Johannes Hedberggymnasiet at 14th ICOT
Back home in Sweden you have time to think throurgh what you´ve experienced and I tell you – it was a lot. But before summarizing I must add some pictures from the teachers workshop. It went so well – picking in garbage seems to be “the thing” – or as the young drumers from the gala-dinner expressed it: “Recycling is not only important – it´s fun”
The thinking skills we use at our school
Susan speaking with enthusiasm
A multi-cultural experience
Gathering data through all senses
When you have been truogh three days of plenary presentations and workshops from morning to late afternoons and early evenings even, you ask what more can happen now! How much more inputs can I handle! And to use a qote from one of Carolines student in maths: “You teach me maths in a way that makes my brain transpire”! (A big hug to ya´sweet Caroline – we miss you and ICOT misses you. Look at the picture with the dancing ladies – five minutes of fun – no imbarassement at all – you would be disappointed in us! By the way, there were a guy, a man, from Austrailia who performed the song “Sweet Caroline” (Neil Young) and did it great, and of course we all thought of you!) Anyhow, we went to David Perkins and listend to him sharing his thoughts and work on “Educating for the unknown”. I can honestly say that I was not at all in the mood for that, I was to busy worrying about our own workshop. But he was great, had just the right tone in his voice, just the right pace and above all he had a number of points really worth listening to! One of them was about different kinds of gaps in education and learning and another was about the importance of flexpertice. I totally forgot my worries – thank you very much Professor Perkins!
Listening to Perkins and all the other speakers here at ICOT one thing bothers me a lot. I feel as if the direction theese conferences are taking is the total opposite of the one the minister of education, Jan Björklund, and his office and governing are striving at. Do politicians around the world even now about this conference!!? At our school we have for some time now talked about inviting the Minister to see that what he calles “bull bull” (I dont want to write the word for cow-crap, it can be offensive) is what we here at ICOT would call, and again I refer to different presenters: “flexpertice”, “emotional smart”, “somatic intelligence” “succesful intelligence” or why not chumbawamba:-)
By the way – the workshop went well… and for now I will leave you with theese words:
You must be the change you wish to see in the world (Mahatma Ghandi)
Read what others have to say about skola, skolutveckling, Thinking Conference, Pedagogik
Had a nice conersation with Bob Schwartz during lunch. Can´t wait to go to his work-shop tomorrow. During our work-shop I had an equally nice chat with Art Costa – and I will attend his symposium later on today. Art asked me that we do a follow-up study about how our students use thinking skills after they´ve graduated. I really have to think this through since it is – as he said- a Phd-study if you want to do it thoroughly. (I guess I didn´t get the spelling quite right there).
Yesterdays gala-dinner was a lot of fun. We even got to do some “twisting” with Mr super-cool Tony Buzan. Check the pics!
Pelle won a prize - a book in Malay!
Lucky-draw winner Marie - a nice, matching scarf!
The "Dancing Queens" from Sweden
…with a Cappuchino!
We are all sitting in the café right now – happy, relaxed ande very pleased with ourselves:-) But after a quick conversation and evluation we are already talking about the agenda for the next ICOT.
happy and relaxed...
So – now they have done it – given the best workshop on ICOT14 =). I was extremely proud when I listened to the teachers explaining how we. at our school “nurture young adults minds for the future” through working with thinking skills in a problem-based learning context. I´ll write more later – now it´s lunch
Malin - working it out at the 14th International Conference on Thinking!
This morning has been interesting:
Tony Buzan . the inventor of the mind-map taught us the importance to break down our thinking to the: “one-word-on -each-line” when we create a mind-map. The whole concept was intruiging for me as I thouroughly enjoy poetry. (Don´t know if Mr Buzan intended his idea to be interpreted that way – but hey I´m creative=) – that´s how my mind works. I guess I have to be a bit rebellious since he so clearly pointed out that there are no “word-people” – only image-people. (So I do not exist ?). The presentation was really enjoyable and his articulate and precise language sounded like pure perfection to my ears. There is something about people that know how to present things in a rhetorical manner.
After that Marie and I listened to Reg Poulsen who spoke about management. Interesting as well – especially to notice how imporant it is to provide a sense of meaning for your staff – that´s even more important than the amount of their salary. As a matter of fact – salary was rated on such a low grade, when it comes to feeling satisfied about your job, that it wasn´t even mentioned in Mr Poulsens presentation.
Now we´re off to lunch – a super-duper buffé. Let´s see whom I will sit next to.The chances it will be someone from Australia or Singapore are high. They seem to be very well represented.
Yesterday was really a day of wonderment and awe. Here are a cupple of favorite quotes and comments from some of the best thinkers in the world:
Colin James talked about Adaptive Thinking and used a qoute from Einsein (another of our favourites:-) “The world we have created is a product of our thinking, it can not be changed without changing our thinking”. C. James was fantastic and some of us got a real haleluja moment!
Another fantastic performance was given to us by Glenn Capelli and from him we got a new word: Chumbawamba (don´t you just love the way it roles in your mouth.-), and learnt how to say “I have a magic brain” in sign laguage as he was talking about the importance of Emotional Smart! Thank you for that.
Both John Edwards and James Nottingham talked about Vision and mental models and how cruicial it is that we understand and work with theese things so that we do not delute ourselves as leaders, wether it´s in the classroom as a teacer or in an organisation as a “boss”. Thank you for always pushing us into the pit:-)
Now I must hurry to attend at Art Costa, our absolute number one hero!
Our workshop will be held on Thursday- so now we rehears it in Petra´s hotelroom. A lot of laughter. You guys who come to see us will have a blast and leave our workshop a bit more curious and hopefully eager to start working with applying thinking skills into a problem-based learning curriculum =)
Check the pics!
Preparing the goodybags
Susan "finding humour" at the 14th international conference on thinking.
Art Costa and behind him Bob Scwartz - the men who inspired us to go through with this!
Dag 2
För våra entusiastiska svenska läsare kommer nu mitt svenska inlägg med det senaste skvallret. Jag vet att det är det alla ni elever är mest intresserade av. Hur hanterar Pelle sin image som alfahanne med ”fem fruar”? Har Marie lyckats hitta ett utskänkningsställe för iskalla coca-cola? Hur många prominenta personer har Susan lyckats att charma? Hur många nya idéer om hjärnan har Malin lyckats fylla sin hjärna med? Hur många gånger har vi hört Petra skratta högt och got under presentationerna? Och så jag då…skvallrar inte om mig själv – det är en av fördelarna med att vara bloggdrottning (jag låtsas att mina grå hår är platinablonda och jag har automatiskt transformerats till en 20-åring i den Malaysiska värmen. ”Dream on baby” =)
Vi har det fantastiskt bra här: minglar utav helsike. (Vi är ”so close” med framstående tänkare från hela världen,), lyssnar till spännande föredragshållare som får en oss att spinna loss i tankar om allt vi vill åstadkomma när vi komer hem ”(Oh no” tänker en del av er nu – ”inte mer”, men då vill jag framhålla att den undervisning ni får, det sätt ni arbetar på, och de kompetenser ni tränas i är ”so right” för framtiden. Vi är en riktig spjutspetsskola i en internationell kontext. Känn er stolta! Det gör vi!). För att prata som Annika- Annika- Annika- Annika gjorde under avslutningen – ”Ni är fantastiska och ni har inga medellärare.” Helt allvarligt – ni skulle se era lärare röra sig bland intelligentian härnere.
Nu ska lärarna repa inför sin workshop så jag slutar!
Några bilder syns nedan:
One of our favourites JAmes Nottingham: Notice how the three teachers listen with “wonderment and awe” .
James Nottingham - one of our favourites
Concentration.... it's James.
Petra deeply concentrated
Today Petra and I started of the day with listening to a French antrophologist speaking about sterilization of men in Cambodia…Quite interesting, but one understands how important it is to present something in a relaxed, personal way, instead of reading from a script and showing a PP-presentation with words, words, words. Go Pelle – you did an outstanding job yesterday!
Right now we are all listening to Tun Dr Mahathir Bin Mohamed, the former Prime-Minister of Malaysia. One of Asia’s greatest leader – the man who transformed Malaysia into the modern country that it is today. He is highly thought of here and all over Asia. So it is considered a great privilege to get the opportunity to listen to him. The topics we will go through is: Leadership, Asian political leadership and Thinking for change.
Oh, oh…here we go: bad leaders: Nixon, Blair and especially George W Bush. Good leaders: Koreas second president and the present leader of China. “Obama won because the distaste of President Bush” – not because he had an important message. Hej och hå!
The rest of the speech he focuses on value-system and how important it is to lead in a way that people can trust you and how value-systems are influenced by thinking. Think as a Doctor – pose a diagnose and start to cure.
Now there is a woman asking about how Malaysia should act to prevent the rain-forests from getting extuinguished – and there is an answer we we´re not prepared for: the rest of the world should decrease their use of carbondioxide instead of having Malaysians decrease their standard of living.
A picture of the speaker
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