Morning Meeting by Bert? Improv! – D56

This morning Bert was going to facilitate the meeting, but since he has been sick (rumor says that he has pneumonia) we facilitated as a group. First we watched some videos and wait for the other because we were only 8, and then only three more arrived later and we discussed a quote Bert gave us. We changed the method of the attendance sheet, so now everyone is responsible for putting his or her name on the respective column and that way we will know who's absent.

These are the videos we watched for today's morning meeting:

TED2012 remixed, 60 Second Adventures in Economics (combined), The History of Nikola Tesla, The History of Thomas Edison, and The History of Che Guevara.

We also discussed this quote, first in pairs and then as a group.

“…(As a public school teacher) I teach the lesson of dependency. Good people wait for a teacher to tell them what to do. This is the most important lesson of all, that we must wait for other people, better trained than ourselves, to make the meaning of our lives…We’ve built a way of life that depends on people doing what they are told because they don’t know any other way.”

- John Taylor Gatto

On Time... And New Method

The Crime of the Zebra

Visit to Acton Academy Guatemala – Friday 21

We got an invitation from Daniel Herbruger to visit the Acton Academy, a student-centered school. I long time before, I heard about this school and after thinking and inspecting their program I am persuaded that when I have kids, they would definitely study in this kind of schools. It’s a place where students learn to think by themselves and learn what they are interested in; they specialize in what they like.

So, I wanted to meet the students and faculty a long time ago and now Daniel was inviting us. We had a dialogue, which they called it, Socrate’s Café, in reference to a book, and we discussed the following question: Do I have to listen to my parents? It was a very interesting dialogue with the middle school students and some of the faculty. I got to the conclusion that mothers think and advice their children more guided by their instincts, since they have this protective instinct caused by nature and us being with them for 9 months before we are born. On the other hand, fathers may think and advice more guided by reason. We may confuse this with how they understand us, so it is more probable to have a more fluid and easy talk with fathers than mothers, thus we may listen more to fathers. I’m not saying is this way, but it was a conclusion based on the experiences of the members of this dialogue.

After the dialogue, Daniel and I started talking about the education system and the potential of the student-centered systems. We also talked about documentation and its importance in our learning process of life.

Check out the book! Socrate's Café 

Documentary: “La Educación Prohibida” – D11

After a long and exhausting week, we decided to watch a documentary called “La Educación Prohibida”. We haven’t finished it, but it is about the traditional educational system and what it does to the students. Do we really learn and get educated on school? Is there another way to learn? A better one? A student-centered one? Now a day, most of the teachers don’t know their students, so how could they decide which method is best for their learning? We are in a culture in which we expect to receive everything, specifically knowledge, from someone else and always wait for an authority to tell us how things are and how they should be. We have stopped thinking! Is that sustainable or by any means good for mankind? We have to create spaces were people actually think; places were the teacher is only to help in the process of learning but not to teach what he or she wants or was told to “teach”. Instead of getting worried about what they would “teach” us and what to think, they should be worried about teaching us how to think by ourselves. It was an excellent end to the week.

*Here is the link to watch the documentary: La Educación Prohibida