Business, Social Entrepreneurship, and Education – Exploring Intersections and Interchanges #School3pt0

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One of the things we do at Unboundary is explore the intersections and interchanges of business, social entrepreneurship, and education. In the past few days, a number of things have crossed my path that relate to this nexus of learning innovation and significant transformation. I thought I’d share just a few of these things…

A dear friend and colleague emailed me last week (we actually stay in touch every week), and with her permission I am posting a little bit from our latest e-correspondence.

Also, I usually check out your blog from time to time. Doing so always inspires some thoughts, connections, the quiet voice I hear inside me… the one who says “teach them they are not who they think they are.” That is what I heard myself say in response to “how do we teach young people to thrive in a world of possibility?”
I really love the time in which I have lived my life. I would not want to go back but I have loved the life I have lived and look forward to the future. I do struggle with the corporate influence on education. Going way back before my time I still like what Thomas Dewey said in 1910… “The aim of a 20th century education is not the creation of a labor force but the enrichment of the individual and society by developing a child’s social power and insight.” The good news I think is that 21st century skills and education really do help to develop social power and insight.

When we spoke by phone, we agreed that education is a “both-and” issue. Education should BOTH enrich the individual and society AND create a high-quality labor force. I’m not really interested in making schools more business like – at least not like many people interpret that “corporate influence on education.” However, I am very interested in examining ALL of the ways and means that business, social entrepreneurship, and education can work together as something like sections of the same orchestra – for the benefit of learners and for the benefit of the challenges and opportunities we face in our world. I may be oversimplifying the complex, but it seems to me that we should all see ourselves as playing for the same team.

With that in mind, and with a few projects happening here at Unboundary, the following two articles are well worth reading. Both articles point to collaboration among business and education. I find the comments at the conclusion of the first article particularly interesting, and I think they provide a compelling segue into the second article.

I’m forming my own hypotheses about the future intersections and interchanges for business, social entrepreneurship, and education. By sharing these bits here in this post, I hope I can contribute just a bit to the hypotheses you might be forming.

America’s Shoddy Education System Is a Business Problem,
by Jeff Stibel  |   9:00 AM December 6, 2012

Jeff Stibel’s company is implementing a three-part plan to help address some of the issues in education. The entire HBR article and the comments are intriguing, and I found these two paragraphs particularly poignant. [HT to Frank Rauss for bringing this article to my attention.]

Our most precious natural resource is not diamonds or oil or agriculture; it is human capital. The seeds we plant grow only with education. While our program will help offset any immediate gaps with existing employees, the primary focus is on the next batch of bright and talented employees — the children who will one day bridge the talent gap for businesses across the nation.

There are many ways to tackle this problem, and it’s time that businesses focus on the ones within our control. We cannot rely solely on the government, parents or educators. This is our problem too. I am honored to say that my company is doing our small part. If other businesses follow suit or take their own novel approaches, we can solve the education and talent gap.

 

School Reform for Realists,
by by Andrea Gabor |   August 28, 2012

Andrea Gabor shares examples of Cisco, NYCDOE, iZone, Global Technology Preparatory, and Houston Petroleum Academies. She also offers some profound takeaways about “best practices” in business-education partnerships. [Another HT to Frank Rauss for making sure I didn’t miss this link in my feed reader.]

On the ground, the most effective business–education partnerships are those that foster innovative education opportunities in which both students and parents can participate, and those that create bridges between schools and the outside world, including potential employers. The following stories demonstrate some of the principles that help these partnerships work. What distinguishes them from many outright failures is the quality of collaboration. In these examples, business leaders did more than donate funds and technology; rather, schools and businesses sought to learn from one another.

Finally (at least for this post), I recommend looking at the relatively new business structure called L3Cs (L3Cs explained on Wikipedia). As I walk Lucy in the morning and as I work, I am enjoying thinking about the potential of L3Cs for the future of schools and schools of the future.

In a “3.0 school” established as an L3C, lines between the labels of “students,” “researchers,” “social innovators,” and “employees” get blurred. Perhaps in the future, L3C “schools” will actually pay salaries to young learners (instead of collecting tuitions from them) who are studying such things as cancer cures, robotic surgeries, and transportation and communications innovations in un-siloed coursework that seems a lot more like on-the-job training complete with degree credits. An L3C working to solve the planet’s energy or water issues could synergize the NGO aspect of that work with the for-profit opportunities and integrated-studies possibilities.

Last month, Unboundary participated in an exciting meet-up about L3Cs and higher education. Here’s the press release distributed by Americans for Community Development.

PRESS RELEASE

On November 14, 2012, in Indianapolis, Indiana, Americans for Community Development (ACD) hosted a conference on the groundbreaking concept of implementing the L3C business structure as a form of organization for colleges and universities, using the L3C model to create opportunity ecosystems within the higher education system.  This conference was facilitated by the Lumina Foundation and held at their headquarters in Indianapolis. This meeting was the first of its kind in history bringing together a group of professionals from within higher education, business, law and philanthropy. Over the course of the day the main topic of discussion was how to connect higher education, job creation, entrepreneurship and economic development with the L3C business model as an organizational structure for colleges and universities. This concept “reflects a totally new way of thinking about higher education and how to organize it”.  L3C institutions will be individually unique but will resemble each other in underlying structure. This is a fresh outlook on the organization of colleges and universities that create holistic environments in which institutions are giving back to the students and communities and the students and communities are giving back to the institutions therefore creating opportunity ecosystems that thrive. The very first L3C university, Rockport University L3C, was formed just prior to the conference and conference attendees were asked to contribute intellectually to its development. A large number of the attendees asked to be part of a taskforce ACD is forming to advance the concept of L3C colleges and universities. ACD thanks Bo Adams and Govantez Lowndes from Unboundary for being part of the small group we invited to participate in this ground-breaking event.

PROCESS POST: Ludwick Marishane and #PBL – “What’s stopping you?”

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… one question I have for the audience today is, on the gravel roads of Limpopo, with an allowance of 50 rand a week, I came up with a way for the world not to bathe. What’s stopping you? (Applause)

What is stopping us? Ludwick Marishane did so much more than just come up with a way for the world not to bathe. He figured out a way to battle trachoma and fight disease-based blindness in under-resourced areas.

I believe strongly that school should be more community-issue-problem-solving based. As Daniel Pink explained in Drive, we are motivated most strongly when we feel higher degrees of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Purpose has long been a question driver in schools. “When will I ever use this?” “Why are we learning this?” School could live more deliberately at this nexus of desired relevance and purpose and problems craving solutions. Learners want to maintain choice at pursuing things that matter to and interest them. By pursuing such passions, while the hard work can often feel playful, we develop deep mastery.

If you watched the five-minute TED talk from Ludwick Marishane, do you think he got the following:

  • growing understanding of science, perhaps in the integrated fields of chemistry and biology
  • increased cultural thoughtfulness and empathy
  • strengthening communication skills in writing business plans, patents, grant proposals, etc., as well as enhancing oral communications with presentations, sales pitches, etc.
  • heightening proficiency in mathematics, quantitative and qualitative statistics, and application of mathematical reasoning
  • developing sense that he is a creative and critical-thinking problem solver, with agency to make a difference in the world now
  • expanding appreciation for socio-economic and psychological dimensions of getting a solution to market
  • understanding the necessity of genuine collaboration to combat big, audacious goals

I think he got all of the above and so much more. And what he is giving may far outweigh what he is getting. I think he might help more than 8 million people affected by trachoma. And he developed DryBath because he wanted to figure out a way that he would not have to take a bath himself.

I can imagine elementary, middle, and high schoolers engaging in such starts-as-a-selfish-and-seemingly-ridiculous project. I can see them spending time in more time-concentrated laboratories of integrated learning, rather than interrupting their flow because of bells set to 50 minutes and disciplines sub-divided by cinderblock walls. I can see them solving big problems and growing as engaged, empathetic, empowered citizens. I can see them practicing the skills and learning the content that will serve them, and the world, most dearly in the coming decades.

Some schools might want to make wholesale change to such a model. Others might want to revamp their curriculum and instruction so that “lab” problem solving represents 50% of the day and more traditional classes represent the other 50%. Still others may want to discern how to incorporate such community-issues-problem-solving courses into just 20-25% of the school day or week. Whatever the ration, I believe the students and the world would benefit from the increased and enhanced concentration on dealing with real community issues – issues within one’s school, wider neighborhood, city, state, nation, or world.

As I’ve written this post, in less than 15 minutes, I’ve imagined a sort of “kit” that could help a school get started…

  1. Alan November’s book, Who Owns the Learning?
  2. Suzie Boss’s book, Bringing Innovation to Schools
  3. Will Richardson’s e-book, Why School?
  4. frog design’s Collective Action Toolkit

In fact, if you are already convinced that schools are, or should be, doing such community-issues-problem-solving based learning, then you could use just #4 to help you get started.

As Marishane challenged us all, “What’s stopping you?”

Pop-Up Courses, like Pop-Up Restaurants… CHANGEd: What If…Weekly

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Pop-up Restaurant

On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, my wife and I had a date to go see Lincoln. The movie was playing at Atlantic Station in Midtown, so we met up at Atlantic Station for a quick bite to eat before the show.

As we were walking, we noticed a “Pop-Up Restaurant.” I had no idea what a Pop-Up Restaurant was, but this one shared its definition right on the glass of the front door. I also looked it up on Wikipedia – Pop-up Restaurant. This particular Atlanta Pop-Up Restaurant also had it’s own entry online – “New Pop-Up Restaurant Opens In Atlantic Station.”

Well, if you know me, you understand that just about everything I see makes me think of project-based learning and educational innovation. I’ve somewhat trained myself to think, “How could that relate to school innovation?” It’s a sort of game that I play with myself.

So…what if we had Pop-Up Classes at school? What if we created time and space to invite students and teachers to offer quick-pitch courses that could be opened and operated for low cost, for a limited amount of time? A sort of mash-up between school as we know it and flash-mob learning. “Owners” and “chefs” could share their passions and their “offerings,” and others could partake in the mental nourishment. It could be a great way to try out ideas and methods, just like the Pop-Up Restaurants provide R&D experimentation for foodies. It sounds fun to me.

What do you think? Do you know any schools doing anything like this? I’d love to learn about connected examples.

Innovating in Memphis, @GrantLichtman #EdJourney, Episode 11

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As November 2012 drew to a close, Grant Lichtman completed his eleventh week of #EdJourney – his three-month, 60-school, cross-country tour to explore educational innovation in the K-12 school world. He has just one week remaining – three school visits in Dallas – to conclude the physical travel portion of his trek to learn and share about ways that schools are forwarding their visions for the future.

Nearing the end of the motoring phase, Grant’s penultimate week – a week in Memphis, TN – found me remembering the concluding chapter of The Falconer: What We Wish We Had Learned In School.

What is the goal that I wish for my students? What is the common characteristic of our heroes, the common context which lies at the end of the path? What is the height of the warrior’s bar?

I believe it is elegance.

Commonly, elegance refers to a beautiful gown, a memorable dinner party attendant to every trimming, an expensive yet tasteful entryway that welcomes both the guest and the eye, a Mozart sonata. More recently the concept of elegance has become the playground of engineers and software programmers. It helps define their goal of creating an effective and novel solution to often thorny problems with the greatest efficiency.

What is elegance?

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the French writer and aviator best known for his story The Little Prince, states that “In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.”

And a few paragraphs later…

Elegant solutions are found everywhere if we allow ourselves to, first, look, and second, not settle for less. But elegance rarely comes easily. Usually it is the end product of years or a lifetime of work, dedication, failure, and recommitment.

How might your school or learning community finds its elegant solutions?

In this week’s video-cast interview, Grant and I explore some of the threads that connect the innovation hotbed of Memphis, we ponder whether innovative schools are more like malls or orchestras, and we continue to search in our own ways for those learning communities that design learning environments which truly put the students at the core of their own elegant solutions.

Grant’s blog posts from Memphis:

#MustRead Shares (weekly)

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