The tipping point of Klein Amsterdam
Unlearning the concept of ‘school’ for better education
Klein Amsterdam (‘Little Amsterdam’) is a school developed during the city’s recent competition for education innovation. Partnering co-founders Judith Fischer and Rick Amado have developed an ‘in-between space’ of learning designed to bring local riches in and get students out of the classroom, integrating modern, open source technologies and a network of community leaders — imagine, in grade four, learning from the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, the modern arts centre Nieuw Dakota and Google for Education…
“We can recalibrate school from being a test-oriented factory to a source of 21st-century experience and inspiration,” says Fischer. In today’s Trailblazer — as THNK and its participants set the community to the task of reinventing education — we talk to Judith and Rick about the serendipity and iteration of making an audacious idea fly in the real world.
Give us a quick tour of how this all began. What was the opportunity that you and Judith discovered?
(Rick) Over the last 2–3 decades, many state-funded educational systems in the world — not just in the Netherlands — have become more barren, more uniform, and more oriented towards cognitive outputs and test results. Amsterdam’s open call for new ideas — the first time that a major global city had put out a call for its citizens to brainstorm — included a vote and a professional jury, several rounds of incubation, and the chance to win and reach the ‘nursery’ stage for a subsidy and a real beginning. We made it through all those rounds, and that’s where we are now.
(Judith) We were both convinced that education wasn’t broken — that it could be so much better and more beautiful. The City of Amsterdam’s open call was the chance to play.
In talking about modern education, you’ve both used the phrase ‘creative engineering’. What does that mean?
(Rick) My background is in mechanical engineering, which is a linear discipline all about optimising in the face of restraints. In creative engineering, we go wide through play and exploratory and visioning techniques. We try to find better questions rather than better answers, and we’re less focused on getting to answers quickly. It’s a pulsating process of going wide, then focusing, then wide again. This is iteration, and it’s fundamentally different from the world that I inhabited until recently. Before, as my vocation had taught me to do, I’d build to whatever constraints I’d been given. We did not prototype, and we didn’t tend to incorporate users into our equations. Creative engineering is a jam session that actually gets you somewhere.
The world is deeply entrenched in its restraints. With all kinds of complex organizations compelled to the status quo, how can we legitimize creative exploration?
(Judith) As entrenched institutions prove themselves ill-equipped to change for a changing world, people are demanding it. In our case, a public authority challenged us — asked us — to break the rules and see what might happen. It’s extraordinary. It’s political courage at the highest levels, combined with a deep self-awareness of rigid bureaucracies and all their reflexes.
The city council of Amsterdam embarked on a radical, unprecedented endeavour not only out of despair. It willingly handed over a level of control and shared responsibility, considering the demand-side and benefits from the collective brainpower and creativity of Amsterdam’s huge creative community.
— A Moonshot in Education Innovation: Amsterdam Goes Bottoms Up by Esther Wojcicki with Judith Fischer, The Huffington Post
Tell me about education being beautiful. What does that look like?
(Judith) Modern education mandates that our children turn their attention away from the beauty in the world. It’s oriented towards output, and on measurable results in comparison to other countries or regions. It ignores the riches around us — our cultural heritage — and prefers a barren baseline for competitive testing.
Sometimes, I look at my own kids and see them like little fois gras geese. They’re stuck all day in an isolated, uninspiring environment. It’s standardized. It’s the manifestation of a narrowed world. When learning is context-rich, inspiring, and close to home, it becomes beautiful. It inspires students and teachers too. It allows each child to expand their world.
(Rick) The education discussion is almost too easy to have. We’ve all been through it, and it affects all of us. The whole system is propped up with a false dichotomy that we should educate citizens to replicate our culture, but school doesn’t teach culture. It *is* culture. John Dewey, the philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer, once rightly said that education is a process of living, not a preparation for future living.
What does education look like when it’s rooted in culture?
(Rick) What we think of as ‘extra-curricular’ activities — those that form identity, help to form our world views — become curriculum, along with basic skills. History doesn’t only come from books and the enormous information online, but from the museums, heritage sites, and people all around us. How great would it be to start from day one, co-creating lessons with the kids? Why not hack history class to match our city, and make whatever connections that feel most contextually rich?
When we reached the finals of Amsterdam’s idea contest, a group of grade school kids called ‘The Kids’ Press Corps’ interviewed the founders of each initiative. I asked them, “Are you at school right now?” And they said no. Why is a kids’ press corps not school? They’re doing journalism. That’s the best kind of learning, happening right now, in the real world.
Traditional education has reduced itself to a diet of predigested materials.
— John Dewey
(Judith) In a world that’s more and more global, we can feel like we don’t belong somewhere. We can feel really disconnected to our sense of self. Education should be a counter to that. It should help kids to find themselves as people, and to respect and admire the world’s diversity so that we don’t just make the world global. The next generation should be encouraged to be globalists capable of generating their own belonging wherever they are, with a ready-made and mobile sense of community and responsibility.
How does this kind of education make tomorrow’s creative leaders?
(Judith) It starts with a mandate to teach young explorers how to be good at failing. If kids are apathetic to trying new things — and resistant to the possibility of failure — that’s our fault. The atmosphere we create should be a an open landscape, not a homogenous mass.
(Rick) We need to incent kids to interact with the greater world, with people who are different than they are. This kind of fluidity is where emotional intelligence roots. In school, asking good questions should be more of a requirement than having good answers, and kids should be able to listen to and integrate diverse voices.
Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination. — John Dewey
Now that you’ve moved forward in the competition, where are you in the implementation of the school?
(Rick) We open in August 2017. First, we’re concentrating on the curriculum, bringing partners on board to collect what we need to present a radically wonderful and new kind of learning experience. We’ll incorporate local museums, performing artists, orchestras, concert halls, science centres and academic institutions — even the pioneering caterer around the corner who’s so passionate about the culture of food.
(Judith) Having won the license to follow through, we’re now at the point where it’s time to deliver. And so now, we’re collaborating with people who don’t have a design thinking mindset. We need to scale up our creative basis to a mixed team — some of whom may still be attached to the way things have always been done. This makes us ambassadors, and we export the tenets of design thinking by being inclusive and open, and by modeling good listening and curiosity.
By marrying these elements into one school, it is no longer an insular locus, physically and socially disjointed from its surroundings, but a place that reinforces the social tissue locally and makes learning relevant, dynamic and future-oriented. A dream of a school that is not just another brick in the wall. — A Moonshot in Education Innovation: Amsterdam Goes Bottoms Up by Esther Wojcicki with Judith Fischer, The Huffington Post
You both had successful and varied careers, and you both wound up at THNK seeking a reset. What was it that brought you together?
(Judith) At some point, success pushes you to a tipping point. You feel restricted and stuck in it. I couldn’t breathe. I had built up a shell of ideas that I had parked indefinitely, and quitting my job gave me the space to think about what else I might do so that these embryonic ideas could finally develop.
(Rick) I had been active as a philanthropist for years, but I wanted to have more of an impact. THNK was a chance to bring together professional elements of business and design, which are very difficult to bring together in any other context.
What happens when you gather with a group of people who are all at that point — either having reached that tipping point, or in need of fresh context?
(Rick) I wanted connections and energy and momentum, and THNK is incredibly good at delivering that. The combination of personal development and design thinking is more than the sum of the parts.
(Judith) In most modern cultures, we’re expected to do what’s expected. Tall poppies are lopped off. You don’t talk about big, audacious goals in mixed company, and you’re in mixed company just about everywhere. People aren’t only scared of failing. They’re scared of dreaming. They’re held back from thinking differently by the status quo’s metrics of money and power and status. Within the first week at THNK, I felt a deep sense of relief. Everyone was truly curious — they could see possibility. It’s a circle of like-minded people who consider and extend every crazy idea that you say out loud.
At THNK, we saw each other in states of extreme vulnerability and struggle. That’s what it is to try and reframe everything, to unpack all your limiting assumptions. This shared, very holistic process generates so much trust. That’s the stage on which we connected. That’s where the school began.
Judith Fischer is a social justice advocate with over a decade of experience working for a range of international and non-profit organizations in post-conflict settings, and in the field of democratization, human rights and humanitarian assistance. She strongly believes in in the desire of individuals to make a difference, and in the multiplying power of humanity to leverage or otherwise catalyze change.
Rick Amado studied mechanical engineering at Stanford University. His professional experience spans the engineered materials, automotive and electronics industries, with functional leadership positions in finance, engineering, design and consulting. Recently he has supported the arts and primary education as director of the Maurice Amado Foundation. He currently serves on a number of boards of charitable and cultural organizations focusing on music and education.
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