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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
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!
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
Now it´s time for Pelle Holmén and his Peer-Reviwed session titled: ”Improvement of Problem Based Learning with the Aid of Thinking Skills in a Cross-Curricula Teaching Enviroment”
(This text is written in real time experience even if it isn´t published since there´s no inernet connection in the session) As so often the unexpected happens – the presenter preceding Pelle doesn´t show up! But that´s not really a problem for Mr Holmén, that just gives him more time to put up the hexagones and to connect the computer. Right now I´m listening to a wonderful piece of music called ”Frösöblomster nr:8” by the famous Swedish composer Wilhelm Pettersson Berger as background music while the audience enters Pelles session…
Pelle Holmén at the 14th International Conference on Thinking
And now: Take Off! He starts off cautiously but it doesn´t lasts for long. He looks good up there! Like a number one superhero. I´m proud of him. Perhaps I´m too subjective so I turn to the masses and their facial expressions confirm my initial feelings. When Pelle shows a picture of a cute duck on a pond the audiences interest level peaked. As is typical of Pelle he uses analogies to help people understand and in this case the duck is a facilitator. Off course - Finding Humor is important!
Another important Habit of Mind to possess is Thinking Flexibly, which Pelle experience when the “girl-with- the –time-signs” all of a sudden shows him a sign saying that he only got ten minutes left to talk! His professional skills are challenged – trying to manage the session in speed while answering questions and keeping the red thread (quote from Pelle himself). I know him well and is not at all surprised to learn that he did it splendidly!
It´s quite a job to find wireless internet here at KLCC. We found one spot at level 1 but the whole idea of getting you readers to follow us during the conference is harder to get to work than we expected. So here´s what we´ll try to do: we write while we listen and then run down to our spot between the sessions to get to publish it. Hopefully we´ll keep you informed more often than we´ve managed to do so far.
We do have to make one ore excuse. Our English might not be perfect….but still- it´s far better than the translation you will get when we write in Swedish, so you will have to bear with us.
At this moment I´m waiting for Pelles presentation to start. Actually we´re all waiting – because the lecturer before him has not showed up yet.
Translated article here.
Äntligen är vi här – på plats i Kuala Lumpur för att delge över ettusen andra konferensdeltagare våra erfarenheter av att arbeta med olika verktyg för lärande. Men detta ska inte ske förrän senare i veckan. Idag – lördag, ska vi försöka kalibrera våra kroppar och hjärnor med den malaysiska tiden.
Vi börjar med att äta en frukost a la storlek grand. Intressant att se hur olika våra tallrikar var uppbyggda. Ni som känner oss får gissa. Först rätt svar får våra applåder (skriv i gästboken)
Tallrik 1: vita bönor i tomatsås, en vit korv och lite, lite sallad, bröd och jordgubbssmör
Tallrik 2: kycklinggryta, sallad, korv, olika mystiska skinkor, nötbröd, oxbacon x2, obs ALLT x2+lite till
Tallrik 3: indisk curry med linser, sallad, en croissant och fruktsallad… tyvärr fanns ingen gurkjuice!
Tallrik 4: omelett, french toast, en liten bit bagel, nötbröd med stark ost, fruktsallad toppad med jordnötssmör..
Tallrik 5: omelett med allt, bagel med jordnötssmör, frukt, två baconskivor
Tallrik 6: bagel med ost, skuren frukt, grönt te, indiskt bröd med currygryta, french toast med lönnsirap (gratis är gott)
Allt detta inmundigades samtidigt som skattattackerna avlösde varandra, i takt med att
tröttheten tilltog.
Dagen i övrigt ägnades år att röra på möra ryggar, lita rekognisering inför konferensen: snabbaste vägen till KLCC, shopping och MAT!
Vi har testat en hel del Habits of Mind under dagen: ”Behärska impulsivitet”, ”Respondera med förtjusning och förundran”, sett brister på att ”kommunicera med klarhet och precision”. Vår middagsbeställning var en fars med två servitriser som skulle upprepa allt vi sade men inte kunde ge svar på en enda fråga om vad rätterma innehöll.
Imorgon återkommer vi med mer substantiell information. Ni får ursäkta jetlagen.
