Education - anywhere, anytime, for everyone

This week we would like to highlight an article that was published in the Globe and Mail by Caroline Alphonsso.  Our gappers, and all gappers, are explorers of the world.  They are keenly interested in learning more about themselves, others and the world around them.  Often this means becoming aware of their place in the world and exploring ideas and beliefs around belonging. 

Katimavik, a Canadian volunteer program, recently cancelled by the Federal Government, offered the participants credits for their involvement in the program.   Why is this important, you ask?  Well, I invite you to read this article and think about the intersection of gapping as informal and experiential education.   Maybe while you are taking a gap year you want to learn more about your deepest passions - this could be a good place to start. 

What if anyone around the world could learn from the best instructors, for free? 

Daphne Koller is dramatically transforming the face of higher education, and she’s doing it through technology.  Dr. Koller, a professor at Stanford University, is also the co-founder of Coursera, a major U.S. initiative that offers open online courses for free to anyone in the world, from some of the best instructors in top institutions. The program has about 1.25-million enrolments, proof that students want more out of their university education than simply attending lectures.

More Innovator profiles

• David Helfand What if you only took one class at a time?
  
• Hossein Rahnama What if you could monetize your education?
  
• Robert Mendenhall What if you could receive university credit for what you already know
  

Education Innovator

Daphne Koller: Education as a right

Interactive

Transforming the ivory tower: The case for a new postsecondary education system

Our Time to Lead: Education

Vote: How relevant is Canadian higher education?

"With the technologies that are now available, there is an opportunity to remarkably enhance the traditional lecture experience," Dr. Koller said.
Coursera holds plenty of appeal for older learners and those in remote locations around the world. And traditional undergraduates can build on what they are currently learning with courses that their university does not offer.
Students log in to Coursera, and have lecture modules every week and homework assignments that are graded for free either by their peers or through Coursera’s online program. For those who argue that there’s no substitute for face-to-face interaction, it turns out that students who take these courses self-organize into small online groups to work together. At the end of the course, students receive a certificate if they have mastered the material.
Coursera's success is evidence of the exploding interest in open online courses. More than two dozen universities, including the University of Toronto, offer courses through the online program. For Dr. Koller, it is about not denying anyone the opportunity to learn in a global economy.
"I would like to make it so that education was a right, and not a privilege. [So that] anyone around the world who felt the wish to learn ... that opportunity would be there for anyone, at any time, regardless of their geographic, financial or social circumstances."

The Who, What, How, Where and Whys of Gapping.

           
           

                Browse more data visualization.
           

           
           
           
       

Part II: Alignment: Judger/Learner

There was a reason the blog signed off with a video about the book: Change your Questions, Change your life.    The first question in the next set of questions from Martha Beck is listed below.  If we focus too much on what is wrong, instead of looking towards what is right, or what could be better one can fall victim to aligning yourself and attaching negative experiences.   This traps us.

On October 27th, mygapyear has created a forum to help open two groups to question their relationships, conversations and how they align themselves with a changing world.  Young Men Finding Direction is a collaborative event hosted by mygapyear in partnership with several men who can relate to questioning being a man growing up in the 21st century.  We invite families and their sons to come and explore this question.

In the meantime, laugh and live into these questions.  

11. Where am I wrong?
This might well be the most powerful question on our list—as Socrates believed, we gain our first measure of intelligence when we first admit our own ignorance. Your ego wants you to avoid noticing where you may have bad information or unworkable ideas. But you'll gain far more capability and respect by asking where you're wrong than by insisting you're right.

12. What potential memories am I bartering, and is the profit worth the price?
I once read a story about a world where people sold memories the way we can sell plasma. The protagonist was an addict who'd pawned many memories for drugs but had sworn never to sell his memory of falling in love. His addiction won. Afterward he was unaware of his loss, lacking the memory he'd sold. But for the reader, the trade-off was ghastly to contemplate. Every time you choose social acceptance over your heart's desires, or financial gain over ethics, or your comfort zone over the adventure you were born to experience, you're making a similar deal. Don't.

13. Am I the only one struggling not to {fart} during {yoga}?
I felt profoundly liberated when this issue was raised on Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update." Not everyone does yoga, but SNL reminded me that everyone dreads committing some sort of gaffe. Substitute your greatest shame-fear: crying at work, belching in church, throwing up on the prime minister of Japan. Then know you aren't alone. Everyone worries about such faux pas, and many have committed them (well, maybe not the throwing up on PMs). Accepting this is a bold step toward mental health and a just society.

14. What do I love to practice?
Some psychologists believe that no one is born with any particular talent and that all skill is gained through practice. Studies have shown that masters are simply people who've practiced a skill intensely for 10,000 hours or more. That requires loving—not liking, loving—what you do. If you really want to excel, go where you're passionate enough to practice.

15. Where could I work less and achieve more?
To maximize time spent practicing your passions, minimize everything else. These days you can find machines or human helpers to assist with almost anything. Author Timothy Ferriss "batches" job tasks into his famous "four-hour workweek." My client Cindy has an e-mail ghostwriter. Another client, Angela, hired an assistant in the Philippines who flawlessly tracks her schedule and her investments. Get creative with available resources to find more time in your life and life in your time.

16. How can I keep myself absolutely safe?
Ask this question just to remind yourself of the answer: You can't. Life is inherently uncertain. The way to cope with that reality is not to control and avoid your way into a rigid little demi-life, but to develop courage. Doing what you long to do, despite fear, will accomplish this.

17. Where should I break the rules?
If everyone kept all the rules, we'd still be practicing cherished traditions like child marriage, slavery, and public hangings. The way humans become humane is by assessing from the heart, rather than the rule book, where the justice of a situation lies. Sometimes you have to break the rules around you to keep the rules within you.

18. So say I lived in that fabulous house in Tuscany, with untold wealth, a gorgeous, adoring mate, and a full staff of servants...then what?
We can get so obsessed with acquiring fabulous lives that we forget to live. When my clients ask themselves this question, they almost always discover that their "perfect life" pastimes are already available. Sharing joy with loved ones, spending time in nature, finding inner peace, writing your novel, plotting revenge—you can do all these things right now. Begin!

19. Are my thoughts hurting or healing?
Your situation may endanger your life and limbs, but only your thoughts can endanger your happiness. Telling yourself a miserable mental story about your circumstances creates suffering. Telling yourself a more positive and grateful story, studies show, increases happiness. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, choose thoughts that knit your heart together, rather than tear it apart.

20. Really truly: Is this what I want to be doing?
It's been several seconds since you asked this. Ask it again. Not to make yourself petulant or frustrated—just to see if it's possible to choose anything, and I mean any little thing, that would make your present experience more delightful. Thus continues the revolution.

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Martha-Becks-20-Questions-That-Could-Change-Your-Life_1/3#ixzz27m8mvqKq

Part 1: Alignment: Find the Questions First

Today's blog is part of the fourth and final blogs that relate back to the Book of Awesome.  The power of questions and questioning bring us to unique spaces, both in body and mind that help us to align our vision with our goals.  Ultimately, we see results through this process.    Let's explore some questions, both from tow insightful woman Martha Beck and Marilee Adams. 
 

20 Questions That Could Change Your Life

Finding the answers starts with posing the right questions—and Martha Beck has 20 to get you started.

By Martha Beck

 

1. What questions should I be asking myself?
At first I thought asking yourself what you should be asking yourself was redundant. It isn't. Without this question, you wouldn't ask any others, so it gets top billing. It creates an alert, thoughtful mind state, ideal for ferreting out the information you most need in every situation. Ask it frequently.

2. Is this what I want to be doing?
This very moment is, always, the only moment in which you can make changes. Knowing which changes are best for you comes, always, from assessing what you feel. Ask yourself many times every day if you like what you're doing. If the answer is no, start noticing what you'd prefer. Thus begins the revolution.

3. Why worry?
These two words, considered sincerely, can radically reconfigure the landscape of your mind. Worry rarely leads to positive action; it's just painful, useless fear about hypothetical events, which scuttles happiness rather than ensuring it. Some psychologists say that by focusing on gratitude, we can shut down the part of the brain that worries. It actually works!

4. Why do I like {cupcakes} more than I like {people}?
Feel free to switch out the words in brackets: You may like TV more than exercise, or bad boys more than nice guys, or burglary more than reading. Whatever the particulars, every woman has something she likes more than the somethings she's supposed to like. But forcing "virtues"—trying to like people more than cupcakes—drives us to vices that offer false freedom from oppression. Stop trying to like the things you don't like, and many vices will disappear on their own.

5. How do I want the world to be different because I lived in it?
Your existence is already a factor in world history—now, what sort of factor do you want it to be? Maybe you know you're here to create worldwide prosperity, a beautiful family, or one really excellent bagel. If your impressions are more vague, keep asking this question. Eventually you'll glimpse clearer outlines of your destiny. Live by design, not by accident.

6. How do I want to be different because I lived in this world?
In small ways or large, your life will change the world—and in small ways or large, the world will change you. What experiences do you want to have during your brief sojourn here? Make a list. Make a vision board. Make a promise. This won't control your future, but it will shape it.

7. Are {vegans} better people?
Again, it doesn't have to be vegans; the brackets are for you to fill in. Substitute the virtue squad that makes you feel worst about yourself, the one you'll never have the discipline to join, whether it's ultra-marathoners or mothers who never raise their voices. Whatever group you're asking about, the answer to this question is no.

8. What is my body telling me?
As I often say, my mind is a two-bit whore—by which I mean that my self-justifying brain, like any self-justifying brain, will happily absorb beliefs based on biases, ego gratification, magical thinking, or just plain error. The body knows better. It's a wise, capable creature. It recoils from what's bad for us, and leans into what's good. Let it.

9. How much junk could a chic chick chuck if a chic chick could chuck junk?
I believe this question was originally posed by Lao Tzu, who also wrote, "To become learned, each day add something. To become enlightened, each day drop something." Face it: You'd be better off without some of your relationships, many of your possessions, and most of your thoughts. Chuck your chic-chick junk, chic chick. Enlightenment awaits.

10. What's so funny?
Adults tend to put this question to children in a homicidal-sounding snarl, which is probably why as you grew up, your laughter rate dropped from 400 times a day (for toddlers) to the grown-up daily average of 15. Regain your youth by laughing at every possible situation. Then, please, tell us what's funny—about everyday life, about human nature, even about pain and fear. We'll pay you anything.

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Martha-Becks-20-Questions-That-Could-Change-Your-Life_1/2#ixzz27m6clUcl

Also, if you prefer to listen and learn an interview from Marilee Adams.

 

Authenticity - Emotional Intelligence

This week we are looking at authenticity.   One way to make sense of authenticity, emotional intelligence is a great tool to use to make sense of our strengths, values and what makes us unique. Unlike IQ, EQ can be learned throughout your and can contribute to an opportunity to explore your most authentic self.

According to Goleman, there are five main themes related to EQ.  They are:  
1. Self-Awareness      
2. Managing Emotions      
3. Empathy  
4. Social Skills

Why is emotional intelligence so important?  Why do we use it in our work?  Below is a video series by Daniel Goleman that speaks specifically to the importance of developing IQ in our youth.  He also writes for those in the work force and age groups.  http://danielgoleman.info/

We would like to invite young men and their families to a forum on October 27th, 2012.  We hope to see you at the forum: Young Men - Finding Direction in the Millennium.   Throughout the day we will come together to explore what it means to be a young man growing up in the 21st century.   Part of that is learning about what make us unique and what we want to share with the world, what we would like to do at school, in the workforce, as members of a community and a family.   We are really inspired by the opportunity for growth and learning that will be presented at the forum.  If you are interested in joining us, please visit the website or email us to inquiry further about the day.  We certainly hope you will join us for a day of discovering your most authentic self.

Deepening our Awareness: Universities and Gap Years

 

 Happy Friday!  Following up to last week's blog we are on a theme about awareness.  While Neil is referring to awareness as seeing the world differently.  This week's blog explores how gap years can help inspire a period of awareness for young adults; additionally, the growing awareness and understanding of the purpose of a gap year by universities.  Below is an article that was published in the Vancouver Observer this past week.    

North Americans catching onto
gap year trend 

Source: http://www.vancouverobserver.com/life/travel/north-americans-catching-gap-year-trend#comment-233818

To gap, or not to gap? That is the question.

While the gap year, or “year out”, has been a common and popular rite of passage in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and many countries in Europe for decades,North American students have  traditionally ridden the academic conveyor belt all the way from preschool to university without a break.

Now, the tides are changing and many soon- to-be high school graduates are saying they’re burnt out, and need more time before deciding what they want to take at university. Instead of packing for their first year, they are now booking their flights to go volunteering in Africa, or work on a yacht in the Caribbean.

North America is starting to catch on to the “gap year” trend, and for good reason. Amid concerns about drop-out rates, researchers now say that students who go straight to university often find themselves in a program that doesn’t interest them, and are more likely to change programs, thus prolonging their degree and increasing their debt level, and they are more likely to quit. Experts now say that going straight to university may be short-sighted for some, and a year out is the way to go for some soul-searching.

And taking a gap year has never been easier. Many universities are now willing to defer start dates for a year – York University is embracing this gap year phenomenon with its Bridging the Gap program and “celebrates” a student’s choice to take a year off to gain work experience, do community service or go on an international exchange and will reserve the student’s admission spot for up to a year provided he or she is accepted into the program. Harvard University, one of the top universities in the world, has always been ahead of its time and for the past 40 years has proposed that students take a year out in its letter of admission.

Is there a downside to taking a gap year? Not really, according to a 2008 Statistics Canada report published jointly with Canadian Policy Research Networks. The report found that students who delay post-secondary education don’t face a disadvantage in the labour market later on – as long as they actually complete their program once started. In fact, a Canadian Council of Learning study found that students who took a gap year were eight per cent more likely to be employed upon finishing all their studies.

Understandably, many parents are a little nervous that their son or daughter will be side-tracked and destined to remain degree-less forever. However, even though there are no formal studies on the actual number of gap year students who do make their way to university, admissions staff say that only a few drop off the radar.
On the contrary, one year out in the world can make a young person more focused, better prepared for university life and more likely to complete at least one university degree. After all, it’s not getting into university that counts – it’s getting the degree at the end of the line.

Students who have taken the year out, universities, and the latest statistics aften agree that the gap year was worthwhile. Although it may be a daunting prospect for parents and students to divert from the “safe” bound-for- university-after-high-school route, the rewards and benefits are well worth stepping out of the comfort zone. To find out more about gap year options, come and visit SWAP Working Holidays and Basecamp International Center Volunteer Programs at the Study and Go Abroad Fairs.

The Four As of Awesome: A Change

About a year ago, I had the pleasure of hearing Neil Pasricha speak at a conference.  I  had one burning question:  Why the word awesome?  Why not wonderful, fantastic, magical, whimsical etc.   I never did ask him the question; instead, I found this picture.   

He feeds us a few more As and will provide the theme of the next four posts: attitude, awareness, alignment and authenticity. 

• Attitude – meeting challenges with a positive attitude makes growth possible.
• Awareness – seeing the world as though we’re three years-old reawakens wonder and possibility.
• Authenticity – having the courage to be ourselves so we can follow our hearts and feel fulfilled.
• Alignment – the clarity of knowing your core values and aligning yourself (or your team) with them.

A change in attitude reminded me of this video.  You might remember the Story of Stuff? Well, they have created another video called The Story of Change.