Learningshed

The Qualification Bubble

2010-12-25T12:28:00.000-08:00

We have one of the best Education Systems in the World ! ( Rant!)

Qualification Bubble

To compliment the Irish Property Bubble we have our Qualification Bubble built on the same false premise - rather than everyone becoming rich by investing in property - it is everyone can become rich by acquiring a qualification, a masters or better still a PhD.

The qualification boom moved in unison with the property boom, we built all these new achedemic institutions populated them with fools and then sold qualifications to allcomers.

The double whammy is that the qualified were and are fooled into thinking they are something they are not ..... educated.

The new institutions and courses mushroomed we now have qualifications in every subject, we can hardly go to the bathroom without a qualification and knowledge of "best practice". Qualifications are the new devalued currency suffering from rapid inflation and soon will go bust.

We have populated the Universities with mediocrity, people who have no life experience just book learning. These people are often arrogant and uneducated and hunger after the power privilege and status of being a lecturer.

The rumblings are beginning..... Ireland will soon be found out for having an over qualified and undereducated population.

Civil Society Irish Style - Claim Jumpers

2010-12-25T09:58:00.001-08:00

Hi,

Have you heard of the new crowd on the bock - Civil Society Irish Style. Civil Society is now being cornered in Ireland by the NGO's ... the Poverty Industry, the Development / Aid Industry and the Qualifications Business. They now have the answers !

Civil Society in Ireland consists of Family, Church, GAA, Soccer Clubs, Womens Groups, Mens Groups, Card Clubs, Tennis Clubs, Lions Clubs, Gardening clubs etc...... and yet it is now being hijacked by power grabbers the professional NGO's

The NGO's represent vested interests and are interested in protecting their power, their status their income and their privilege. They have pursuits like helping the poor, they come from the colonial imperialist model of behaviour and are of little value to a sane society.

They are professional advocates or self proclaimed representatives of the poor and disadvantaged and their careers are dependant on maintaining the status quo. They are the needy in that they require more than most, they require that feeling associated with do-gooders, that feeling of superiority and privilege that allows them stay in positions of power, positions that perpetuate and are contingent on the dependency culture they profess to eliminate.

The current claim grabbers have taken all the space of Civil Society and claim a purity they do not rightfully possess. They are not Civil Society but impostors and claim grabbers who hunt power status and privilege and lack that essential humility and culture of service.

They are lifers, career helpers and facilitators of dependency who earn their money from the distress of others whom they then claim to represent or act on their behalf as advocats.

We need to look at all the power and privilage hunters and query their motivation and credentials. Why remove one set of power hungry people and replace them with another.

Striving versus Being

2010-01-29T03:05:00.000-08:00

Hello,

Ever get caught up with all the stuff going on, Internet, blogs, new gadgets, cars, clothes houses. Do you find it difficult just to switch into observing and being. Ever feel that all the doing, accumulating and achieving is just a cushion, a buffer between us and life.

Perhaps all our striving is just denial, we will do anything , whatever, to avoid the truth. Perhaps life would be a lot more rewarding and less stressful if we could accept.

So what would we accept? Well perhaps we would accept that we are more like the rest of living entities than we care to admit. Perhaps we are no more important and have no different a role that the trees or grass or frogs. We are born we develop, we mate, we nest and nurture. We grow old and we die. In-between we have moments of pleasure and of pain and with most areas of life that we encounter we have far less control than we pretend.

Our life cycle is no different that the life-cycle of a spider or a potato plant, but how we strive and strut to deny this. Sure we have intelligence however we are a very primitive species.

So is this a dismal tale? Well not really. Perhaps if we accept reality we would address the real issues, have real values and stop running away from what we know and fear deep down. Perhaps we would get close to nature, to people and to the planet and enjoy the big things in life that we ignore every day. The sun rising, the clouds passing, the wind blowing all these big things that we have made little.

So what about the rest of life, learning, working, making money, the BUZZ?

Perhaps we have turned life upside down, suffer from addictions and crave acceptance for our achievements and possession's and fail to identify the nourishment we need. Perhaps we need to restore the balance, become aware of what we are doing, realise we have more choice and less control than we admit.

Do we ever stand back and ask what really matters to us, what do we value, what could we not live without, what are our needs.

So where to start?

Perhaps at the beginning and end of each day ask whether you are doing what you really want to do this day. You have one life and each day is for living, just bring some awareness into your life look for you addictions and denials and connect with people and nature.

Have a go, you owe it to yourself.

2009-11-27T12:02:00.000-08:00

This is an image of community life painted by a participant in CommunityCafé .ie

Values 2

2009-11-17T13:28:00.000-08:00

Just thinking about values in while walking in the park today. I was wondering why we follow the values that are the norm and why we need to have different values held up to us. Why do we need a vision and why are values so important in that vision.

I feel we all seek acceptance and approval and how better to get this than to follow the accepted prevailing values. At the moment a lot of the prevailing values are about growth, achievement and material acquisition.

Before there is a shift to more grounded values we need a vision painted that espouses new values and only when the new values have some social acceptance will a majority of people embrace them. Unfortunately the line people follow like sheep has validity, we need some social acceptability for the values we aspire . We need champions to espouse new values of social cohesion, well-being, equality before they gain widespread acceptance.

We have limited resource of energy, application , time and talent and it is important that these resources are applied to areas that make a difference.

Currently so much human endeavour is whittled away on mindless pursuits ... just look at X-factor , the apprentice Big Brother etc ... they are a fair barometer of the state of our current values.

We need a new vision articulated by you.

Education Stuck in a Rut

2009-10-08T04:20:00.000-07:00

Obsolete with an excessive bias towards the academic, slow dull and suitable for another era, this could be a description of our current educational system.

The country or countries to catch up with our kids and adult learners will be the country that will excel. Life has moved on from the current educational model, it is no longer relevant we need to change and move forward to reflect the new world, We then need to foster innovation and creativity in our education system but first we need to catch up.

We have not adjusted to YouTube, Google, face book, Be BO Twitter, Blogs, Internet Marketing,

Can you imagine learning spaces that inspire, link to the outside integrate with the fabric of their village,town or city. Spaces that use form, proportion and colour to energise. Spaces that are filled with light that facilitate creativity and learning.

Classrooms that allow movement, encourage engagement and participation, learning places and learning spaces. Can you imagine a teacher who asks questions, draws out the views of learners, a teacher who is open to learning rather than lecturing.

Knowledge and data are freely available now on the Internet, cramming learners with data is like overfeeding our kids with junk food. We all need to learn the skills of problem solving, research, questioning and this needs to happen in a complete world or planet view context.

Subjects need to become whole and connected rather than separate, subjects like economics need to be learned in a living responding environment, and the impact of economics on communities and the environment included. Our education needs to move from linear thinking to web thinking with the connections receiving as much attention as the individual subjects.

So much to consider and change..... when will we move from our current stodgy rut ?

Values and Needs

2009-09-24T08:25:00.000-07:00

Interesting to contemplate what we need in life and what do we value at present. Is there a gap between our needs and our desires and where do both come from.
My desires are probably to a large extent picked up from what is going on around me, what others have or are doing, what is in the environment around me. Over time I think desires change, some with fashion others depending on the norms that I live in.

I feel we have focused almost exclusively on economic growth and development over the past ten to fifteen years to the exclusion of more basic values and needs.
To get our desired economic growth we have paid a large price which has taken a toll on community and family.

We need strong cohesive supportive communities and yet the impact of economic policies on community is seldom considered. If we are serious about the importance of community then we need to assess the impacts of our policies on community cohesion, development and survival.

What does it benefit a society if it gains economic wealth and looses community viability.

The effect of the focus on economic growth has also had an impact on family well being and stability. Is this impact considered in pursuing our economic goals.

Constant economic growth also has a major impact on environment, do we really need all the stuff we clutter our lives with ? more landfill.

We are probably all addicted to growth, and consumption at this stage and feel very hard done by this recession, even those of us who still have more than enough.

Perhaps we need to find our way forward to new values and new structures and new ways of living that will meet our need for family, community and sustainable environment.

The World We Want

2009-09-21T06:08:00.000-07:00

The world politicians and media commentators all wish to get back to growth, to restore what we have lost due to the current economic crisis. There are very few looking at the type of world we would love to create.

One issue is that power rests more and more with large business and large business in general wants consumption and growth.

Those who reach the dizzy heights of financial wealth are no happier than those nearer the prevailing income and yet they seem to know no better or have no wider a vision than economic and financial growth.

Perhaps we need new measures for self actualisation, measures of well being, sustainability, community cohesion, beauty, equality and more.

What are we chasing, well one of the stock answers is that without jobs and income we cannot have choice or our choices are very limited. While this may be partly true it is not the full story, we have more choice in every situation than we realise.

Getting the conventional job and income often brings severe constraints, we can loose a large part of our quality time to a non creative environment. Work is often boring and frustrating and getting the full package of house and car often ties us to a pretty dull life.

Is there a better vision, a better possibility, I don't know but it certainly warrants contemplation, If we designed our lives from scratch would we design what we have today ?

It is so easy to take the ride in the groove and limit our experience to what is available on the banks of the groove which over time deepens to a gorge.

Don't buy the ready packaged life, pick the loose fruit every day and watch your wheel of life for every rut.

Learning

2009-09-15T10:43:00.000-07:00

Perhaps if we approach each other from the perspective of accepting that we all have unique life experience and that one experience is as valid as the next. We do tend to classify experiences as good or bad, perhaps they just are !

People often say that kids know so much today, do they really ? or do they just know different things and not know lots of things that we know or knew. We have huge expectations of people in all areas of life and if they are trained or qualified we tend to forget that they are like us, human with fears and vulnerability.

A nurse once told me of the trauma she experienced in A&E when she began working there. She was expected by all to be able to cope because she was trained..... There is no training that can prevent the feeling and trauma of many life events. This nurse felt that most nurses struggled with witnessing the pain and suffering of others. She felt she was a young girl with no real preparation for the shock and awfulness of some of the scenes she witnessed. We have similar expectations of police , ambulance, fire and social workers and lots more.

At the end of the day we have so much common vulnerability and profession or uniform do not exempt any from the impact of tragic tragic events. Perhaps we need to realise that we are all just people, struggling with life to a greater or lesser extent.

Work and Values

2009-09-14T10:17:00.000-07:00

Hmmm.... More and more now I wonder about work, is it now an end in itself , sometimes worshiped. It's sort of amazing, i am always fascinated by the American view of work , it's just so big and features so strongly hmmmmm ...

For lots of people work is a drag for others an addiction or escape some are lucky enough to have chosen rewarding work. whats rewarding work .. well when you can see the results perhaps even feel the results, you may have created something, made a unique contribution. Most work is repetitive, with lots of wasted time and effort. Two years ago a farmer called down to me and asked me to help him, he had an old finger-bar mower and wanted to fix it to cut some rushes. We eventually fitted a new blade and then went on to the next job. The cow was walking into his back garden and he wanted to fence her out, we cut down a few bushes and put them in the gap. This brought us to lunchtime.
The next day i met the farmer and asked how things were going. Well the mower broke again half way down the first pass of the field and then the cow broke through the bushes and into the garden.

This was a half day's work down the drain and the farmer may even have felt stressed with his workload. Different perspectives.

Did you ever notice the walk of people with different professions, the 'important person' walk the 'I'm busy person' walk. People take on the persona of their work... All a bit odd

Work probably started as the means to provide food and shelter, perhaps betterment , building an enhanced physical future. Then somewhere it just got out of control and we lost the plot.

Hmmm ... must cook dinner

Living with and without the web

2009-09-13T03:58:00.000-07:00

Today I am somewhat overwhelmed by it possibly addicted to it and it is so time consuming. There is so much in life to choose so many places to use my time and energy and how do I divide it out between the different activities.

I have a resistance to plannning out a schedule of my time, I feel confined by that, a sort of tyranny ? Perhaps a balance between some structured time and free-flow time could be the answer. The structured time requiring discipline and the free-flow ... well whatever..

It's just that time is moving so fast for me I wish I could just slow it down sometimes.

However to get back to the start There is just so much to learn on the web I find I can teach myself almost everything from how to set up this blog to how to make raised beds, grow blueberries it just overwhelms me sometimes.

I know there is so much out there about using the web to learn and communicate and I feel I want to keep up to date and yet I still find it so time consuming.... like right now the sun is shining so I feel I need to be out in it , we get so little of it here, I also need to paint the ceiling in the sitting room, search for a car on the net and get some exercise - well the web has won for now but I am sitting in the shade in the garden and I will surf for a suitable car ... soon.

Oh I want to build a low cost Eco house in France south of Toulouse - I don't want a rip off price but i do want style and proportion about 100 m2 lots of light high (3.5m) ceilings some bit of character and a place that will fit in with the landscape .... Any help or ideas ?

Must go on that car search now ! €1000 small economical car !!!