Learning Journeys: Spaces for Social Innovation
(Excerpt of the book: Caio No Brasil)
In what kind of world are we living in today? Are we aware of the urgency of our time? Do we perceive the complexity of our ecosystems? We live in different worlds at the same time and take part of various realities — often without being aware of it. And what happens if we don’t have the consciousness of our own realities? We live like being in a trance. Disconnected from our personal dreams and needs. Accepting convictions and rules without questioning their meaning. — Because it has always been like this.
Nowadays this trance is getting often interrupted by more and more people asking questions like: “Are we as humans on the right track?” Or “How do I combine my passion with my purpose? Why we all are educated the same way if everybody of us is different? How is infinite growth possible in a finite system? What belongs to me and what doesn’t and what should I follow to be more myself?” Those questions triggered us 5 years ago to start our Learning Jouneys EDUshiftsOnTour (formerly EduOnTour) and to find more people asking the similar questions. Change-makers that co-create new realities.
How can we change our systems?
EDUshiftsOnTour is a self-organized, distributed learning journeys with the goal of building up a vibrant and disruptive community of education activists and social entrepreneurs. Small teams of activists and change-makers travel through a certain region or state visiting schools and learning communities, interviewing change makers and organizing events and gatherings.
There is no fixed agenda. No fixed outcome that has to be achieved. No result that has to be presented after the tour. Everything what happens is based on a mutual agreement of the people that are running the tour.
So each tour looks also very different than the others since it is very much depending on who is joining this tour. The only elements that are consistent is the format of a tour, facilitators that support the tour crew and focus on building up a sustainable education movement in the region and a process that is based on game mechanics and gamified processes. That is it in short what is the underlying intention of our journeys. And there is always something beneath.
What we sensed some years ago was a revolution of consciousness. The world had been transforming so fast and in such a dynamic way that we created a learning environment and education program that is preparing us for the uncertainty of life and the new world. We wanted to step out of our system to be free for some time and experience what we collectively could achieve when we dedicate our force and time together towards one goal.
We wanted to create our own learning space according what we sense could be the future of work. A group of young minded leaders, friends or strangers, sometimes just connected by an idea or the same vision, are coming together for a limited period of time and creating a new reality together. Often brought together only by similar networks or just the virtual world. Everybody with the quest to make the world a more caring place.
We wanted to experience what skills we need to acquire in the future in order to overcome obstacles that occurred on our way without much preparation or a protected learning environment or the security of a warm place to rest or our close friends to listen to our worries and claims. We wanted to experience what it takes if we co-create initiatives out from the scratch with project partners that we don’t know and we might not meet anymore in our lives. In a situation in which we could bring in our best — building up new personalities because nobody had known us before and we could choose who we want to be and what we want to learn in this project.
Creating and collaborating within a structure without a hierarchy or as we call it in a hierarchy of the moment. In regions and countries that are totally unknown to us. With EDUshiftsOnTour we travel the whole world and often it happens that we don’t speak the language or understand signs in the streets.
How are you able to use your skills and all that we have in over to overcome the shortage of resources and discover the abundance that each place has to offer.
Living the variety and complexity of our time
As you can imagine each tour, each visit at an inspiring education initiative is an adventure. When you are part of an EDUshiftsOnTour you accept the challenge that you have to co-create your reality each day again and again. You cannot expect anything as given and you are put into a situation in which you create your guidance and safety inside you.
After choosing to accept the challenge of EDUshiftsOnTour you find yourself in chaos. Advice from outside is limited since not many have been making similar experiences or having had totally different references. You decide for going through a lifetime experience that can truly change your perspective on education, work, community and finally your entire life. The learning experience is different for each crew member and covers many layers and dimension from a personal, to the team dimension, a collective one, a project one towards a spiritual dimension.
The education revolution is an evolution triggered by our societal transformation
After reading all this you might ask what EDUshiftsOnTour has to do with school visits and education programs besides being one by itself? It is true we attract and invite many people who don’t have anything to do with education or learning environments but that is the huge value of our initiative. Especially for schools and the public school system.
Schools and universities are going to change. There is no way that they will not. They will change tremendously and open many new ways of different forms of education. And they need support. What new forms of business models can they use? How can they leverage the wealth of their local communities? How can they have a greater educational impact on their local communities? Schools and Universities are small societies or mirrors of our societies that are reflecting to a great extent how our communities and societies are changing. Therefor for us the change and transformation of our education systems is more an evolution than a revolution. Technology and social innovation make it possible.
We experience more and more the acknowledgement that we need an individualized approach for our kids. Not only enables us technology various forms of individualizing our way we learn through computer games, individually composed education programs based on personal needs and learning habits and giving us virtual access to expert knowledge of our areas of interest.
Each one is different. Each one of us has different needs and abilities that need to be taken care of. Institutions such as schools and universities discover the freedom of using their creative autonomy. More and more organizations are opening to specialize themselves according to the interest and informal knowledge and expertise of their teaching staff. Most of the time that is not even a legal question but a question of having the right mindset and courage to make a step out of our traditional systems. And that is a process. A process that takes and support of the community, other schools and experienced pioneers in education and a lively exchange of knowledge and resources.
That is also why we never compare or discuss different methods or systems of education. On a school level some might be better off with Montessori, some with the Democratic model and a few might even prefer the traditional school system. Important is just the variety and that we have the power to choose and decide for our own good what is best for us and our kids.
We don’t look for solutions but for more questions.
Our multicultural and interdisciplinary approach enables us to create an unique perspective on problems of our current systems and envision the most innovative solutions that you can imagine.
Visiting schools and learning environments opens us doors to areas and regions that would not be safe to travel to. It opens doors to communities that would have been close. The impact is huge and deep. In alternative learning environments we are able to connect with the most powerful change makers of today. Our kids. Kids that are not manipulated by an outdated system. And we all want is to learn from them and with them and to empower each other. Students, social entrepreneurs, lawyers, former business consultants, and bankers, lifelong learners. Whoever feels driven to take action and willing to put in personal efforts and resources to transform our systems is driven by those experiences.
That is what we are doing at EDUshiftsOnTour. We strengthen the exchange among educators and open their circles of support to glocal communities with similar mindsets and paradigms. We learn together in networks. We transform while learning.
More information @ https://edushifts.world/eotx.html
