Entrust the guys: innovation 2.0
If a developing company is running out of ideas, the engineers wink with a preference for the young people. Wondering if the classical educational system is able to do something with the creativity of the students?
Obviously they are experimenting with such educational methods across the world which also take the viewpoints of the practicality into consideration instead of/beside let them learn the encyclopaedic knowledges by heart (we can hardly find such a higher educational training in the current national supply which wouldn't possess the mark of „practical orientated"), but if we're looking for a really casual approached school system, we should reckon automatically the US countries. It's surprising some way after this that the following example counts even there for special – there's no doubt that all of us can learn from this.
The name of the „wonder teacher" is Simon Haugher who built his experimental educational method on the teenagers of Philadelphia which shortly got a name: the rumour of the Sustainability Workshop even got to president Obama. The recipe doesn't sound too complicated: trust the guys, entrust him with the solution of important problems affecting the whole world, create teams for them, and make them focus on projects instead of the overall knowledge pile-up of the syllabuses. Just to draw it a little more poetical: give them wings and let them fly.
How strange it is, that somehow from the previous formula an electric car was born, then a hybrid sport car which is greener than a Prius and looks cooler than a Corvette. The members of the EVX (Electric Vehicle) Team achieved later on the X Prize named competition with a 10 million Dollars first prize also a nice result. Though they haven't won, their outstanding show brought them and their rumour till the White House as it can be seen on the enclosed video.
But what's the relation between the after-school program and the education – sets himself the question Mr Hauger, neither lagging with the answer. It's that, he says, and we believe him, that those who were participating in the projects so far, nowadays they are leading engineers, decision makers, spokemen, researchers and sooner not only that they hadn't neglected their studies, especially they had even performed better in the school. It's not about magic: the teamwork, the reliance coming from the grown-ups, the „important" issues (primarily the protection of our planet, the built of our common future) inspired the young people for a bigger responsibility and performance.
The conception is hardly so special that it couldn’t be put into action on „this side of the sea”, moreover, by all means there occur similar examples also in Hungary (Race of Alternatively Powered Vehicles). There is also the dual educational system gaining more and more bigger space to which great hopes are attached by it’s initiators. The question is that how capable is our really syllabus-orientated educational system to viably integrate such models. It would be great if such initiatives would also spread over here and we may live to see that the reliance put into the young people, and the creation, the build of the future based on the cooperation between the generations won’t count as curiosity.
