Good week to all of you!

Having spoken about education through teaching the young, we come back in this newsletter with a new educational method that can be applied to enhance the learning of students in any educational level.

Majo Sosa left us a good contribution in a post at the bottom of last week’s newsletter through a link that presents a very interesting educational model. This model or method is already followed by courses and careers which are lectured as “correspondence courses” through internet. In these, the theory is studied individually, and then, the class is centered in applying the contents learnt through a practical manner. The traditional method centers the professor dictating the theory class, being this usually categorical and locked up in the unique vision of the professor, and then leaves homework in order to apply new concepts in a practical manner at home. When something goes wrong at home, the student gets frustrated and leaves the homework aside; and in the next class, he can no longer follow the theory, because he is carrying doubts from before. The method proposed is called “Flipped Classroom Model” and minimizes this risk by giving more time for the professor to solve doubts and explain difficult concepts in class, after the students have made incursions into the theory individually.

The doubts come from home

Thus, this study model favors personal growth and allows information to flow freely.  The last word is no longer from one authoritarian image, empowering the creation of debates and the proliferation of good ideas. It is very important that the changes required by society are made by us… our generation does not need to answer to any system,  good will must prevail over all profit.

“We are in one of those boring moments in history in which no one has a good idea over what to expect from the future, and so we spend our time fearing it.

(…) I insist: I do not believe this will last long, because we do not know how to live under these conditions. And I am convinced that in some places, in very varied situations, a lot of people imagine, or live, or search for, or discover new ways of thinking the future, of getting excited about the potential changes – which are seemingly impossible yet.

(…) I wonder if there will be countries at all, the countries we know, as we know them, for much longer.

Not because of climate change, but because of the changes that are really changing the world –and which the scientists do not know how to measure, fortunately or unfortunately.”

Contra el Cambio (Against Change) – Martín Caparrós.
Ed. Crónicas Anagrama, 2010. Pages. 254/5.

And they are very subtle changes, but these spoil the system little by little. In an article, named “The Hidden Reasons Solar Prices Are Dropping”, it says that, although the costs of the materials for the solar panels are being minimized, from 2009 to 2010 the 18% of the cost of the non-technical parts of the solar installation system has been reduced, and in this last year it has been reduced on 40%! This is due to the fact that labor makes up a huge slice of installation costs. And in the past few years, government incentives for renewable energy projects have driven solar booms, activating a snowball effect in which more jobs are being created. This occurs when governments start to see the opportunities for development in the long term that comes along when inserting renewables in the energetic matrix of the country.

New jobs through a new vision

Again, all this emerges from the need for change that is germinating in the world. Thus, it is important for us to have some sort of parallel life in which we educate ourselves about the things we want to change in the world.

Having said all this, and as an example and opportunity for all of us, I give you Ecoportal-Unida’s new virtual courses, which begin October the 26th

Ploff my firends! – This is not environmentalism. It is changing the world!

Big hug to all of you,
Brian Longstaff.-

Ps. A short joke: “I have humans”

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