One of my other new projects is contributing content (i.e. resources for DIY learners) and cross-posting profiles to DIY U author Anya Kamenetz’s Edupunks Guide site! This post includes the first profilee I posted to the Edupunks Guide site. I met Andrea Savage after a friend of hers told me she was attending Goddard College, a school I am considering eventually attending which allows for self-designed distance learning, and has fully-accredited Undergraduate and Masters programs.

Andrea grew up being told and knowing that going to college was “what you were supposed to do.” Sitting down at Cafe Gratitude in Berkeley, California where she currently lives, she told me, “I was on the private school liberal arts-college path my entire life. When I was in second grade I asked my dad ‘When can I start my application to Stanford?’” She ended up deciding to attend a prestigious small private liberal arts school in California once she graduated high school, and for the first two years she enjoyed the experience, for the most part, although she would joke that it was “like an expensive summer camp.” At that point, “I started opening up spiritually and consciously” she says. She started to realize that this particular educational experience was no longer for her when she was sitting in an environmental policy class. “I really found it interesting, but we never learned any problem-solving tips, just about all the problems. I was sitting in that class and I was on Facebook, and I thought to myself, ‘What am I doing? This class probably costs $300 per class and I’m on Facebook, that’s absurd! I wasn’t doing the reading but I was getting straight A’s and I knew the information, but it really wasn’t what I wanted.” She ended up stumbling upon a talk given by progressive education advocate Alfie Kohn, and as she puts it, “it blew my mind.” Andrea had been trying to self-design her major at Occidental, and she eventually realized that she was spending so much time jumping through hoops and trying to educate herself, and she “didn’t need to be spending $30,000 a year to do that.” At this point, Andrea had heard of Goddard College, located in Vermont, from a friend of hers who attended the school. Goddard College allowed for self-designed distance learning, with week-long residencies each semester that allowed for time to meet with professors to design the upcoming semester of work. It was also a lot cheaper than the college Andrea was attending- about $12,000 per year. Andrea’s friend had recently received her “packet” back from professors at Goddard, which included five pages of a professor’s comments on a thiry page essay she had written. “I’d never gotten that much feedback on an essay,” Andrea reflected.

Andrea presenting her research in Nepal

Andrea decided to transfer to Goddard for her junior year while still living near the campus of her previous school. She also was able to study abroad for a semester in Nepal and Bhutan, and became involved in projects involving the education systems and Bhutan’s famous Gross National Happiness method of measuring it’s country well-being. Eventually, Andrea moved to Northern California as she continued to to learn through doing. This included working at local schools, taking a permaculture course in San Francisco, working in community gardens, and learning to build a website that showcased interviews with people about their connection to growing and eating food. She completed a Bachelor’s degree in Education Studies through Goddard this past year, and is now starting her own edible landscaping business in the San Francisco Bay Area. “It’s hard to leave [traditional] school, you know, it’s such a cultural thing,” she says, “People think something’s wrong, like you have emotional issues. But no, I just didn’t need that.” Although it was a difficult choice and transition to change from one school to another, Andrea is very happy with the decision she made and experience she ended up having.

The word entrepreneurship has become a buzzword, brought on by the need for jobs and innovation given the economic state of our world. We know that the current educational system is not adequately preparing students with the entrepreneurial and flexible mindset needed for the changing nature of work. However, I feel as if there is in some ways too much of a focus on the word entrepreneur, which in most cases conjures up an image of a sole person who is building their own thing and creating something entirely new. Yes, we do need these people. And yes, there seems to be more and more resources, funding, and educational structures emerging to support them. But what we also need, are system builders, network weavers, point people, infrapreneurs, and intrapreneurs. Say what?

Two weeks ago I met with Rithesh Menon, Director of Partnerships for StartingBloc, which is a network and training program for young leaders. When I said that I was on a journey to explore the emerging trends and models for educating social entrepreneurs and innovators, he responded by saying that he wasn’t a big fan of the term social entrepreneur. StartingBloc, which is both a network and training program, is a community of people who are brought together by a common trait: they are all wanting to change or impact the world in some way. For some people this may mean that they have an idea for a social venture that they are willing to build and lead. However, there are many other roles that are needing to be filled in order to leverage true change.

It seems to me that many social initiatives, NGOs, and enterprises are siloed, which is not surprising due to tough competition for funding, investment, and recognition. But there are people who design their work to intentionally and skillfully weave together different efforts, often in the roles of consultants or free agents. They are connectors and facilitators acting as a neutral third party to assess various entities and efforts, helping to weave them together in such a way that their impact is more easily scalable and effective. As we see a demand for increasing collaboration in the work world, we will need these cross-pollinators to facilitate the partnerships and exchanges that occur. If you look around, you may notice that it’s becoming more common for people to work as a free agent or consultant to various groups (check out the Generation Flux article in Fast Company).

Cassie Robinson helped to create www.thepointpeople.com, “a creative adhocracy working across sectors to facilitate systemic and cultural change.”

I first began thinking about these roles while I was in London last October and met with Cassie Robinson who was based at the co-working space Hub Westminister. Cassie is a perfect example of someone who is deeply committed to the system as a whole rather than just one project. As she puts it, “I’m interested in system builders as opposed to entrepreneurs.” She works on several different projects, and is able to bring various perspectives and opinions to them. Cassie and I talked about how much our society celebrates the entrepreneur, when we really need to be looking at these system changer roles as well.

As Cassie explained to me, “I can never apply to any programs for personal development, or support, or funding. You can apply if you’re a social entrepreneur.” She gave me an example of something called The Big Venture Challenge which awards 25 of the top entrepreneurs in the country. “I phoned them up because I just wanted to challenge them a little bit. In the application you had to say how you would go into an area in the UK and how you would basically help low-income people out of poverty. My argument to them was, ‘Why are you looking for a lone entrepreneur with one idea to be able to do that? There’s no way one organization or entrepreneur will be able to do that. There’s different aspects of a social problem like poverty and it would require a system for people. Why don’t you invest in people who know who those ten organizations would be and who could hold that together?’” They didn’t get it, although Cassie was understanding of their reaction as this need isn’t widely recognized at the moment. In addition to Cassie, I have had various other similar conversations that have come to the same conclusion. Funders and investors need to recognize, reward, and incentivize these critical roles to enable more people to take them on as jobs in the realm of social development. 

On the other hand, there is also a need for those who work within an organization or business that already exists and who innovate from within. I’m all in for creating new structures and recombinations. But the fact is, there are so many existing things that can benefit from fresh insight and begin to evolve to become something more adapted for the present and future. We call these people intrapreneurs, and like system builders, I feel that there is not enough emphasis or even education on these roles and their importance. Let’s ensure that the evolving educational systems will be mindful of these gaps that need to be filled.

I could go on about this but for now I will just leave you all with a TEDx talk that also touches on these ideas!

Our education system is based on extrinsic motivation, which is defined as “motivation that comes from outside an individual,” such as money or other rewards. In the conventional school system, students go through classwork in order to receive a good grade, to get their diploma, to go to college, and to then get a job in our consumer market-based economy (which is an unsustainable economic system in itself). The love of learning purely for the sake of learning tends to leave us early in this system, and we also lose a sense of relevance. Besides becoming a worker and consumer in our world’s economy, for what other reason are we learning? Many people get to college after having worked hard in high school to achieve acceptance at their dream school, only to end up asking themselves, “why am I doing this? Is this what I want?” It’s easy to get caught up in the rat race. 

Contrary to the conventional school system, innovators and world changers are motivated by intrinsic motivation. They find joy and a sense of purpose in leaving a positive impact on the world. Several friends ask me how I continue to have a drive to learn on my own without school. I answer that I genuinely love learning about these issues, people, and projects. By learning, I am better able to help contribute to new solutions and ideas. Even if I am not receiving extrinisic rewards (like compensation or a grade), I would still be motivated to do these things. Of course, we all have bills to pay and making a living wage from working and learning based on intrinsic motivation can be the challenge, but there are ways to do it.

My own personal belief is that we are all aspiring changemakers. Whether we know it or not, I think that everyone wants to live a life in which they have done something that has a positive impact on something besides one’s self. The emerging neuroscience of compassion and empathy shows us that we are hardwired to do good, and that people do not find sustainable happiness through competition, greed, or envy. We feel better when people around us are healthy, happy, and productive. If we were to have an educational system that encouraged collaboration, made learning relevant, let students take ownership in their education, and was productive in terms of making our environment and people around us better, students would be more motivated, interested, and happier in the process of learning. 

This is why The Eduventurist Project is not driven to simply tell the stories of people learning in different ways. It’s more specifically looking at how people who are intrinsically motivated by doing good are finding ways to take ownership of their education, careers, and life paths to better align them with a deeper sense of purpose. This fuels Eduventure 2012, and further explains why I am exploring these models of educating changemakers. 

One particular model of action learning for changemakers that I’d like to share is being used by Make Sense. Several weeks ago, my friend and Make Sense gang member Kate Ettinger of Mural Institute offered to organize a “Hold Up” for the Eduventurist Project. Make Sense was started by a French business school student Christian Vanizette, and is an international organization with “hot spots” around the world in which trained members of the Make Sense gang (a.k.a “gangsters”) organize Hold ups and get together to creatively help social entrepreneurs in the challenges they face. Learn more from the video below: 

My hold-up was organized in the San Francisco hot spot, and the challenge was to help me think further about what I could end up creating out of what I learn from Eduventure 2012. Kate made a video from the hold up and the resulting ideas which included:

• Mimic My Comic: A web platform in which people can create comics out of their alternative education paths
• The Eduventure Challenge: Get teams of students from various educational backgrounds together to compete in a competition to come up with solutions to various global challenges.
• Playground: Traditional schools are paired with an alternative learning program through an evaluative process, and together they incubate ideas for the future of education, which are showcased through 5-minute pitches and can be awarded with a “kid’s choice” or “guardian’s choice” award. 

Definitely some cool ideas to get me thinking big about what can come out of this journey!

If you’d like to learn more about the Hold Up process, you can watch the video which features Christian, the Make Sense co-founder: 

In my last post I talked about the financial challenges that many Eduventurists face. I’m always amazed by and admire those who continue to pursue their interests and passions, even when life brings on one challenge after another. In February I met Job Amaro at the Ashoka U conference, and saw him again when I sat down with him for a conversation over lunch in DC (he lives in Virginia) two weeks ago. Job is an IT consultant for Ashoka, he’s 21 years old, and I can honestly say that he is one of the most amazing and resilient people I have met on my journey thus far. Job is a perfect example of a talented autodidact who is facing challenges in the higher education system, but has still managed to foster his love of learning.

Job grew up in an immigrant household with very traditional and hardworking parents. He had to mature pretty quickly while facing various difficulties such as his parents divorce, the loss of his father’s job, and limited financial resources. However, this early independence is one of the contributing factors to his ability to learn on his own. From a young age he would take things apart in order to learn about how they worked. “My aunt would get frustrated whenever I went over to her house, because I would always take my cousin’s toys apart” he laughs. He also would do the same thing to computers, which taught him more about tech and computer systems. When he graduated from high school, he began attending a local community college, but was forced to drop out after one semester when his father became unemployed.

Job showed me around DC after our interview!

Even so, through a series of serendipitous connections, Job became connected to Ashoka through his IT company.  ”I replaced a coworker there because I told my boss I was bored at work,” he tells me. He moved to an onsite role as an IT consultant for the organization and has become more interested in social entrepreneurship, as Ashoka is one of the most prominent networks for social entrepreneurs in the world. He also spends time attending hackathons and other networking and learning events in DC and the surrounding area. What does he hope for the future? He finds it hard to say, but aspires to work on his own start-up in the future. He definitely has the talent and drive for it if you ask me!

At the end of our conversation, Job tells me, “I’m taking the lessons that I’ve learned, throughout my life, and trying to apply them to other people who would be in similar circumstances.” His love of learning comes along with a thirst to help others, which I continue to see as a shared trait among various Eduventurists

A clear day in New York

After having been in New York for two weeks now, it’s been interesting to contrast what I’ve been discussing with entrepreneurs and educators against what my friends and peers have been telling me in regards to the reflections from their own paths. Yes, I’ve been meeting with respected organizations and journalists, participating in entrepreneurial learning sessions at General Assembly, and even attending a great class at NYU on social entrepreneurship. But throughout all this, I’ve been couchsurfing in Brooklyn with art students, visiting friends who attend an elite small liberal arts school in upstate New York, and sitting down at cafes in DC and New York with other Eduventurists who are entirely out of the school system. This contrast between the two groups provides me with both a macro and micro view of the same issues. Anya Kamenetz, an advisor of mine who I interviewed last year and met with again last week, has written numerous articles and books about Gen Y and our future. These are my peers, classmates, as well as good friends that I collapse into laughter with and exchange deep thoughts and questions with. We spend hours talking about our futures, what we are proud of, and what is preventing us from accomplishing what we dream of. This brings me to what I want to talk about in this post: the bumps along the road or mountains we face as we navigate this unfolding landscape.  

Deciding to take the road less traveled can be difficult for various reasons. The degree of difficulty and challenges presented vary from person to person depending upon their life situation. I find myself constantly asking the question, “If we are to create a world and culture where different ways of learning, working, and living are more widely accepted and accessible, what concretely do we need to change?” I’ve often joked that I’m writing the very guidebook that I myself need and would want to use at this point in my life. I thought it might be helpful to discuss some of the common challenges that have been described to me while interviewing various other students, those who have found solutions and those who are still trying to overcome challenges. One big challenge, which is the focus of this particular post, is finances and access to resources.

Whether you are talking about a gap year or a complete DIY approach to higher education, the “eduventurist path” has traditionally been available to those who can afford structured programs abroad or who can pay for living expenses locally while doing something else interesting that builds skills and knowledge. One of the biggest injustices in my mind is that people of more disadvantaged backgrounds are not able economically to take time off the beaten path in life to discover more about who they are, what they are good at, and where they want to go. Before investing tens of thousands of dollars into higher education, if you choose to go that route, it would probably be wise to have considered your options and be sure that it is the right path for you. Our government provides funding for “education,” but what if we began to see more programs that would give a stipend to students wanting to do something else before heading down the costly college path? Obama talks about wanting to boost numbers of students who actually graduate from college. Instead of pouring money into simply college preparedness programs, how about we also put an emphasis on providing access to “deep” experiences, self-identity development, and opportunities for self-directed learning, career exploration, or apprenticeships?

There certainly has been some progress with using federal funds to provide more of these experiences, through programs such as City Year and AmeriCorps. There are also non-profit organizations such as Amigos De Las Americas (in which all participants are trained in fundraising for their own trip), Global Glimpse, Summer Search, Global Citizen Year and others which offer opportunities for scholarships. However, for students who are a bit more DIY in their approach, or who have a specific idea for what they would want to do (start a business, write a book, make a film, etc.), it’s a lot more challenging and difficult to find funding. I’ve had to work side jobs while living at home or traveling to pay for most of what I’ve been doing over this past year and a half. Additionally, crowd-funding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo,  can be helpful for students to find alternative ways to raise funds for their “eduventures.”

A girl wrote to me a few months back who told me that she had stumbled across my blog and was seeking advice. After a few semesters at Swarthmore College, she was questioning if it was the right choice for her, and was really looking for a way in which to take time off to explore her interests further. However, her parents live in a rural area of Texas and she didn’t have the finances to move to a more urban location to pursue an internship or similar opportunities. I’ve spent a few months during the past year living at home with my parents in the Bay Area, and I know that I was very fortunate to have been in an area that was well-suited for what I wanted to learn. The location provides me with access to mentors, internships, events, and classes that have helped to build my learning path. One solution I can offer to this is seeking out work exchanges. While traveling in Europe last fall, I worked at a hostel in Scotland last October in exchange for room and board between couchsurfing stints. Workway, Helpx, WWOOF, Transitions Abroad, and even using craigslist for au pair and housekeeping jobs can help. 

But beyond taking other jobs, fundraising, and work exchanges, in order to meet the demand of an increasing amount of students, the overall infrastructure needs to be analyzed and further developed. Creating and designing co-living spaces in urban areas for alternative or independent learners, made possible with scholarships and/or stipends of some sort (or other creative funding options) would be cool and could be further explored. I’m in ongoing discussions with several people about the potential opportunities for ideas like these. We’ll see where things go. Let’s make sure that Eduventurism is not something that is only possible for those with easy access to funds!

P.S. “The Project” section of this site has been updated, if you are curious to read how I am now describing what I’m doing and why, go ahead and check it out!

After I spent this last year speaking with dozens of people as I traveled around the US as well as abroad, this trip is expanding upon the realizations I have had for what is further needed. Using a video camera, I will be able to have filmed interviews to share with you all, although I may not be able to upload videos until I return.

My group and I at CGI U!

So, what have I been up to? There’s a lot to catch up on this past month, but I will re-cap a bit on what I’ve spent the first week doing. I started out in Washington DC in order to attend the Clinton Global Initiative University conference. The plenary sessions were particularly inspiring, and included speakers such as Bill and Chelsea Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Usher, Jon Stewart, Twitter founder Biz Stone, and Vandana Shiva. Students from dozens of colleges attended, each having pledged to fulfill a Commitment to Action, whether it be starting a community garden or organizing a certain amount of money for AIDS prevention.

Many of these students are looking for ways to align their own values with what they do in their future careers. In many cases, this means working within the social or public sector. However, now with the student loan crisis, it feels increasingly risky to find a job in sectors of social impact where you most likely will be making less of an income than those in the corporate world. Students, panelists, and speakers offered various opinions and possible solutions in relation to this topic. Vandana Shiva, a personal hero of mine, was able to connect this issue to the larger problem of reclaiming “the commons.” People should have access to knowledge and skill development, as well as be validated for their learning, without having to go into unreasonable amounts of debt that will weigh heavily upon them for decades after graduating. She also said something that really resonated with the audience: “universities are squeezing students into a narrow definition of a person meant for the corporate world. We need multiversities.” Bill Clinton also responded to a question posed by a student regarding career choices and student debt by talking about one idea being floated in government in which the amount of required payment on student loans would be determined by your income. As Bill said, “your loan should become a function of your job, not your job having to become a function of your loan.” 

I’ve also continued to have various friends, acquaintances, friends of friends, and even strangers reach out to me in order to tell me their own story or to ask me for advice, especially in the past few months. Many are in the college system and, like myself, have been questioning whether or not it is what they should really be participating and investing in at this point in their lives. I had a conversation with Alan Webb of Citizens Circles the other day in DC (his filmed interview will be posted soon!) in which we discussed our belief that there is a critical life stage in human development that is completely being skipped over and neglected by the dominant and more socially-acceptable path of life that is: elementary-middle-high school-college-career-retirement. I believe that there needs to be “Periods of Reflection” between various stages to allow people to become further informed about who they are as a person and how that fits into the larger context of the world we live in today. Many of the programs I am visiting and methodologies I am learning about include elements of this “transformative learning” that fosters periods such as “Rights of Passage” that young people need as they enter into adulthood.

I’m now in New York and have already with lots of cool people and have visited programs such as General Assembly and Echoing Green. As this post is kick-starting the East Coast Eduventure, I will be regularly posting thoughts, impressions, interviews. 

When I was in high school, I wasn’t too familiar with the term “entrepreneurship.” I understood the basic concept, but I didn’t exactly know what it entailed. Venture Capitalists, Investment, Pitches, Business Plans, and Board of Advisors were pretty foreign terms to me. I would guess that this is common for most people under 18, and maybe even a little older as well. Because of this, I was surprised and excited to learn about the EThOS Entrepreneurship Academy at Thousand Oaks High School in Southern California. Their website describes the academy:

“It is for students who seek the tools to nurture their creativity and become self starters with an entrepreneurial mindset, regardless of what they go on to do in life.  In addition, entrepreneurial leadership is vital to solve the world’s most pressing problems.“

Jane Carlson and her students at EThOS

My pilates instructor grandmother happened to have a client named Jane who was the School to Career Coordinator at the the high school, and when she heard what I was doing she invited me to speak to two of her classes. This was right after the Ashoka U conference, so my mind was still abuzz with many of the insights I had gained that past weekend into what skills were needed for the future. 

Here is a copy of my notes for my talk to the class:

10 Key Competencies Needed for the 21st Century

1. Learning How to Learn: School is like having the training wheels on a bike, and once you enter the “real world” you won’t have those training wheels. So learning how to learn on your own should be a skill developed while still in school.
2. Gaining Empathy: As designers know, the first step in effective design is gaining empathy for the “user.” Whether you work in sustainable development, healthcare, education, business, or technology, designing or re-designing a service, system, or product requires the ability to tap into the mindset and perspective of your customer, patient, student, or community. Think of how many times you’ve heard someone say “now why would they build it like this? That doesn’t make sense.” The designer probably wasn’t too skilled in this area.
3. Creativity: Like Sir Ken Robinson says, many school systems stamp out our innate creative senses and abilities. Whenever I babysit or interact with kids, I am amazed with their ability to be imaginative and resourceful. Two days ago I was babysitting a 6-year-old boy who taught me how to construct a “mini village” out of recycled materials I would never have thought of using. This competency is a big part of problem solving, especially in a time of limited resources.
4. Foresight/Predicting the future: Trend-spotting and recognition of patterns fall under this category. “Intelliegence is the ability to predict the future” as social entrepreneur David Bornstein said at Ashoka U.
5. Digital Literacy/Programming: Although there is a big emphasis in becoming bilingual in our internationalized world, another key language to learn is computer programming. You can save money and have a lot more freedom to get your work done and marketed if you can work well with computers. (Check out Code Academy and P2PU’s School of Webcraft). 
6. Making sense/curating/synthesizing information: I can’t count the number of people (including myself) who complain about information overload. If you are able to handle this and weed through it all to find what’s truly valuable and useful, give yourself a pat on the back. 
7. Being able to navigate diverse perspectives; be interdisciplinary: Everything is connected to everything, so you want to have breadth as well as depth in your knowledge and skill set. A recent Fast Company article talks about the concept of “4 year careers” and “skill hoarding” as elements of the future. 
8. Be entrepreneurial and Make things happen: You can have great ideas and be super intelligent, but you also need to be able to implement and move forward on those ideas like boom boom boom! 
9. Facilitate a group: You could bring together an amazing group of people, but unless it is correctly facilitated, you can’t harvest the right info and come to a conclusion within the group. I am hoping to work on this particular skill in 2012. 
10. Be up to date with the times: a.k.a Read the Newspaper

Love this quote!

10 Recommendations for Finding Passions and Learning

1. Taking a gap year helps you build resilience, gain real world experience, and define and discover your interests. You can see what is in the world, put learning in context, and then be better informed to decide what is needed for further learning.
2. It’s good to know why you are doing what you are doing, and to be passionate about it. 
3. Don’t let something else define your intelligence. Our world more than ever needs other talents and ways of thinking.
4. Write to people who interest you, ask them to be mentors. Find out about their paths (from what I’ve found, it’s very rarely simple and linear).
5. If you want to start something, start it. People will support you, especially if you are young and passionate and want to benefit the wider community.
6. Entrepreneurship is important in this new economy (just listen to Obama’s recent speeches). Social Entrepreneurship (People, Planet, Profit) is on the horizon. More and more people want business to be more ethical and engaging, and aligned with their values. If you can find a way to do well by doing good, that is the key.
7. Become an expert for free on your own, then get paid for it. It’s cheaper than ever to access knowledge and information, as well as communicate and collaborate with others. Many people (even in positions of authority) still don’t realize the full effects and power of our new tools and technologies.
8. Failure is important and good. As Michael Jordan said, “I failed over and over again in my life and that is why I succeeded.”
9. Careers exist now that didn’t exist before. Spend some time researching online and talking to people in and outside of your network to find out about what’s viable as a job. 
10. Because of the internet, information is no longer scarce. Talent is now what is scarce, so build up your skill set and distinguish yourself from the masses. 

I am hoping to develop more formal presentations to be given to schools and other groups, so let me know if you are interested!

Registering for the Ashoka U conference was a bit of a stretch to pay for as a student who doesn’t have a university to sponsor her ticket (which is why the Indiegogo campaign goes a long way to help out!) Then came the second challenge: I didn’t have money to stay at the hotel where most attendees were staying. So after checking out couchsurfing options on couchsurfing.org, which all seemed a bit too far away from the venue, I wrote to the organizers to ask if they could put me in touch with another option. I ended up connecting with Christel, a girl attending Arizona State University who was volunteering for the Exchange. She and her roommates were super friendly, and I could not have asked for a better solution and group of people to stay with.

A Child and Family Development Major and Non-Profit Management minor, Christel is interested in social work. ASU is the largest university in the country with 70,000 undergrad and grad students! You would think that with a university that big, it would be difficult to create change within and introduce new departments. However, the president of ASU Michael Crow who spoke at the TEDxAshokaU is a real visionary, and along with students and faculty has helped ASU become a leader in the field of social innovation learning in higher education.

Christel shares her thoughts on social entrepreneurship, and how it can be better embedded into higher education. Christel says that “I think what’s really important is an introduction to the concept of social entrepreneurship. Just through power of awareness that can help people start thinking about it. [Something] I heard at the exchange that was really interesting was that most people don’t view themselves as entrepreneurs. When they hear the idea, that’s not really how they view themselves, it’s kind of far removed. So I think that educating people that it is a possibility, and that it really starts in small ways, like the 10,000 Solutions Project… ideas that can be very raw, unformed ideas, can still make a diffference and get people thinking a little more in that mindset.”

10,000 Solutions as Christel mentioned is an initiative of ASU to gather thousands of solutions to solve local and global challenges, and participants can receive feedback on their submitted solutions and have a chance to win $10,000 for their innovative idea. You can check out my own submission, filmed at the exchange!

Regina and Christel

Another important element Christel mentions is finding and seeking out formal or informal mentors, which can include your own peers and friends. Christel was introduced to social entrepreneurship by her friend and fellow ASU student Regina. Regina was one of the student organizers of the Exchange, and interned with Ashoka U this past summer in Mexico, working with a university there. She was also the organizer who put me in touch with Christel for couchsurfing. You can watch her TEDxAshokaU talk from last year at Duke University. Christel talks about how by surrounding herself with peer mentors like Regina, she was able to be further educated about a topic that at first was an unfamiliar term and concept. 

Thanks to Christel, Regina, and Christel’s roommates Emily and Kevina for the great conversations and time at ASU!

(Update: I’ve already raised over $1,200 on Indiegogo, and a couple hundred outside of the online campaign. If you haven’t yet, check out the campaign page to learn more about Eduventure 2012!)

The Ashoka U Exchange was the first leg of the Eduventure 2012 endeavor to learn about what innovations are happening in the higher education space to creatively prepare changemakers for the future of our world. The conference happened over a course of two days and included several sessions as well as a TEDxAshokaU. I interviewed several student participants, which you can watch in the video above (I apologize for the sound quality), and I will soon be posting other videos and interviews from the conference in the next few days. As I say in the video, the conference was not only focused on how to begin to teach “social entrepreneruship” on college campuses, but how we can begin to use the same creative, entrepreneurial thinking in order to change the higher education system through disruptive innovation.

Some of my biggest takeways from the conference:

• For a while now I have been trying to figure out the connection between two of my interests: Social Entrepreneurship/Innovation and Alternative Education. A lot of people I know in these spaces have one foot in each realm, so I knew that others have seen and understood this connection as well and saw them as interrelated. After attending the 2012 Ashoka U Exchange Conference, I am closer to being able to verbalize why these two realms are connected. Successful entrepreneurs tend to think in a creative, action-oriented manner, and don’t allow themselves to be limited by the dominant system. They want to be game-changers, people who find a new service, product, program, or system that can change the world. I think that this in a way describes many of the Eduventurists I have interviewed. They don’t wait for permission to start learning on their own or following a different path. They know what is needed and they go for it. Which is why I see a new kind of higher education program needed for creative and entrepreneurial learners who seek more autonomy, diversity, and experience in their learning, yet still need certain support structures and networks. Please comment if you would like to add on to (or even have a difference of opinion) on this point!
• The way social entrepreneurs learn can serve as a model and solution for learning in most other disciplines. It calls for an interdisciplinary approach, as well as for the ability to adapt to new situations and to navigate chaos. Entrepreneurs of any kind need to be able to predict the future and sense what is happening in the world and in the market. Now with so much of our world changing very rapidly due to technology, globalization, and other factors, many professions call for this mindset. So although I’m focusing on social entrepreneurship education, the ways of learning that I am finding out about can (and in my opinion should) be applied to many different educational settings and programs.
• Many school administrators and staff admire students who take the initiative to play an active role in helping to shape the academic environment (of course this is of course not true of all academic settings, unfortunately). The presidents and faculty of several schools who were attending the Exchange, including those of Tulane University, Arizona State University, Babson College, and New York University continually voice this sentiment while speaking about how the student voice was a big part of why they decided to begin to embed more opportunities for social innovation and entrepreneurship learning.
• Many of these universities (ranging from large state and private schools to smaller independent schools) were aware of disruptive change that was facing their universities, and were taking seriously the challenge to begin to create a new system. President Cowen of Tulane University (and an advisor to President Obama) even said, “We are lost in higher education. We are running our institutions in a 20th century mindset, without clarity for what the 21st century holds.”
• Many students I interviewed were saying that they were hoping for more institutions to value and recognize experiential learning. For people working in the social sector, experience is key. A woman representing the business school at Duke University was saying that when they first started teaching social entrepreneurship, they recognized their limitations in keeping the learning within the four walls of the classroom. They now have students interning with local social enterprises, as well as offering “challenges” with real grant money as a prize for students working to create their own. 
• It seems that many young people are worried about how to find the intersection of what they are good at, what they enjoy, and how they can make a living. Particularly for students at this conference, a huge motivation is to make a difference in the world. There needs to be a lot more guidance for students who are worried about how they can sustain themselves but also contribute to positively impacting our world. One organization in particular had a great session where participants brainstormed ways in which they could create or find a job that included the necessary pieces. Check out Echoing Green and their book/toolkit “Work on Purpose” to learn more!
• There was a lot of talk about technology and education. I think the term “technology” turns many traditional educators off because it sounds very impersonal. However, I believe that when used appropriately, technology can enhance the social experience of learning and create a more collaborative and inviting classroom experience. It was interesting to see the surprised and positive reactions of educators at the conference when they learned about certain tools and methodologies for how to conscientiously harness this power. And as one panelist said in a session on competencies needed by the future: “Information used to be scarce. Now it is abundant. What is now scarce is talent and skill.” The particular talent needed is the ability to make sense of and act on the overload of information that we now have access to. So in all disciplines, across the board, we need to be preparing students to be able to make sense of this information in a highly skilled manner, and to then be able to make, do, and change our world.

This conference was also just a great place to meet new people, as well as people I had been in contact with online but never had never met in person until this point. I encourage other college-age students to consider attending next year! Visit the Ashoka U website to learn more. 

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." -Mark Twain

Now that we have entered into 2012, it has been exactly a year since I embarked upon this amazing “Eduventurist” journey. What started as simply a semester off to explore alternative education for myself, as well as to profile individuals who had taken nontraditional paths to their own learning, has turned into a permanent path and in and of itself, a learning curriculum and project. I spent 4 months in Europe (read and look at the Flickr album!), participating in numerous conferences and conducting interviews with people from many countries about the state of the world and what is needed to prepare ourselves for the future.

I returned to the US with a much clearer picture of what was needed for a new generation of learners, as well as for myself. Although it was difficult to make the decision, I have decided to not return to my original college but instead  to continue to build my own educational curriculum and program and to travel further on the unfolding path that I’m finding myself on. 

One of the most exciting aspects about this “build the road as you travel” journey has been discovering and tapping into a global community of fellow enthusiastic learners who were themselves searching for other ways of creating and learning. A few of these individuals are already well on their way designing and creating alternative learning initiatives. I also began to discover programs that I had never come across in my college search as a senior in high school. Most of these programs are not officially accredited, but offer tremendous flexibility for experiential, project-based, self-designed learning. A good number of these programs were also very focused on educating and training students to not only be able to creatively market themselves and secure jobs in a rapidly changing marketplace, but to make a positive contribution and impact on our society and planet.

Getting to know other participants at a conference in London

At one point recently, while talking to a mentor of mine, I said “I’m thinking about applying to Knowmads School in Amsterdam.” I discussed with him how I didn’t see many of these programs yet in existence, particularly in the United States, and how my home base in the Bay Area would be a perfect spot for such a program to be created. He responded, “How about you create it then? And you can learn the skills the program would teach participants as you are creating it.” Hmm. I had actually thought of this in the past but had at that time been daunted by the thought of creating a program myself. The voice in my head would shout, “I’m only 19!”  But after this past year, I have developed a lot more confidence. So now, as he raised the idea, it wasn’t so daunting.

Fast forward to now. After various conversations with others, mostly people I know through the Hub (a network of co-working spaces for social entrepreneurs and cultural creatives), I am working to try to bring more of these programs into existence, and to equip people (such as myself)  with the tools to do just that. I have determined that one critical piece is to learn from what already exists, and from what is also now in emergence. So I am planning a learning venture (part II): Eduventure 2012, in which I will explore and visit these programs in more depth, interview the creators and participants, and help to not only gather this research, but continue to build the network between them all to share best practices. You may also notice a new tab on this site for Eduventure 2012 which includes more information. I have put up a fundraising campaign on Indiegogo (a crowd-sourced microfunding platform), so if you find this idea intriguing and exciting, please check it out and consider supporting it! It will not only help me and my development as a change agent in education, but will also have a ripple effect and empower others with the tools and knowledge to do the same. 

I will be posting videoblogs over the next few weeks while the fundraising campaign is happening, to tell more of this story and to interview others. One thing I am particularly looking forward to is the upcoming Ashoka U Exchange, a conference in Arizona next week all on social entrepreneurship education. The exact title of the conference focus is “Disruptive Innovation in Higher Education.” Perfect timing, huh? I really look forward to meeting other participants and hearing their views and ideas on all of this!