Just now I've read
Oksana's blog.
Maybe I should have longer posts too... though I have
another blog exclusively for AIESEC.
But whatever... this is about my life, and if you want I can share more.
I started this whole blog
in medias res.
I was talking about a decision. But didn't say anything about it. Well, you can see some links referring to studies on the right side... Basically, this is it. I'm moving. To UK. To study. To get professional experience.
I'm reading a whole lot of books about school development, learning, brain, child development, education, etc. I will list them at the end of this post.
How, or more importantly, why did I make this decision?
Good question.
Because I want to make a change! There has to be a better way. And
I believe I can make a difference.
Just yesterday I read an interview made with Gordon Dryden, author of the book
The Learning Revolution. Here is an extract from him:
"In Silicon Valley they have a great model, called "crossing the chasm". That is based on the concept that 2% of adults are innovators and 13% are early adopters of new methods — and then there is a great chasm to cross before those new ideas are grasped by the 70% who make up the majority — leaving the 15% laggards to follow on later."
I believe myself to be an innovator, but, probably belonging to the 13% early adopters. In either way, I can contribute a lot!
And this is what I'm going to do. Change people's lives for a better one.
I'm talking about education, schooling, the formal one, the good-old-prussian that we have... But not only about this. People. It is essential for me, to work
FOR the people. This became clear very early.
My passion for education just got stronger over time. I had to expereince things, like my own university, the current one. You don't know if something is good unless you have seen a worse one. I'm not complaining. Because you can learn from everything. It's up to you, as we usually say.
My mum was a high school teacher. For about 40 years. The last couple years were terrible for her. It just became such a different world than the one when she started. It was not anymore a virtue to be good at studying. Of course, there are so many different things in the background. I'm not blaming anyone. Nevertheless, she couldn't adopt to these new circumstances in school.
I'm quite intuitive. It has been never difficult for me to feel if there was need for change. As if I could feel some "forces". And I understand new concepts, ideas pretty fast and I'm good at seeing the interdependencies (if somebody thinks diferently, pls comment). So I started to make this whole process more concious. There has been 3 big milestones till now:
1. My stay in UK. In 2002 I was an au pair at a british family. One afternoon I went down to the living room and spotted a book on the coffe table. The cover looked interesting, so I started to read it. There was a story about a guy who delivered poor results at school. But later he became straight A's. There were some curves, and modells, colourful pictures... and it said anyone could be straight A's.
Use Your Head by Tony Buzan.
2. My stay in Finland. In 2004/2005 I worked at the
AIESEC office in Lappenranta. On new year's eve we visited other AIESECers in Tampere. There again, I was recommended a book. Actually two.
Photoreading by Paul R. Scheele and
The Einstein Factor by Win Wenger. Thanks Janne. (Recommended readings for everyone!)
3. Easter 2006. My boyfriend and I went for a walk after heavy lunch at Easter. We talked a lot. About my frustration that I didn't progress with my studies, about his worries that he didn't see what I wanted from life, he was worried that I was worried... where was the way out? At that point we didn't come to any conclusion I think. But after we arrived back home something important happened. Pepez (my boyfriend) was searching on the internet... and then showed me 4 universities in the UK. 4 courses to be precise. Courses with the title "Education studies". You can find the course descriptions on the right side (links).
The decision was made.This is the "past" part of the story.
I promised the book list, but I will put it in a later post.
Thanks for reading it through :)))
