Day Sixteen - Why?

Day Sixteen

It really is 1:30 am here as I write this one, but again it is still before midnight in Finland, so it is just inside day sixteen as I start it, even though it will not be when I finish.

Yep, I know this is crazy but such is the power of being on an unbroken streak of posts.

It was really great to see the comments yesterday, not only from the regular like Dr. Slowbow, but also Donald Clark.  I am flattered by that.  Donald’s own blog on education can be found here.  I would say that Donald enjoys being provocative more than I do and does it much better as well.  But what I most like about Donald and his views of education is that he walks the talk.  He does build up real businesses and he does teach and he does participate as a school governor.   He does not just stand and shout criticism from the sidelines.

I really want to return to yesterday’s topic in future posts and explore some aspects of it in more detail and reflect upon the comments made, in fact that was my plan for tonight as well.  However I got really bogged down preparing a presentation that I need for tomorrow morning and that is why I am here now writing at the time of the night.

So for now I am just going to look at one tiny aspect of the debate around education commoditization and that is the “why” aspect.   Simon Sinek managed to get a whole book out of a reasonable TED talk on the idea of starting with why.  Although that line sounds very cynical, in fact I think the idea is an important one.

You see, I would say that when Donald decides to invest and become involved in an education start up, it seems to me to be because he gets really excited about an idea that he thinks has great potential to improve education.   Then, because it often is a good idea, the money comes.  The profit is the byproduct.  I think that is fine and great.

However I think that part of what depressed me was the thinking of some people I spoke to this week was the other way round.  Instead it went along the lines of “we wanted to start a business and education seemed to be an area we thought we could exploit with the purpose of making a profit, so we came up with this idea.”   Of course, no one actually put it like that, but really that seemed to be the line of thinking.

Which brings me to the program that I manage and my job.  I believe that my program empowers teachers that it enables them to grow and develop as educators.  This is what the graduates tell me, this is what we have seem in their classrooms with students.  In fact I do not just believe it, I know it to be a fact because I have seen it.  So the ‘Why’ really is that I know that students in classrooms around the world are having a better learning and assessment experience because of the program.  It just happens that because of this we make money as well.   This theme will be continued…..

For now, as Ringo would say  “Peace and Love”.