's film, "Solar Mamas", shows us how women from income-poor communities all over the world are selected and trained to become solar engineers in a six month residential program at Barefoot College in India. They return after six months, bringing solar-powered electricity and income earning potential to their remote villages.

Educational access and opportunity are themes that have been gnawing at me since watching India's Daughter on Netflix (profiling the infuriating rape case of Jyoti Singh in Delhi in 2012). So when I watched Solar Mamas, I was drawn into the story of this woman from Jordan, who faces strong resistance from her husband in pursuing the course. Seeing how the women connect and collaborate and really want to learn new skills, was inspiring.

The film also opens with a provoking question: "Are women better at getting out of poverty than men?" 

Development experts such as Amartya Sen (my favourite Development Economist!) have long-touted the importance of education for girls in raising standards of living, decreasing infant mortality, increasing levels of health, and in increasing education levels for the next generation.  Grameen Bank founder Mohammed Yusuf has also explained how women tend to invest money into their children's health and education at higher rates than men: 

As you'll see in the film, challenges with changing mindsets remain. Still, programs such as this one at Barefoot College are bringing power to communities and helping to awaken power within these women!

For more on Barefoot College visit their site, or check out Founder Bunker Roy's TED Talk here.

Watch the TVO doc "Solar Mamas" here (or on their website): 

Meet Felipe Spath, co-founder of SOLE Colombia (Self Organized Learning Environments), the next in this Spotlight Series! 

I met Felipe early one morning for a tinto (black coffee) in the Candelaria neighbourhood, the heart of downtown Bogota. Within minutes, he had connected me with other people doing great work in Colombia, and humbly shared his insights on rural education, technology, and innovation. We were able to film outside the coffee shop before campus became too noisy (with a few early skateboarders around!).

In this video, Felipe talks about the importance of technology and tradition coming together, collaboration rather than competition in learning, and his hopes for more community-based, and tribe-based learning in the future:

Along with being a Co-Founder of SOLE (affiliated with Sugata Mitra's School in the Cloud initiative), Felipe is also a TEDx organizer in Colombia, a University educator and an "Associate Thinker" at th1nk.co. He lives in a rural area outside of Bogota, and has been engaged with rural development and sustainability issues for many years.

​I really enjoyed hearing Felipe's unique perspective, and had a wonderful time in his undergrad class on Designing Purposeful Experiences at the Universidad del Rosario later that morning. Being part of a workshopping exercise with students (similar to a design thinking session) reminded me of how much I love the energy and ideas in post-secondary spaces!

For more on Felipe's work, visit: ​http://www.th1nk.co/#.

This past weekend, I finally had the chance to visit Medellin, a city I've been intrigued by for years.

Mention Medellin to "etranjeros" who have never visited Colombia, and you generally hear comments about Pablo Escobar, reactions from "Narcos" viewers (thanks Netflix!) and media coverage of the drugs and violence in the city's recent history. Mention Medellin to Colombians, and people will tell you about how amazing the city is, and how it was named most innovative city in 2013 by the Urban Land Institute. 

Putting aside others' perceptions, I was curious to see for myself how a place that was deemed the most dangerous city in the world in my lifetime, managed to transform itself into a global leader in innovation in just 20 years. And of course, how does education play into this?

My first afternoon, I decided to overcome my "I'm too cool for tours" attitude (:)) and join a Real City walking tour in the centre of the city. (Thanks Kate Fraser for the suggestion!). Our local guide, a former Stats prof and creative writer (I know, interesting mix!) was passionate in sharing his perspective. He went through an overview of the city's history and people, including the distinct identity and pride that Paisas (people from this northwest region of Colombia) have, and their ancestry (including a mix of settlers from the Basque region of Spain and Jewish settlers). He explained how way before the drug cartels and drug trade, Medellin was the country's most industrious city, as it developed through gold and coffee production. 

I appreciated that the guide was open about the impacts of the drug cartel of Pablo Escobar, the violence, conflict and political strife that was intertwined with it all, and the fear, and death that were a daily reality for people in this city a couple decades ago. And that, to a lesser degree, the political complexity and conflict still existed. But there is a clear shift that you can feel, and one that the guide addressed, towards creating public spaces and infrastructure that honoured the city's complex past, while moving towards a more hopeful, peaceful, and socially inclusive future. 

Two pillars he mentioned in the transformation of Medellin, were an emphasis by recent mayors on "Democratic Infrastructure" or social urbanism - public spaces developed for people from all classes have access to buildings, libraries, parks and schools, and be better served by development. A few examples I saw were a huge public library overlooking the parque de las luces (Park of lights), the renowned metrocable lines that connect hard to reach 'barrios' to the city, and images of outdoor escalators in Comuna 13. (Although Comuna 13 remains one of the most violent neighbourhoods in the city, the escalators help connect people to jobs outside of these neighbourhoods, and for youth to turn to options outside of the pull of drugs).

The other pillar he termed "education with dignity" referring to the libraries, schools and quality of education that needed to be improved for people from lower income areas. This reminded me of the emphasis needed not only in the education sector, but from the perspective of urban planners and government for cities and people to develop more integrally.

Over the rest of my weekend, I managed to get a pretty good feel for the city, and connected with a range of interesting people, from my airbnb host who is working with Heart for Change to co-teach English at a lower income school, to a family living in the barrios near Santo Domingo (proud to show me the schools and colegios in the area), a couple at a Hare Krishna gathering looking for more value-based schooling for their kids, and a friend's 8 year-old sister who is quite happy at her private school in the Laureles neighbourhood.

 My takeaways from these conversations were that as always, education in a city like Medellin is complex; although broad access exists to public schools with an increase in publicly funded education programs, the quality of that schooling and the degree of effectiveness in implementation is questionable. Private schools abound in Medellin but serve only those who can afford their fees. Also, the social issues and conflict are far from over, with new gangs forming in recent years, and can't be ignored for schooling to serve the needs of people in the barrios. (This article gives a lot more insight on the complexity and depth of change needed for the barrios to really gain equality). 

Still, Medellin as a city really impressed me: the beauty of the landscapes, the sprawling architecture and housing, the pride of local residents, and access to amazing public spaces. The scale of the social urbanism projects and access to them are a bold and proud statement to the city and to the world.

So grateful to finally visit this amazing city and get a deeper feel for its people and context. Gracias Medellin, hope to see you again really soon! 

A few days ago, I arrived in Colombia to spend time exploring locally based alternatives in education with the support of Schools Without Borders (thank you SWB!). I first came here five years ago, and fell in love with so much of the country - the people, their passion, the mountains, plains, and love for life (all amidst the complexity of conflict and transition).

This past weekend, I was grateful to be welcomed by one of my main connections here, Veronica Puech, a co-founder of Kalapa learning community, who I look forward to interviewing as part of this month's spotlight series. 

After a really nice day of catch ups with special characters in the city, we spent the weekend just north of Bogota in Suesca. The perfect setting to disconnect from our iPhones and reconnect with inspiring people (and the best cheese fondue!). Hosted by a couple working in design and educational architecture, and in the company of other educators, a business owner, and strong development perspectives, our conversations helped to frame the need for alternatives here in Colombia. To paint a broad picture of the complexity of issues here, I'll share some of what we discussed:

The pressure to focus on test scores vs. a real need to improve math and language learning outcomes
- Colombia is working towards membership in the OECD; As part of its accession to the OECD, PISA test scores  taken by 15 year old students (you can try sample test questions here), are considered. Colombia's results in the PISA tests were amongst the lowest of the 71 countries who participated in the last round of the tests, and there are large gender gaps. This increases pressure to focus on test scores (outcome) rather than the methods of teaching and learning (process leading to better outcomes!). 
- There is a real need to increase competency in math and language skills, especially in public schools but the challenge is in how to do this effectively.

A need for more "integral" education, and considerations for post-conflict settings
- This topic really resonated with me, as I believe so strongly in the need for integral or more holistic education, that considers all aspects of personality (Intellectual, emotional, physical, spiritual) in the development of learners.
- A need for more creativity in learning as part of this integral education 
- Understanding that students in post-conflict areas or settings need special considerations and integrated programs catered to their needs 

Challenge of (a lack of) political will and the (lack of) power of the Ministry of Education
- Short terms in office, changing priorities, big bureaucracy make it difficult to implement change in the short or long term.
- the Ministry of Education isn't very influential or powerful relative to other areas of government in Colombia.

"Status" of education over quality of learning
- Parents' concern with the reputation and status of the school over the true quality of the learning that is happening; reputation of the school represents status for some parents, and it is difficult to shake this mindset.

Value of teachers and teaching as a profession
- As in many other countries, teaching is not valued highly as a profession or career choice in Colombia, which results in not the most motivated or qualified people entering the field.
- Moving towards more highly qualified and valued teachers (at the other end of this is the Finnish system for example) would help improve the quality of education.

All of this led to...:

The hope for solutions from smaller models!
- The flexibility smaller models have to implement change and test different methods has potential in influencing the bigger system eventually
- These smaller models need to show mastery of learning plus the ability to do this in an integral way in order to be adopted in other settings.

I am grateful to all of my hosts this weekend, for the rich conversations and company! 

I look forward to profiling some of the exciting work happening here in Colombia, starting with Kalapa in the coming week (..and hopefully improving my Spanish tambien :)) ​

At a recent conference in New York, I spent a week exploring alternative education from an American perspective (a lot of talk about homeschooling, unschooling, “deschooling”, which I will come back to in a later post). A refreshing departure was a keynote speech by Sugata Mitra; he was the first at the conference to focus on ACCESS for students who don’t have the choice of any school at all!

Mitra is the man behind the “hole in the wall” experiments, and has gained popularity through TED Talks (such as this one, and this one). Essentially, Mitra placed a computer in the wall of a slum in New Delhi in 1999, where kids had never used a computer before. With an internet connection, Mitra left the computer for kids to play with. What he found was that groups of kids, within days, were able to learn impressive things on their own - from browsing to recording music, to googling their homework!

As part of this year’s service learning trip to Cap-Haitien, Haiti, the Laurier ENACTUS team (an organization based on applying business skills to address social needs) has been spending time at a partnering nutrition centre. The nutrition centre is a hub for many services and programs, with an aim to develop the capacity and skills of young mothers in the long term, while addressing nutritional deficiencies in their babies in the short term.

Over the past year, our small team (three Laurier Business students and one faculty member) has spent time researching improvements to an existing microfinance program at the centre.

In just a few days of being here in Cap, we are really appreciating the critical importance of presence on the ground to really LISTEN to the concerns and needs of people we are working with, and to understand broader context. Skype calls don’t always do this justice!! So we decided to take a step back, and put our research on microfinance aside.. just for now!