seeds of wonder

Disruptive Innovation & Disrupting Class

My postman delivered my latest Amazon fix with a knowing look yesterday. 

Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation will change the Way the World Learns by Clayton Christensen.

It's received good reviews and by some interesting people - Howard Gardner, Vicki Phillips (Gates Foundation) and I actually came to it via The Big Picture schools brochure, who he seems to heartily endorse.

I'm always interested, if not a little wary, on what business thinkers have to say on education, sometimes finding that their recommendations come from what shape they feel (current & future) business requires children to be in for greater competitive commercial success, mini malleable adults. So I'm interested to see what the gravitational core of the book will be, flicking through I notice a chapter on  'Schools meet society's needs' and on the jacket it reads "We can compete in the global classroom - and get ahead in the global market" this may just be publishers huff though.

When I first started home-educating a few years ago, and started thinking about the purpose of education I decided that it's aims were simple; to nurture happy, balanced self-oriented children who were able to find their place in the world - not society, culture, prevailing politics or 'work' as we see them now. I would say that this is probably quite important in the context of today's times, to be careful that we're not inadvertently carving out a role for this generation of children to fix the problems of the generation before.

This crosses over with Rudolph Steiner's philosophies, described well in this exert from Mothering Magazine;

Steiner felt that children need a balanced development of their capacities in order to be prepared as adults to contribute to cultural renewal, instead of to the ongoing dehumanization of society. His aim was not to inculcate in children any particular viewpoint or ideology, but to make them so healthy, strong, and inwardly free that they would become a kind of tonic for society as a whole. The purpose of education, he thought, should not be merely to instill knowledge, which can be coldly abstract and destructive when separated from human values and a feeling for the humanity of other people. Rather, Steiner’s goal was to educate the whole human being so that thinking, feeling, and doing are integrated, and capable of functioning in a healthy way. Such people are more likely to discover and implement solutions that further human development, rather than fall prey to narrow and dogmatic doctrines such as National Socialism. In fact, when they came to power, the Nazis closed all Waldorf schools in Germany and, later, in the countries they occupied.

The universality and forward-looking thrust of Waldorf education was summarized by Steiner: “We shouldn’t ask: what does a person need to know or be able to do in order to fit into the existing social order? Instead we should ask: what lives in each human being and what can be developed in him or her? Only then will it be possible to direct the new qualities of each emerging generation into society. The society will become what young people, as whole human beings, make out of the existing social conditions. The new generation should not just be made to be what the present society wants it to become.”

More flicking shows though that there is though lots of good stuff in Disrupting Class on 'personalization' (that term doesn't sit so well with me) and the importance child-centric education, as these ideas are not especially new it will be interesting to see how applying the theory of disruptive innovation will help to fully integrate learner-centric thinking into education. Looking forward to a good read.

Biomimicry & Ayurvedic Surgical Tools

First day of Easter holidays today and number one son very relaxed and just slipped into being curious again, relieved of any compulsion to be taught (v learn). He came back from the shop armed with that magic balloon gue, a brilliant little device for creating your own vortex/tornado in between water bottles, and an elastic-band gun. Been intrigued about static on balloon bubbles and looked up static electricity - learning about electrons, protons, attraction etc. considered role in pressures and bursting stuff - judged by exit wounds of elastic bands.

All makes home-education very tempting again.

We also re-looked at something we'd been interested in a while back - surgical tools used in Ayurvedic medicine from around 800 -1100 BC -much more advanced than surgery in the West even in 1700s. These tools are great examples of biomimicry in form and function - based on birds and mammals beaks, mouths and skulls with even placement of eyes and nose and other features mimiced - possibly as part of the function too. Different tools are modeled on different creatures according to the job they need to perform and based on what creatures perform those same jobs well in nature - cutting, gripping, suturing etc. All made out of steel to avoid rust.

Giant biting ants were used to suture wounds - creating biodegradeable sutures - well before the first biodegradeable sutures appeared in the West

I've been trying to find some more info on these ayurvedic tools - any more that is known of them, are there any collections anywhere to see. I found some drawings in a children's encyclopedia which I've copied out (below). There's reference by a vet. surgeon interested in ayurvedic medicine as a basis of creating sustainable medicine - another growing and interesting field. There are also plenty of references to Shushruta - considered father of surgery, but haven't found much on the mimicry aspect.

Would love some info if anyone's got any?

Cloud Computing & Creative Exploration

These posters by Emily Gobeille and Theodore Watson caught my eye.

Designed for children using data from a variety of sources from; elevation data from Hawaiian volcanos, craters of the moon, and voice wave forms, these quirky images combine science, nature, algorithm and design neatly integrating analytical and creative ways of thinking.

What I particularly like is that it's a neat and not overly intellectual way to join the dots in children's minds between (subject) areas that we currently separate out in education and culturally within business. And without explicitly saying so it sets a good foundation for introducing systems thinking further upstream.

It's the sort of software that lends itself to cloud computing at school - globally across all schools, as part of the creation of a central on-line playground where pupils can come online, tap into data from geography - data from a school in Hawaii on weather patterns, biology - Cambridge university's research on why locusts swarm (serotonin apparently, very interesting, best keep the SSRIs out the way), business studies, use waveforms from music, the skate park, the woods, creative tools from the art department to collaborate, create, play, integrate and post up. A more dynamic school exchange programme, that's on-going and driven by pupils in explorative mode from home rather than in ICT once a week. Bottom up rather than top-down.

Mangoes, The Delhi Metro, Japanese Ropework ~ thoughts for new homework

The Little Big Stuff on Juhu Beach - Early Evening - Homework or this? - Pic Sarah Lancaster

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately around the purpose of homework, with lots of associated reading from The Element, The Difference, The Homework Myth - and have just ordered Clayton's book on Disruptive Innovation and Education, partly for my own interests in creativity and education, but also personally too. As I'll shortly being going in to talk with my son's school and proposing a new homework approach (for him, since I'm not sure they'll swing on the whole school!). One that is much more centred around his interests with a focus on quality rather than quantity and some real-world thinking inspired by Big Picture Schools. I'm working on some blog thoughts for this.

In the mean time I recently came across a couple of lists that pressed a thought out around the appreciation of the small stuff in life. That kind of deep satisfying appreciation that shouldn't be ignored. It made me think that in amongst schools needing to be much more child-centred - rather than system-centred, that one of the ways in which they can achieve this is to understand and encourage the small stuff.

The first list discovered via twitter - School of Everything  was A List of 100 Things I want to Learn linked to Pippa's thoughts on a DIY Masters, featuring things such as; Learn a musical instrument, How to make Bagels, Bookbinding, Japanese Ropework, Maintain my bicycle and so on. 

Different in content but probably similar in make-up to many of our lists if we sat down and thought about it. A balance between bigger stuff, little curious things, stuff you'd feel quite chuffed if you could do. Some will be more ephemeral, some will lead on to other things, some will be experience, some will be life-long passions. To make a list you just need to take note of those passing thoughts - 'I wonder how' and 'it'd be great to try' kind of thoughts.

The other list is from Andrew Buncombe on the Indy Blog - 10 of the Best Things About India 

He introduces the list by saying that it is an entirely personal list rather than a list of India's achievements, instead it's made up of the little gems that enrich his life in India:

1. Chana masala and tandoori roti at a scruffy dhaba - chickpea curry is the perfect cafe food when combined with amazing hot bread pulled straight out of the clay tandoor oven.

2. A winter's afternoon in Old Delhi, wandering without plan through the alleyways and eating the street food.

3. The concept of satyagraha or non-violent resistance, as developed by Gandhi. I love that everywhere in India, people feel the right to protest. The police often behave appallingly to protesters, but the right to hold sit-ins and demonstrations is ingrained in the culture.

4. The appropriately-named Sublime restaurant in the Goan coastal town of Anjuna Beach.

5. Tehelka magazine - a remarkable, investigative magazine that takes on the big guns of the Indian establishment and is the best subscription you can sign up for.

6. The Delhi Metro - clean, efficient, built on schedule and affordable for everybody. A genuine triumph.

7. The early evening in an Indian town or village, referred to as "Cow Dust Time" by the journalist James Cameron, because of the cows making their journey back from pasture. To me it also means the surge of people heading for home. I love the sense of calm before the frenzy of activity.

8. The smell of incense in old Hindu temples.

9. Bindeshwar Pathak and his NGO Sulabh International which has pioneered affordable public toilets in a country desperately in need of such facilities and has campaigned against the appalling caste-based practice of "manual scavenging" in which the poor are born into lives as toilet cleaners.

10. The amazing mangoes, papaya and guava at the local fruit stand.

And it clearly strikes a chord with readers who appreciate the personal and non-guide book view.

There's a parallel with schools here - subjects and lessons are often about lists of achievements in one form or another, and the big stuff- geography, french etc. and much less about the stuff that personally enriches each child's life, mangoes at the fruit stand, looking after your bike, learning how to make bagels. One of the noteable features about the list is the sense of balance they cover off bigger subjects - politics, bigger challenges - learn an instrument, but they are also just as much about enjoying food, dusty sunsets and craft. The pressure of homework not only supports an increasingly narrow subject driven approach, but also helps to contribute to our culture of overwork and lack of balance too. 

One of the justifications often given for supporting the case for homework (and yet not supported  by research) is that it helps to develop self-discipline. Self-discipline has seem to come to mean getting the mundane out the way, so you can move on to something more interesting. This is fine for housework, tidying etc. but not for life motivation. Children don't need discipline to help them choose a path in life, they need inspiration. You need discipline to stick at your passion when it goes through an inevitable dip in the road.

Perhaps one approach to homework is to do away with the traditional approach- 6 hours a day at school is enough, no need for double shifts here - and for children to spend say an hour a week- what ever feels right to them - on exploring their 100 Would like to's List, to eventually be able to make a 10 Things I Love list. 

Of course the elephant in the room here is that school, not just homework, should be about helping children realise, who they are, how they learn and relate to the world and what they love - the lifelong learning that is often on the lips of educators but somehow not woven into the fabric of education.

Homework would be a pragmatic place to start and perhaps the catalyst for change further down the chain. A change in homework policy would work wonders all round, not least for family relationships free of homework tension. After all, as Alfie Kohn says in the Homework Myth, who gets to choose how we use family time?

Little gems at Juhu Beach - Pic by Sarah Lancaster

Pretty Rubbish?

Playing at their favourite tree-swing, as a diversion, my son and his friend decided to do a bit of archeology on the launch slope. they were pretty chuffed to unearth a pair of 'old' (apologies archeologists at the random arm-waving on the age) bristle and bone toothbrushes, as well as a couple of other bits and bobs. Our suspicion was that the mound was the result of an old Victorian tip from the nearby woodman's cottages.

The toothbrushes were quite simply crafted, the bristles having since rotted away (how long would our so-called disposable toothbrushes take to break down now?), and gone to provide nutrients to the soil as would the bone when it followed later.

As I turned them over in my hands I couldn't help but wonder if our rubbish would be just as interesting to look at and just as nutritious to the ground - McDonalds super-size cartons, Pret Sandwich boxes, Walkers crisps, Coca-Cola cans, Greggs Bakers bags, KFC, Subway. I mention these as these are the brands that have the biggest share of voice on the streets - quite literally - with Mcdonalds packaging making up 29% of litter on the streets and in the countryside according to a survey with Keep Britain Tidy. Research released at the same time by Manchester business school suggests that litter leaves a damaging legacy on a brand's reputation. What do the organisations think - some such as McDonalds seem to make a certain degree of effort - though nothing especially ground-breaking, others such as Red Bull seem to be dissonant at best. When contacted by Tim Barnes from Litter Heroes, who identifies them as one of the worst offenders in his part of the country, RedBull released a statement effectively saying not our responsibility, it's up to the customers to get rid of it properly.

Disappointing, short-sighted and some-what behind the times with many organisations nowadays recognizing to some degree or other their role in ecosystems of community and environment. But beside the truculent nature of the response a few things strike me about the litter debate.

1) There's no doubt there's a huge littering problem. Debate is stuck between 2 absolutes, throwing away (good?) or littering and an argument over where responsibility lies. There's also no doubt that many of our measures are not working - law and logos alike as -Bill Bryson noted on the Litter Heroes website 

 "Now here is a fact to make you sit up. In the three years to last November, the city of Sheffield recorded a rather whopping (but by no means exceptional) 441,361 instances of fly-tipping. In the same period, it managed to catch and prosecute exactly one person" 

2) A less linear and more systems based approach could be taken. With the Keep Britain Tidy logo approaching mid-life perhaps some time for some fresh thinking.

3) Nature litters. All the time, especially in Autumn. Like the thinking in Cradle-to-Cradle and Gunter Pauli's Systems Thinking, could the very nature of litter be transformed. Like blossoms on a tree could it be pretty. Or perhaps biomimicry could be called upon, with inspiration from nature's habit of timed-degradation to ensure it breaks down within a pre-determined time - either as fleeting as butterfly wings for products with a short life span, or to work under tougher, more elemental conditions and last longer taking a note from creatures such as mussels and mussel glue, all then returning into the system as a nutrient. 

4) Perhaps litter could be edible and we could eat it, or feed it to the ducks. We could mimic the spiral structure of the womb to expand and collapse and make it easier to carry and perhaps encourage the right behaviours when out and about. 

5) These supported by other measures such as well positioned bins in hot spot areas sponsored by the companies in question. Rural litter seems to be mostly linked to motorists, as we know by nose-picking, singing aloud and road rage, we all take on a different personality inside our cars. Understanding the nature of the problem, or jobs that motorists are trying to get done, would help drive more solutions for temporarily storing used packaging in cars.

The science is there, there's been much innovation on sustainable packaging and big consortium packaging organisations such as Faraday have been exploring biomimicry and packaging for some time.

It might seem an awful lot of trouble for a minority problem. But actually it's linked to the bigger picture. If this litter is the visible minority, lets say 3%, what about the invisible majority, the other 97%, that we've comfortably thrown away - landfill or recycled - pulped or burned.

If all those Mcd cups, Greggs bags and Pret boxes are recycled into other materials, paper etc. We may feel somewhat better about it? But much of the recycling system is a bolt-on trying to deal with an imperfect input. If it's incinerated for so-called recovered energy, 57 chemical by-products are released. If it's pulped for paper there's still stuff left over, a sludge, in fact according the the environment agency, in UK alone 300,000 tonnes of the stuff - and I guess that must be the dried weight as its converted into an ash - a mixture of bleaches, chemicals, inks and short paper fibres. This has to go somewhere and a lot of it goes back to landfill - I'm not sure the alternatives and plans to divert a third of this into other uses are anymore palatable. In true brush it under the carpet-style it's hidden in our homes and food - building industry - making bricks, cement and other building products - and farming - agricultural liming - a process which influences the pH of the soil - in other words spread on the fields by being legally sold as a soil conditioner! Carrots anyone? See Toxic Sludge is Good for You for further reading on the pr industry.

I guess you could say this re-packaging is systems thinking to a degree, but it only works when dealing with honest inputs and outputs and the resulting products - such as litter - can be both designed and treated as a valuable benefit to all, a truly closed loop network, not by appearances alone.

Organisations like McDonalds and RedBull need to recognise both their inputs and outputs in the bigger picture, the whole linked network with proper published auditing. Would they want to proudly proclaim that their bags of carrots are grown with the aid of chemical paper-mill sludge from their cups?

Not that I want to bash them over the heads with a green club, I'd like to see the whole thinking-turned on its head - as Gunter Pauli's Systems Thinking does, to view every output as a valuable commodity, doing away with the concept of waste, if designed with the right frameworks from the start.

Michigan State University School of Packaging has recently won $400,000 from Coca-Cola to create a packaging innovation sustainability centre - to measure the environmental impact of packaging. Let's hope some good stuff, rather than corporate wool, comes out of there.

A big part of the answer lies in school education - not education on the environmental issues - the symptoms - but on the causes, linear silo thinking. The thinking that separates, biology from home-economics, chemistry from philosophy, business from art and so on. To encourage systems thinking in the workplace we need to sow the right seeds at school. Perhaps then we will design litter as we'd like to see it outside our front-door and that might in turn ensure it's what we'd like to know of it when it's under the floor and on our food.

Going with the flow

Related to the shark blog and the question of flow ... Jay Harman re-designed the fan based on biomimicry - analysing flow forms in nature - to produce greater energy efficiencies. It's a huge market worth more than Hollywood, as exhaust fans are a feature in many bits of kit. 

His company PAX Scientific " is an engineering research and design firm that uses streamlining geometries to design energy, efficient, quiet, and ecologically friendly technology." Definitely an organisation to watch.  More on Jay in another blog and also related to that an exploration of the narrowness of our curriculum and increasingly our home lives too. A line in his bio says "Harman's love of nature began as a boy swimming in the ocean near his home". Experience and wonderment rooted in the natural world help us observe, learn and to ask the right questions, how do our home and school lives enable this experience?