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/#.
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Happy to present the second video in this Spotlight Series, my conversation with Veronica Puech, co-founder of Kalapa Learning Community just outside of Bogota, Colombia. I had a wonderful few days with the kids at Kalapa, who invited me to share in the digging that you see below (teaching me how to improve my technique!), in their maker space, and in the fantasy "mundo de los gatos" (world of cats!) that the youngest ones had me crawling around in :).
In this video, Veronica talks about the need for more integral and experience-based education, challenging our own beliefs as adults and educators, and the hope she finds in the range of innovative alternatives being developed around the world. Along with being a Co-Founder of Kalapa, Veronica comes from an interesting background of having earned an undergraduate degree in Economics, a Master's in NGOs and Development from the LSE, and has worked with organizations including Save the Children and Ensena por Colombia (Teach for Colombia). Having moved from large scale organizations to a small community-based environment is inspiring to me, as are the efforts of all five cofounders and also the facilitators at Kalapa!
To learn more about this special school, visit Kalapa's website. Special thanks to the facilitators, co-founders and kids at Kalapa, along with Schools Without Borders, for their support!
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 :))
I'm pleased to share the first video in this Spotlight Series, my conversation with Aaron Eden, Director of Entrepreneurial Enterprise Learning at The Green School, Bali. Aaron talks about the importance of using students' interests to make learning more "real", redefining success, and the role of smaller disruptive models in shaping education.
(We didn't have a mic so there is some background noise, but a mix of drums, Adele and loud kids makes it all more real right?!)
See more of Aaron's thoughts on his blog, and my reflections on the Green School model post-visit here. . Big thanks to Aaron for allowing me to record our conversation without any advance notice (!), and for being so gracious with his time.
Feel free to leave your comments and questions below. If you have suggestions for alternative or progressive educators to interview, please use the contact form to get in touch! I have decided to focus my blog for the remainder of 2016 on a monthly "Spotlight Series", profiling the ideas of inspiring people ranging from educators and researchers, to entrepreneurs and designers around the world. I have been fortunate to connect with so many people working on fundamental change in education, and I am excited to share their work and ideas with you. Each interviewee will be asked three questions: What paradigm shifts need to happen in education?; What challenges do you face in advancing alternative or progressive education?; and What hopes do you have for education over the next decade? The idea for a video series came to me while I was preparing to meet Aaron Eden (see his blog here) at the Green School in Bali this past fall. I scrambled through the streets of Ubud to find a stand for my iPhone, and a kind driver helped me find one just in time. My main aim with this series is to raise awareness of the work that is already happening, while acknowledging the challenges in creating programs outside of the conventional mould. Having an idea of our collective hopes for education also gives us lots to look forward to, and to work towards. (Note: For the latest posts and embedded videos, click on the Spotlight Series category.)
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AuthorA passionate educator.. on a quest for a schooling model to love! Archives
August 2017
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