This is paper 3 in CCK08

Reflect on the opportunities and resistance found in society and organizations in adopting different approaches to teaching and learning.

Why is it so difficult to change the practice of education?

All institution aim to stay as they are. Teachers have got priviledges and they want to keep them and perhaps more. We have school buildings and classrooms – so we have to use them effectively. Certification systems are the way forward to universities.. to high salaries and so on. Show must go on, you know. In this blog a friend of mine is pondering “What is wrong in ..?” We have a lot to do, I suppose.

What kinds of opportunities can we embrace if we are able to make fundamental and systemic changes?

That is a tough question. I don’t know, really. Can embrace? .. is wise to embrace? is possible to embrace? I see fundamental and systemic changes need changes in human consciousness. Political decisions are always surface compromises. Changes in consciousness happen very slowly if they are deep. The best in last week was the video of Howard Rheingold (Ted ideas worth of sharing, 19 minutes). That video was just what I needed, it gave me back the Hope of Better Future. He has been working with these issues some 30 years and he still believes in mankind. Thanks for it.

What can we learn from voices of resistance?

Voices of resistance force us to consider deeper, to argument better and to be persistent. Not bad?  But I have to confess that often I am tired about resistance, I don’t love it :)

Can our current world of weak ties and easy connections produce the depth of learning required to meet the complex challenges facing our future?

This is most important and tough to answer. Howard gave me hope. He saw the Way: new collaboration. We need next economy form after capitalism, new forms of well being. We already have certain kind of sharing (Linux, Google, Wikipedia) . We have projects of collaboration, so it is possible. We don’t know enough yet.. what the basic principles will be, but we have to think about it. Get the co-operation project started, said Howard Rheingold to us.

There are projects, indeed. You ain’t yet, says Pekka Himanen, great young Finnish philosopher, at the end of “The Finnish Dream.” I am already a member of Global Dignity. Welcome there! These projects require effort and collaboration!

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Reflection: I am astonished about writing, I had taken a break in CCK08 because I had to write an article in Finnsh and I was busy and full of stress and my English was sleeping totally. But here I am, gathered some thought, sharing them. Sorry that haven’t read others’ blog posts and can’t link to them. But some day I will. And I am in time, it is three hours to midnight in Finland just now when I publish this. So I am not a bad student, yeah?